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[codergames]

Hello,

I would like to introduce my first game as an indie:

http://www.codergames.com/games/windows/#InvaderAttack

Cheers!

[GaiaDreamCreation]

I watched your video on your page.  Your game looks cool.  I wanted to look at the screenshots, however clicking the pictures only generates an error on the status bar.  Just when loading the page, I got "Error on page."  I'm using Internet Explorer 8.

[Melly]

As you didn't bother to read the rules to know that you should have posted your game in Announcements and certainly doesn't seem interested in being part of the community, I won't move this thread so much as lock it.

Rules: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=155.0

[codergames]

People hello!

This is not a spam, I posted couple of days ago info about my first game in a wrong section. It was my first time here and a first mistake of many 

I'm a new indie game developer working on my second game, very busy. And now after saying all of this, the post is somewhere in the "Indie Games" section 

Its true, I wanted to spread the word about it on many different forums, so I was visiting all indie related forums opening account and posting info about my first game. There you go, I couldn't be more truthful.

Keep up the good work guys!

[jay]

well, now you've seen the error of your ways, why not post some more? Y'know, before you start pushing your game all over again. Nobody's that busy that they can't offer a couple of helpful replies to their fellow devs.

[codergames]

Of course not! So do you like my game? Ouch ... there I go again  ... No, scratch that ... what's up fellow devs!?

Like your forum very much, great design, the main site too ... Wow, I already dream about being on the front page and all 

[codergames]

Since I'm new in the whole independent game development entertainment, I can't give any advices to anyone (trying to be funny .. its not working), but I was hoping to hear something from you. Lets put my game aside (for a moment), here's what I did with zero investment:

1. internal SEO of my site
2. created PAD file
3. manually submitted that PAD file too PAD rings and all popular shareware and download sites
4. posted couple of articles, manually
5. posted on couple of blogs, again manually

And its giving results, that's the reason why I'm working on the second game. Its not giving as if it was backed up with professional marketing and publishing campaigns, but still, its good enough for me as I work alone with a zero budget.

[codergames]

Just to add that I did my own protection I'm proud of. And its working since, you know who (the parrots), post my game 'as is', so they kinda help in distributing my game 

[codergames]

I made a few bad jokes and now everyone's ignoring me

[codergames]

So, what do you guys think about my game? Has anyone from this forum played it yet? I'd really love to hear from you guys, I'm new and the most of you are already in a business for a long time.

[Jonathan Whiting]

Right, apologies in advance, but it's time for some tough love..

I can completely understand what it feels like to be proud of something, and yet have it ignored.  Most of us spend most of the time a little desperate for more recognition than we actually get.

Friend, you are not doing yourself any favors.

There are a lot of games out there, really loads and loads.  If you want to be noticed it's not nearly enough to just make a game, sign up to a few forums and make one or two short bland inconsiderate posts; "play my game plez!".  Trying a game takes investment, of time, of patience, sometimes of money.  To convince people to invest you need to "sell" the idea to them.

Write a little more about your game.  Embed some screenshots so lazy people (all people) don't need to go elsewhere to guess what it'll be like.  Make it clear why your game is interesting, why they should care what you are offering that they can't get anywhere else.

Looking at your site your game, looks, well, mediocre at best I'm afraid.  The graphics have the tired shiny metal 3d feel that would have looked pretty hip on an amiga, but is rather old now.  There's nothing to indicate that the gameplay will be anything but a boring derivative top-down shooter.  This might all be horribly unfair, but because you've not 'sold' it to me sufficiently, I've not even played it.  I'd not have even bothered writing this if it wasn't for an strange civic duty tic that I suffer occasionally.

Ultimately if you're feeling a little "lost in the noise" it's probably because you haven't done enough (or even anything) to stand out.

[Danmark]

Even more dickish than Jonathan's reply- sorry.

Found it fun enough to play through the demo, though I have zero desire to see more. No way I'd throw down money for this.

Sound contradictory? AFAIK Invader Attack is fairly unique; it has a few mechanics I've never seen in a single-screen shooter before. But that's one of the most ancient genres of electronic game- one that's been done to death, reanimated, and done to death again, a thousand times over. No matter how inventive you were, your game would still play alot like a billion others.

Of course there's nothing wrong with humping an old genre, except in this case it's a fundamentally simple one. The demo felt insubstantial for this reason. Commercially, I have reason to believe the market is already saturated with "single screen shoot em up, classic and casual game[ s ]".

Assuming you've experienced a good chunk of the medium, I suspect your decision to make a single-screen shooter in the first place was motivated by some kind of fetishism. That, or you thought it was the most risk-averse way to start out commercially. In any case I think it was a bad decision.

I'd like to see (& maybe purchase) what you come up with when you don't shoot yourself in the foot at the outset.

[Snakey]

Your website
You need to segregate website a little more in my opinion. In the Home page, you've got an introduction to yourself, a news posting, ads of some sort at the bottom and whole bunch of irrelevant links on the right hand side. Also no one cares that your website is W3C compliant.

