Відео

A gamer will pay you half what they pay their hair stylist / barber for a cut and then get confused why the game isn't completed, polished, and fully optimized after not reading the giant blue warning box above the "add to cart" button, in addition to thinking they are your owner for the next year. At least, this is what I gather from going through steam reviews and discussions.

I just don't review games if i don't like them, unless if the game is actually broken, i feel like it's not worth the time, as it's only going to result in a negative feedback loop, that results in nothing positive coming out of it.

Audio tip: Add a de-esser. It will soften of the sharp S:es. Except for that your audio is good. Subscribed (I got audio issues too.. so that’s that ;-) )

Wizard jizz? Now that's one wierd game.

Thank you for sharing your experience! I find it super interesting, especially your take on marketing VS emotional bandwidth, it's not something most people take into consideration when making games and exposing it to the masses. It sounds like you would have had a much nicer experience doing closed/private alpha tests of the game instead of an Early Access. Also putting out a demo of a somewhat polished section of the game would be great to build wishlists. Like you said, it's so easy to look at early access and think : "Quick way to get feedback and some money", without acknowledging all the extra work, expectations and emotional stress that comes with it. Good luck with your project!

Just ignore them. They are entitled to their opinion and there is no point treating it like ebay scores where you need to keep 100%

Thank you for this video. Well said and informative!

I've worked over a decade in retail positions, and one of the top skills I learned is to always be nice and offer a solution, even if they are wrong because I am an ambassador of my brand and word of mouth makes a big impact towards a brand's value.

Most bad reviews are made for a reason, maybe the price isn't competitive with similarly priced games, maybe the marketing was off, maybe you over-promised and under-delivered, maybe they can see some potential that you didn't capitalize on. Usually an open dialogue is the best policy, not 100% of the business-side details or asking for a pity party but just a "Hey we fell short on this one because of X constraint" Then you can either fix it, try again better later, or pivot to something new entirely and just learn from it. Some reviews aren't going to matter and some people aren't possible to please though. If someone bought your game and didn't like it, at some point responsibility has to be on them for buying games they might not like.

really interesting video

dont do it like Holyday studios thats for sure

I may have commented this on another video, but I'd love to hear you talk more about project management - what tools you use, how your thinking evolved, etc - I love the concept of missions you mentioned - defined destination, some implied scope, but no direct path. Great video all in all.

Six seconds in and the UA-cam subtitles refer to the game as 'Wizard Jess' and for some reason I found it far too amusing.

Excellent video. Looking forward to the next update!

good thoughts king

The exchange of money for a game is a value proposition.both sides expect to get something of value from the exchange.

This is an amzing video. Everything is spot on what happened to me. I have my own game on steam in early access for over a year now. Financially, it is very successful. However, all of that comes at a cost of emotional frustration, the negative reviews from impatient and ignorant people really do make you doubt your project and sometimes you start steering away from your vision just to try and please them.

Interesting video! Yeah, it's super tricky to find direction when your goals aren't clear. If you want to make the game you would want personally, then perhaps you can solve a part of your problem by more intentionally setting expectations? E.g., I think your Steam description sounds fun, but also fairly generic and similar to other games in the genre - I get absolutely no hint that this might be a bit more on the complex / experimental / unique side. (Not sure if these are the right terms to describe it.) Or maybe a short free demo makes sense? Regarding the onboarding experience, something interesting I heard recently: Tutorials should not only teach you the mechanics but also how to have fun in the game. I thought that was a great insight and since you mention that the fun is about figuring out the game itself, maybe you can nudge players into that direction at the beginning? Or, low tech variant: Again, set expectations by literally putting up a note at the beginning saying that figuring out how things work is part of the game? Finally, you might find the GDC talk by the developer of Cultist Simulator interesting.

Sounds like tutorial with an increasing difficulty random mode is a good approach to explaining complex game. And whenever you can tutorialize with text witout being overly wordy you should. Slay the Spire did this when they could (tooltip explains the related terms on the cards). I also like how the base game mode unlocks difficulty levels when beating the last one or even going beyond to stage 4. Also they have a daily challenge which doesn't allow randomisation unlike the other modes. I just clicked this randomly but if the game also uses actual chess mechanics don't shrink your audience by assuming everyone knows the rules already. I dont think there is any chess game with actually increasing complexity tutorial. Part of the reason I never liked chess is having to remember all the rules (it may seem simple to many but its boring tedium my brain hates)

As for the onboarding problem: I don't think providing a slick first experience conflicts with your design principles. When the game has enough depth, you can teach them only the basics to get started and let them figure out the rest for themselves, thereby providing guidance in the beginning, but still leaving room to explore.

At face value I think making an Arcade mode when the Main mode isn't finished is problematic especially if your then promoting it as the next step after the Tutorial, now if your trying to gauge the popularity and get feedback in an attempt to see if you should pivot that would be different.

I do like your mindset

your content is different and I have to say - I enjoyed it a lot. subbed :) when I'll have time I'll try WizardChess. Goodluck on your project!

i also think maximizing appeal means minimizing details

Don't remove the interesting bits and dumb it down, the goal should be to make the complications easier to understand and intuitive. Things like tooltips that explain what's going on. UX should be enabling game design, not the other way around. Easier said than done of course.

