Completition and 64DCG Stuff

Posted by Castypher on July 29, 2013, 4:10 p.m.

Hello all. I'm glad to have set aside the past two weeks to dedicate to playtesting and feedback. Some of the results were very good and I can see a few people felt genuinely grateful for the advice and can now zero in on their issues and finish their games. However, not everyone has received very much feedback, or given their share. I'll be keeping a close eye on this so please continue giving feedback as necessary.

I myself have only received detailed feedback from two people and while I'm aware TTR is a daunting game in many regards (and also the longest of the bunch), I'd like a little advice here and there, if you would.

Honorable mentions go out to hel, Cosine, and Polystyrene Man, who, after playing all of the entries, seem to have the most complete games. Additional mentions go out to those who dared to play and review all of the games, especially Cesque who somehow manages to find bugs in everything.

Completition

Just in case you weren't working on your games during the feedback period (I wasn't), the development part of the Completition resumes today. I hope that you'll all finish critical items brought up in feedback as well as focusing on debugging and polishing, though I know many of us are struggling to continue the level design, which is equally important. Just don't lose sight of the important things. It's better to have a short, well-polished game than a long, very buggy one (I'm looking at you, TTR).

The official deadline is still being decided as IUP has another bundle being sold at around the same date. However, I have confirmed an extension of as much as three weeks past the original deadline of August 12th.

I didn't want the Completition to last this long initially, but I am very happy with these results and I really hope that the extra time will help you out.

As usual, I'm available for any questions.

64DCG

Last week, I released a signup sheet for 64DCG characters. You're still free to add to this list (and I've made some extra columns for you to look at). There are also two additional sheets for minions and cameo characters, which you're free to add entries to as well.

Please remember that while I will make every effort to include your characters as you want them, I will be making modifications as needed to suit the story.

Cyrus, Seleney, and myself have all been trying to decide on a plot and how the characters fit in. I think we've come to an agreement, and Cyrus is handling all the animation work while I'm focusing on the engine and story consistency. Things are going well but remember that I'm not actually going to switch my focus to 64DCG until the Completition is over, but that won't stop me from working on it a little.

If you have any questions, comments, or preferences on the 64DCG, you are free to message me, Cyrus, Mega, or Seleney as the people primarily involved in development. I hope to post some devlogs in it soon.

Comments

Polystyrene Man 11 years, 3 months ago

Quote:
I myself have only received detailed feedback from two people and while I'm aware TTR is a daunting game in many regards (and also the longest of the bunch), I'd like a little advice here and there, if you would.
I will play & review your game if you send me the gmk. Understandable if you don't want to be throwing your source around but unfortunately I can't play it otherwise.

Pirate-rob 11 years, 3 months ago

Hehe, sorry, kinda been avoiding TTR for it's, uh, longness, however I will definitely give it another go! Though I probably won't finish it…

colseed 11 years, 3 months ago

I've been procrastinating continuing playing TTR on account of that desert part having no save point right after the first poison cloud. Also no fullscreen kind of makes my eyes hurt after a while.

The possibility of a 3-week extension is pretty cool though - would've thought the most time we'd get would be a week, heh.

Pirate-rob 11 years, 3 months ago

Wait a second…

So we have roughly till the 2nd of September?

Also, will there be weekly progress checks? I don't know about other, but I found those very motivational.

Castypher 11 years, 3 months ago

Thanks Polyman. I trust you well enough, so after I make a couple changes, I'll go ahead and throw the source your way.

Quote:
on account of that desert part having no save point right after the first poison cloud
That part's annoying, yeah, but it's not nearly as bad as the forest puzzle, which, ironically, was intended to be done first (even though the story encourages you to do the Badlands first *coughaaaAAAAACK*)

Quote:
Also no fullscreen kind of makes my eyes hurt after a while.
Due to a complaint from Cesque, I reuploaded a version with the fullscreen option about two weeks ago. He made a good point about how playing mouse-based games in a window is extremely frustrating and suddenly I was enlightened to the secrets of the world.

Quote:
So we have roughly till the 2nd of September?
We're still going over that and I should have a final answer soon, but it'll probably fall somewhere in the first half of September. However, this extension does account for the cover art and trailer, so while in the end your games are the highest priority, please don't neglect these two major points. I'm sure that the videos can be overlooked for those who aren't into video editing, but I do expect a cover that has a little more work put into it than a preview screenshot.

Quote:
Also, will there be weekly progress checks? I don't know about other, but I found those very motivational.
I'm still debating on that. A lot of people found those to be more stressful than helpful, but that was probably because I made them seem a lot more mandatory than they really were.

Cesque 11 years, 3 months ago

Quote:
Additional mentions go out to those who dared to play and review all of the games, especially Cesque who somehow manages to find bugs in everything.

Quote:
We're still going over that and I should have a final answer soon, but it'll probably fall somewhere in the first half of September. However, this extension does account for the cover art and trailer, so while in the end your games are the highest priority, please don't neglect these two major points.

Ohhh crap, completely forgot about those.

So… we still have one full month to finish the game? This actually looks quite promising… *procrastinates*

Castypher 11 years, 3 months ago

Somehow, Cesque, I can imagine your trailer just being a compilation of funny moments and bugs you found, accompanied by appropriate music. Then again, it would probably encourage players to try and find those bugs.

Pirate-rob 11 years, 3 months ago

Ooh, two questions regarding the bundle:

1. Is the bundle persistent or does it go away after a certain amount of time?

2. Are the profits split between devs or are they going to charity?

Taizen Chisou 11 years, 3 months ago

Dude, I'm still working on my game. It's just that I've made negative progress since the completition started :V

Castypher 11 years, 3 months ago

So here's what I've solidified with IndieBundle. Please read these very carefully.

The new deadline is September 1st, and the bundle will be launched on September 6th. Your games should be complete by this time and there will be no further extensions. In order to participate in the bundle, you need video footage and some sort of logo or image to represent the game. Games that do not meet these requirements or the quality standards set by IndieBundle may not be included in the bundle. These are the terms you all agreed to by signing up to be in the bundle.

All games are DRM-free.

The bundle will run for two weeks with charity support and "pay what you want" pricing. It's unlikely developers will make any money off of this as the profit per developer would be very low and not worth the trouble. When the Completition began, you all agreed that this was for publicity over profit, and I'm very happy we could get this much out of it.

Whether the bundle will be available after the event is still being discussed, but we've agreed that within a month after the sale ends, everyone is free to do whatever they want with their games. There is no exclusivity, and you're not signing any contracts. It's just highly requested that you keep everything off of the (at least the public) internet until the sale ends.

If you don't wish to be in the bundle, you must send me a PM saying so, so I can remove all restrictions on your game.

Does everything make sense? It's going to be a little strict but I honestly believe everyone here can finish their games and achieve a good level of polish. This event has been surprisingly successful and I'm happy everyone participated.