Marketing strategy
People do not usually equate cheap with quality. By stating that you have cheap games suggests that you have poor quality games. How do you know your games are casual? Looking at what you have there, they could be considered any but casual. But then again, people have differing opinions about it anyways.

All games will be cheap, but the price will be high enough to ensure continuous development.

Yay, but no one cares. People already assume you'd be selling games for a profit anyways. Who would sell games to lose money?

Casual games, Windows XP games, Vista games, Window 7 (Win7), x64 bit compatible games, PC computer games, downloadable games, will appear.

In short, you make games for Windows PC. There really isn't a need to state this.

All the games will check if there is a new version available during loading, it might be necessary for you to allow the operation explicitly if you have a firewall installed, or to check manually from time to time.

If you are targeting everyone (which is my definition of no one), you are asking them about something about firewalls. Most people don't even know what a firewall is or what it does. People also won't read this, and I hope your game will also reflect this (aka, it comes up with a message that it could not connect to the update site or something).

You really don't provide much information about your games. All you have is a small blurb with a title graphic. Some games have an entire site dedicated to them! It doesn't really sell the game, or why people should care about it. The simplicity is appreciated by some, but you don't do yourself any favors since people can play this for free on NewGrounds or  similar sites.

What's up with pimping all the awards? No one cares and it just makes your site feel amateurish and irrelevant. (http://www.codergames.com/games/gamedetails/windows-game-shooter-invader-attack/)

Invader Attack
Bug within 1 minute: I found a bug with the game in 1 minute of playing this game. The game starts in Windowed mode and it appears if you deselect the window, garbage appears on the window (i.e, I had FireFox selected instead of the game). Clicking on the game window doesn't fix the issue until you click on the game window client itself. However, it's possible to do stuff within the garbled screen. Doesn't set off good impressions sorry.

No loading screen. All I get is a white box, with random letters that flash backwards and forwards.

I hate your player name screen. I'm on a freakin' Windows PC. What the hell can't I just use my keyboard to set my name? Why do I have to use the mouse to do this?

Your game doesn't work on my machine. All I see is a white screen, with some blue bullets coming down and orange particle effects.

Machine specs are:
Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 3
Intel Pentium M with 512mb of RAM
Mobility Radeon 9000 (it supports OpenGL as my own OpenGL games run on it)

So while I'd like to provide you more feedback with your game, it doesn't even work at this stage.

[codergames]

Wow guys, that was brutal to say the least ... I loooved it all the way! 

Casual games, Windows XP games, Vista games, Window 7 (Win7), x64 bit compatible games, PC computer games, downloadable games, will appear.

In short, you make games for Windows PC. There really isn't a need to state this.

I strongly disagree, because search engines index the content not the meaning, its always better to be more descriptive

If you are targeting everyone (which is my definition of no one), you are asking them about something about firewalls. Most people don't even know what a firewall is or what it does. People also won't read this, and I hope your game will also reflect this (aka, it comes up with a message that it could not connect to the update site or something).

You're underestimating people, that statement was written after couple of them contacted my support section. Some of them even used an actual word "firewall".

You really don't provide much information about your games. All you have is a small blurb with a title graphic. Some games have an entire site dedicated to them!

There are screenshots, videos and even a trailer. Not sure how you missed all of those 

What's up with pimping all the awards? No one cares and it just makes your site feel amateurish and irrelevant. (http://www.codergames.com/games/gamedetails/windows-game-shooter-invader-attack/)

Well, my game got those rewards after editors of those sites tested my game on various their platforms. Some of the awards are only compatibility awards, others are game-play awards and editor's choice.

Bug within 1 minute: I found a bug with the game in 1 minute of playing this game. The game starts in Windowed mode and it appears if you deselect the window, garbage appears on the window (i.e, I had FireFox selected instead of the game). Clicking on the game window doesn't fix the issue until you click on the game window client itself. However, it's possible to do stuff within the garbled screen. Doesn't set off good impressions sorry.

Sorry to hear that, please update to the latest 1.1.4 version. Let me just repeat once again that my game was tested on various platforms and configurations on many different sites.

@Que & Jonathan Whiting ... guys, you're right about everything. Its intended for casual player, old-school like myself, I grew up playing Phoenix, Galaxian, Space Invaders, etc. Its sort of a respectable homage. A lot of effort has been put into it, mainly because I was making an engine from scratch. But things are going much faster now, Galaxide, my second game's already on the way and 50% completed.

If you're not casual players, you like blood and violence, it makes you excited or something, Galaxide will definitely ... not be for you.

Thanks and I love honest criticism, it motivates me to work harder!

[Snakey]

I strongly disagree, because search engines index the content not the meaning, its always better to be more descriptive

SEO's may need to see it, but people don't. Basically, it takes you forever to say "I support Windows". There are other better ways to do SEO than this (given that 99% of porn sites and squatter sites do exactly what you do anyways... it doesn't help your cause to appear better than them).