I wanna try wizard chess now

Always learning and trying new things! Figuring out monetization is so hard when you're planning to work with other people too. The earlier the better!

Love the authenticity of this! Definitely appreciate the struggle of making something commercial vs just making something unique, fun, and interesting

Love this :) games are a creative process and are art in their own right - it's hard to try and explore that in an environment where games are seen as very much a commercial Product™

Great stuff, rooting for you guys!

interesting, thanks for your openness

Don't put too much pressure on yourself, you're doing great 👍

Cool video! The music was very distracting, maybe you could choose something more chill and less stressful?

Game is looking good.

a game i love, beat blast, i bought when it was in early access i think it stayed about a year in early access before release, and the difference was a bit more polish ig i didnt mind it, there are def games that can pull it off, but not for everyone

I can relate to adding a mechanic, subconsciously avoiding it, and eventually puzzling out that's because it isn't fun for some reason. Any more tips or ideas how to identify things like this or red flags that something isn't working. I really wish I was better at identifying these issues on my own.

so there would e joker character in game?

Will you talk about working with a publisher?(2Lthumbs in your case)

Looks fun! I'll try playing your game as soon as I can :)

this is great, i was asking myself to use early access for my game...

Would be interested in seeing the tools to make and manage the game.

It's always interesting to see any tweak cascade down around all the other mechanics! Great work as always :)

The issue I have is I hate removing mechanics that I spent alot of time on, but I know sometimes its for the better of the game.

If it's fully playable then yes, because if not, people will judge it very poorly and spam with negative reviews. People don't know what EA is or Alpha/Beta state of a game... They assume it's working properly even though you stated it's in Early Access, they don't care.

I think steam should stop accepting applicants to the early access program for 3-5 years. The amount of developers/companies that have taken advantage of being "early access" has demolished the meaning of the phrase and has cultivated an unhealthy expectation of what "early access" really means. A great example of this is fortnite, which was generating multiple billions of dollars in mirco transactions while still having an "early access" tag on it. Obviously not every instance of misuse is as large as fortnite, but there are countless other games that use the term "early access" as a criticism shield.

The game, "Rust" is a good example of a good early access game. I paid 20 bucks and I made a good investment

Tell me about it! I've been working on Computer Tycoon since 2017... :)) Nice vid, good luck for your project!

Early access isn't necessarily a 'scam'. It's more how too many developers completely overpromise their game concepts (or overpromise the influence a supporter has on development), without having build that game yet. In most cases all early access games can only disappoint. It's not about it being work in progress or broken games at all. And there's a real problem with _why_ devs choose to go the early access route. Usually it is not about trying to find funding for a game that otherwise wouldn't have been made. More often it is about cashing in on the idea of a great game, before it was ever made. That's the real problem. @1:40 Actually no. There are like full text blocks warning people the game is not finished and won't ever be finished or might stay as it is now. Warnings are there. Not saying early access is a good business model, but we should have a bit more trust in people their reading skills. Problem is how most early access games really are made by beginner devs with little experience to their name. Overpromising then and not hitting the mark, means people will get frustrated. @4:40 No, no such thing as a 'double' boost. If the first appearance on Steam doesn't generate views and sales, it'll be hard to get any kind of boost at launch. The only thing is that often there are years in between these two events. It's often more like a 'big update' in terms of visibility on Steam. I'm pretty sure most early access games now have pretty terrible launch day sales, with only a handful of exceptions.

Relatable. Hope your release goes well!

Players are not here to test or develop your game for you. You didn't look for volunteering testers, you tried to sell your unfinished product. You also take same price as Undertale for example for it. Now, time aside as it's up to you how long you want to develop or how much time you spend on your game. Frankly speaking, saying stuff like "I have other hobbies outside gamedev" is like saying "I don't put as much effort as I could, I prioritize other stuff too". Sure, you can do this but again, you direct it to people who are waiting for 3 years or so for your game, who also dedicated their free time to test it, pay for it, write feedback. It's kinda lack of respect or understanding how other people perceive their own time or how much they care about game you are making. It's not like you can't do it, just speaking about it while defending long development time is not a wise move. Lastly, criticism. You can't show off your product/art and expect to only receive praises. People have same right to negative critique as they do to say how great and creative your idea is. If you put yourself out, you can't pick what opinions you will receive. You are volunteering to put yourself in vulnerable position, it's on you to be thick skinned, learn how to ignore noise (hateful opinions without any useful info/feedback with it) and improve/learn from meaningful comments. Again, understand that people CARE enough to leave a feedback. Good or bad. They care. They use their free time to share their opinions, experiences with you. You are receiving their time basically, earning it. It's always a good thing, even if perception might trick you into thinking that negativity is bad. I learned mostly from mistakes and difficulties. Even reading negative comments on Steam gave me insane amount of understanding how players think, what they hate the most, what's most important. Learn to listen and improve with their help.