The damage dealers may get the accolades, but the true unsung heroes of class-based games are the support champions and their designers. -- Jorge Albor

clashfan · 2012-05-26T00:39:50.629387+00:00

That's a great example.

I've even had times when I wasn't sure I was actually doing anything as a support person. But then sometimes an accident would happen and things would fall apart and it made it a little more obvious.

Graizur · 2012-05-25T23:13:13.086896+00:00

No other series quite captures the same feeling that Myst does. It's a blend of puzzle and story that none have quite matched. To be honest, I'm not sure many have tried. Most are content to make a standard point-n-click adventure, which isn't really the same thing.

I really wish someone else would give a good go at it.

WilsonHanks · 2012-05-25T20:38:53.564635+00:00

It's unpopular, but I agree with some of those. Portal, Fallout especially.

le_dom · 2012-05-25T18:36:07.940738+00:00

This post has made me resolve to complete a game next time, no matter how bad it is, and then play and blog about other games that were made. (I know I could play and blog anyhow, but somehow it feels hollow unless I've participated. Plus, I can't actually vote that way.)

I failed this time. I thought I knew my tools well enough, but I didn't, and I ended up failing at all my ideas. That's okay, though. It was a good first try, just to find out where I was.

yusiye · 2012-05-25T18:08:47.113527+00:00

This is how I got both of mine, and have seen others ask, but didn't respond.

In general, helping people by correcting their stuff is a great way to meet them, and if they have Skype listed, they'll almost certainly welcome your inquiry. If they don't, but you do, they might ask.

JamieJamiereeno · 2012-05-25T18:07:11.151243+00:00

I'm pretty sure the splash screen is every time. But that's not really a problem. All games have those, annoying as they are.

And no, I don't think you'll be able to make the same performance increases on your own, whatever they are. (I don't know much about what pro is supposed to do for mobile, though.)

I say go ahead and go for it, and if the profit is there, get Pro and the re-release it optimized and splash-free.

clashfan · 2012-05-25T15:52:20.960964+00:00

It does kind of sound like that, but doesn't seem to have a real target? Weird.

At any rate, trying to convince people that support characters are important is pointless. They won't realize it until they see what happens with a bad one vs a good one.

I love playing a healer. It's a pretty thankless job, but I just get something out of keeping everyone else alive to do the damage. I'm still kind of upset that GW2 basically killed off the healer class. Not that it isn't a fun game still, but I miss that part.

jerivix · 2012-05-25T15:48:22.712501+00:00

Oh noes! Whatever shall we do if we can't get timely updates about Bethsoft's new games!?

I wonder why Anon put them on in the first place? I don't recall Bethsoft doing anything anti-consumer recently... Or ever?

leachianus · 2012-05-25T15:45:46.504325+00:00

I have to say, the feeling from this is perfect, but the actual image... I dunno. Something about the shape of his face (and hair?) bothers me.

I think I'm comparing him to how he looked in 1 & 2. Later, they changed him considerably and he looks more like your image. That's probably why it bothers me.

Still, good job!

ReFrame · 2012-05-25T12:17:27.487864+00:00

That seems like a decent goal. You need to make some decisions first, and the answers will depend on what your real goals are.

First, decide if you want to make a game, or make an engine. If you want to make a game, use a framework. Someone suggested Unity already, and I'm going to recommend the same. If you want to make an engine, give up on having a working game at the end of summer. You'll have something to play with, but it won't be a 'game'.

Second, decide if you want to figure out things yourself, or rely on the work of others. Again, if you do it yourself, you won't have a game by the end of summer. But if you rely on the work others have done, you can Google for maze making algorithms and implementations and get a lot further.

Third, decide whether or not it has to be pretty. If it does, give up on having a game by the end of summer. You'll have something to play with, but it won't be a game. It could be pretty, though. If it doesn't have to be pretty, make do with ugly blocks.

Finally, decide how much of a game you really want. Are you satisfied with it just starting you in a maze, and then doing nothing at the end? Do you want menus, win/lose conditions, ability to start over, start a new maze, etc etc? Scores and personalization? All of this goes into a making a 'game', and shouldn't be underestimated.

There's a 90/10 rule in development. 90% of your time will be spent on 10% of the project. That'll make a lot more sense once you've finished a few projects, but just keep in mind that it can seem like the last bits take a lot longer than they should.

Now, I said several times that you should give up on having a game if you demand certain things. However, if you ignore them at first, and come back to them after you have a 'game', you may have time to add them after all. I recommend leaving them until last, even in you think you have time or that they are necessary.

le_dom · 2012-05-25T12:08:59.955126+00:00

That's pretty impressive. Just downloading them all would take more time than I'm willing to put in. lol

Whitebushido · 2012-05-25T11:21:23.272126+00:00

I'd believe this if more developers removed DRM after the first month. They don't, though. They keep it up, even if it costs them money to run servers for activations.

