Hey jamogames,

I think you've got a good trailer there. The game footage was pretty easy to interpret, and looked both well-produced and engaging. Lots of level variety. Calling out the cross-platform bit about the user-created levels was a big win too.

If there was one thing I'd critique, it'd be length.

On the first view, the first 17 seconds seemed a bit too long for non-gameplay footage.
Watching it a second time, I see what you were trying to do (I think): introduce the characters. The "Free holiday...suckers" bit is where I really started being engaged, though. Perhaps that 17-second assembly line portion could be dropped to maybe 5 seconds? Fast-forward the time spent slowly panning between the characters, and linger on each one for a second?
   
The other stand-out portion that seemed a bit long was the cross-platform call-out. It's great that you mention it: big selling point. But then we watch the hovering platform/phones for nearly 20 seconds. As with the character intro above, maybe this can be cut down to a handful of seconds, and use quicker movements to animate each platform into place? Get them on-screen fast, one by one, and hold them there a few seconds.

You might need platform logos/names near each if you go faster, though. I dunno what the recognition speed is for folks looking at iPhone vs. Android handsets.

Watching it again, you could probably double-time or even triple-time the create-your-own level bit too. Folks won't need to see it in real time to understand that the level is being made. Rapid-speed going from empty grid to full puzzle would actually drive the point home better than seeing the level built slowly and never finished.

Again, you do all the right things, in my opinion. The game looks professional, accessible, and appears to have depth. I'm not a huge puzzle gamer, but I already get the impression it's above most offerings in the category.
   
The trailer just lingers a bit too long on some parts

Hope this helps, and best of luck with your upcoming launch!

Awesome. Your reactions are better than I hoped for, thanks!

And the "N ways to die" to Benny Hill just might have to be one in the series. I didn't realize the Benny Hill theme was Yakety Sax. One more mystery solved!

Thanks Gabriel! Nice to be here!

Also, judging by your blog, looks like we have similar taste in pixel art

That's great! Sounds like an endorsement of the trailer to me

The the mouseover icons on the hex map suggestion is a good one. I'll add that to my list. Thanks, and hope you're enjoying your foray into turn-based hex land!

Cool, glad to hear it! I guess that's one vote for keeping it as-is

And yeah, down with Lloyd Blankcheck!

Hi All,

First off, forgive me if this is the wrong thread for trailer feedback. I saw the Guidelines sticky that said trailers should go in "Workshop," but I did not see "Workshop" anywhere.

While NEO Scavenger's already been in public demo/closed beta for months now, it's finally starting to take shape. I'm gearing up for a round of PR, and part of that is a gameplay trailer.

If you have a minute-thirty or so, I'd love to hear what you think of the trailer I've got:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2K3mihtzrA

I've shown it around to a few folks already, though they're mostly people who already played the game. I was hoping for some unbiased feedback from fresh eyes.

In particular:

• Does the trailer entice you to learn more about the game?
• Do you understand what's going on?
• Are you a fan of games like Fallout 1, Nethack, or STALKER?
• Do you feel at all insulted by the use of "stupid" in the first sentence?

Thanks for taking the time to read and watch, and I look forward to your comments!

Hey All,

My name's Daniel Fedor, and I founded Blue Bottle Games in January 2012. I look something like this:



I worked at BioWare from 2004-2011 as a lead technical artist on DA (and a bit on DA2), and later, as an associate producer on ME3. In April 2011, I decided to take the indie plunge, and turned in my resignation. I started a blog about the experience called Game Dev Gone Rogue.

My big thing right now is my first game, NEO Scavenger. It's a turn-based, isometric survival RPG set in a post apocalyptic, future Earth. It's pretty hardcore, with a lot of focus on the details, such as inventory management, metabolic maintenance, strategic movement/combat, and has some choose your own adventure thrown in. Think Fallout 1 or STALKER meets Nethack.



I've been a long time lurker, with only a few posts to my name. But I dig the community, and think it's a great resource for indies just starting out like me.

Thanks for reading, and great to meet you all!

@mikejkelley - I recently setup my .com using internetbs.net. I did quite a bit of shopping around and review scouring before I chose them. They had a reasonable price (not the lowest, but much lower than many), good features (like free private WHOIS), and folks seemed to have good things to say about them in the past few years.

I can't speak to their longevity yet (only signed up a week or so ago), but fwiw, been pleased so far.

Others I looked up:
godaddy.com
1and1.ca
enomcentral.com
namecheap.com
name.com
dynadot.com

For best results, I found searching for a handful of the above names together turned up pretty good forum threads and reviews.

I'm sure like many people here I grew up with games as a constant part of my life (the NES came out right before I went to kindergarten) and I grew up with stars in my eyes thinking about writing games for a living.

Always remember that feeling. That thing that made you want to become a game craftsperson. I keep a black portfolio alongside my desk that contains some crudely drawn video game designs a friend and I made when we were 11 years old. Looking at it reminds me of those days of optimism and magic. And I think those feelings are some of the most powerful tools in our toolboxes. They power us to make great things, and guide us to do what's right.

Sorry, didn't mean to derail. These are all good points. That comment just resonated with me.

For those interested, I've compiled a follow-up report on the survey. It talks about some of the more significant findings, as well as recommendations for improving working conditions for studio employees:

http://gamedevgonerogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/indie-developer-survey-results.html

Of course, the findings are only my own interpretations, and readers are welcome to make their own hypotheses based on the freely available raw data:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewanalytics?formkey=dC0wSzVuM0VHR0lleGxMYWdqRXRrSVE6MQ

Thanks again for the input!

Part-time indies are definitely a category I missed, so yeah, you're right. I was thinking I had part-timers covered when I did up the employment options, but the way it's worded seems to exclude them. Sorry about that!

Yeah, in retrospect, I didn't adequately provide for part-time indie developers. My bad. There are some "Other" responses in there that I missed as well.

I'm thinking this may be a survey worth re-issuing periodically to compare data across time. I'll have to look into how best to include these new fields such that the data comparison isn't difficult in the next iteration.

Thanks for the tip!

Yeah, that employee/employer ownership of side projects was definitely an area in debate where I came from. I most employers want employees to feel at home and free to hone their skills in their spare time. But they have a sticky situation with conflict of interest, and ensuring they don't set a dangerous legal precedent. There's not an easy solution, really.

Still, there are some studios (e.g. Double Fine) who are trying novel approaches, and I'm hoping they'll show the world that it's possible.

Also, I find it interesting that so far, those from outside the games industry cite "needing others to help" as a major concern for going indie more often than those within the industry. Does this point to outsiders having less confidence? More complicated ideas for games? Or maybe less game dev friends they think they can turn to?

The survey results are probably too sparse to tell just yet, but there are definitely some trends forming.

Hey all! I was about to start a new topic related to this, but it turns out Shackhal beat me to the punch!

That arstechnica article got me thinking as well, and I wanted to know more about what motivations were driving devs to go indie (as well as what was holding them back). So I created a survey to help gather some statistics. You can see the survey here:

http://gamedevgonerogue.blogspot.com/2011/08/motivations-for-becoming-indie-game.html

I've also shared the results, so people can follow along in real-time:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewanalytics?formkey=dC0wSzVuM0VHR0lleGxMYWdqRXRrSVE6MQ

Do give it a look. And pass the word on, if you know of any indies out there who might have missed it!