You're underestimating people, that statement was written after couple of them contacted my support section. Some of them even used an actual word "firewall".

Then you need to ask yourself; "Why did they contact me?". The obvious answer is that something went wrong. But the answer behind that was that they weren't told why something had gone wrong. Putting a little note on your game page isn't going to curb that where as putting it in the game itself would probably be more effective (I can't tell given that I can't play the game at the moment).

There are screenshots, videos and even a trailer. Not sure how you missed all of those

Because, you aren't asking yourself "Why did he miss that?". You know your site better than anyone else. But that extra information was put into another page.   I'm a pretty lazy person, but in this case I did actually spend some time providing you some feedback. Why not replace the image you have on the Games page with a FLV which when clicked will playback a trailer? Maybe it was the flow of the website page?

Well, my game got those rewards after editors of those sites tested my game on various their platforms. Some of the awards are only compatibility awards, others are game-play awards and editor's choice.

Yes, but who cares?

Sorry to hear that, please update to the latest 1.1.4 version. Let me just repeat once again that my game was tested on various platforms and configurations on many different sites.

Well, I downloaded the demo today. If the demo isn't the updated version, perhaps update that now? I'm looking into your directory of files, but I can't find a version number? So either the problem still exists in 1.1.4 or the demo is outdated.

[Perrin]

I didn't want to chip in to the this because I only really had negativity, but since you seemed to take it well form the others I changed my mind.

I strongly disagree, because search engines index the content not the meaning, its always better to be more descriptive

You really think people who buy shareware games are sat typing "windows vista game" into google? Also I don't think you understand how search engines work, this is not 1995 where filling your page with text will get you higher rankings for that content.

Being overly wordy instead of focusing on your selling points is just confusing to potential players and customers.

You're underestimating people, that statement was written after couple of them contacted my support section. Some of them even used an actual word "firewall".

Then have a support section with that information, confusing new visitors with an information overload when they're still trying to decide to play your game or not is a bad idea.

There are screenshots, videos and even a trailer. Not sure how you missed all of those  

They're easy to miss because your site layout is a mess. Right now you've got a front page which is a wall of text, then a games pages listing basic info on your two games, then a more info page for your game which finally gets to what people want to read. All the stuff in your more info page should be on your front page not buried 3 pages deep. You want visitors to the site to be reading about your commercial game product straight away, not an essay on your history of game development.

Your first priority should be on your front page, screenshots, videos, demo and buy links.

Also, even once you get to your secret hidden game info page all the selling points of your game are currently lost amidst a big block of a paragraph text filled with information I don't care about.

Well, my game got those rewards after editors of those sites tested my game on various their platforms. Some of the awards are only compatibility awards, others are game-play awards and editor's choice.

Sadly they're not real awards. They're just from download aggregators and they look INCREDIBLY amateurish.

Ultimately I didn't try your game because the site, the screenshots everything looks really amateurish. It looked strongly like this was your first attempt at making a game and instead of seeing it as a learning experience you then decided to sell it for $9.

My problem is there's so many amazing free indie games that the ones I pay for have to really be a cut above them. This looks like the kind of thing most people on this forum would put out for free.

EDIT: Take a look at this site, posted one thread above yours http://www.trainyard.ca/ now THAT'S a nice website, and I'll probably end up buying their game.

[codergames]

Konedima, I'm just not getting you. Kids love my game, the game is not for you, I got that the first time, but I'm not going to make any of changes you suggested because you're the only one. My site's fine, people say they're impressed with the design and looks, I'm not talking about web designers here, but the usual players and visitors. I respect everyone's opinion, but its just not possible to meet all of them, so I'm focusing on the game development.

... and since you've spent more time on writing the post then clicking the actual site, it does make me wonder.

[codergames]

@Perrin .. the likes and dislikes are subjective, I don't like the site you referred and dislike the game, as its the poor clone of well known old games. It has a very basic graphics and I can make such game in 1 day.

Invader Attack is not my first game as I've been making Flash games for others for years. Of course, action script and c/c++ are not even close to each other.

[Perrin]

@Perrin .. the likes and dislikes are subjective, I don't like the site you referred and dislike the game, as its the poor clone of well known old games. It has a very basic graphics and I can make such game in 1 day.

That site is SO much better than yours. Subjective or not your site is a terrible mess. As I explained you've basically buried all your selling points, three pages deep hidden in a paragraph of text that opens with a list of windows operating systems. The first thing you present visitors to your site is an essay on you and nothing about your games.

As for clone games that could be made in a day I think you're in a bit of a glass house there.

[codergames]

Why are people liking my site and my game then? Am I sensing a bit of a thing called jealousy on your side? The game you referred to is ridiculous, a year of development is stated on the site!? Maybe for a beginner.