It's not about day one. It's about the lifetime of the product. Which is silly, since it doesn't work.

delacct · 2012-05-25T11:10:26.370970+00:00

I think every dev needs to keep that idea in mind individually, but as a collective, there's absolutely nothing wrong with what they're doing.

I think everyone involved knows that Botanicula made a big mistake. They should have done one or the other. (I think they should have just sold it, since they're an established indie dev now. They can always do the bundle later.)

Tarsupin · 1 day

I'm going to assume there will be lots of bacon, narwhals and cats.

khell · 1 day

That cracked article describes it quite well.

khell · 1 day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFu5O-oPmU

It's worth watching.

Wetzilla · 1 day

Since they paid for it, yes. I don't see how it's a problem.

MrCollinPrice · 1 day

Thanks!

lot49a · 1 day

Kickstarter's front page is for potential backers. Why would a potential backer want to see a campaign that failed to get funded? That makes no sense.

In fact, is that data really useful to anyone? It's not like it's a lottery, and putting up your campaign means you have a % chance to win. You 'win' if your project is liked by enough backers. That's it. It doesn't matter how many other people succeeded or failed.

Vexal · 1 day

The only issue that comes to mind is how it's requesting the state for rendering.

Is it just using the data directly, or is it making a copy of it? If it's making a copy of it, your garbage collection must be going nuts?

IplayCoDandBF · 1 day

God bless Indie Fund. I hope it continues to help more amazing games come to market.

neotsunami · 1 day

I think you'll find that if you read words enough with furigana, you'll start to recognize them without anyhow. Not as quickly as if you just studied them and memorized them, but eventually. But then, studying was always faster. But more boring.

Personally, I read for fun, but I also study vocab each week. I'll eventually see the vocab while reading and it'll really stick, then.

mcgerkins · 1 day

None of that. What bugs me are the skinner box mechanics. They replace actual entertainment by driving our base needs without actually giving us anything. At the end, when they finally quit, people don't say, "Wow, I had a great experience." They say, "What the fuck was I thinking?"

With WoW, on the other hand, people end up talking about the raids they did with their guild, or Leroy Jenkins, or numerous other things that are memories they'll treasure for some time.

Not that WoW is completely clean. RPGs in general have lightly exploited skinner box mechanics for many years. I don't think they did it on purpose, and so I'm not upset with them. But social games do it on purpose and reap direct financial benefit from it.

I've played social games, and even spent more money on one than I should have, knowing full-well what I was doing. (It was actually one that I feel wasn't as exploitative as most.) I no longer play them at all, now that I realized exactly how they exploit people. (Partly because this makes the exploit not work as well, and I really don't get anything from it now.)

Seelenkuchen · 1 day

The point was that the kickstarter was for an oldschool P&C adventure, and DF said they couldn't get that funded.

Then along comes with game, which seems a lot like that, especially with the inventory.

Daddyuhuh is saying that it doesn't look like and oldschool P&C A, so that's how it got picked up by Sega.

In the end, Sega is publishing it, but that doesn't mean they're bankrolling it. And we don't know when Sega picked it up, do we? Maybe it was after the Kickstarter boom.

delacct · 1 day

I understand the 'race to the bottom' argument, and it's bunk.

Guess what happens 2 months after AAA games release? yeah, it's usually discounted. Sometimes as much as 50%. There's an entire subreddit dedicated to the idea that you can just wait for a discount and don't have to play it as soon as it comes out. (/r/patientgamers)

And have you seen the bundles recently? Most of them are the same games as previous bundles, and quite a few have games that are total crap. Priced as 'what you want to pay' is probably the only way to sell large quantities of them.

As an indie developer, you can charge whatever you want. You don't need to participate in the 'race to the bottom'. People will pay for something if they think it's worth it.

For example, Botanicula. They sold pre-orders for $10, and then did a Humble Bundle the day of launch. Many who had pre-ordered were angry and demanded their money back so they could go spend less on the bundle. Obviously, they felt it was worth $10, but then turned around and paid less than that.

What this tells me is that people know what it's worth, but are paying less because they can. If they hadn't participated in the bundle, people who wanted it would just have paid $10.

There's no 'race to the bottom'. It's an illusion that they're letting get the better of them. They should just price their games appropriately.

Edit: I think your downvotes are undeserved. You explained their thinking. Just because it's unpopular doesn't mean you should be downvoted for it.

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