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[ortoslon]

now that Indie Games board is renamed to Games, shouldn't "... including commercial games!" be removed from the description of General?

[Evan Balster]

I approve of the simplified layout.

[Hangedman]

I like the layout but I think 'Projects' should be renamed to 'Community Projects' or 'Tigsource Projects' or etc to prevent the misplaced devlog/feedback thread that shows up every so often from people who don't read the subtitle of the Projects forum.

Not as much of a problem as it was before the subtitle was put in there, but just a thought.

[ortoslon]

game thread's lifecycle (Devlogs -> Feedback -> Announcements) should be made more clear. current issues:

some Devlogs threads stay there even after the game is done
some Feedback threads stay there even after the game is done-done
only mods can move threads between boards
some people start a second thread in another board but don't lock the first thread (results in confusion)
Devlogs is a child-board in a different board than Feedback and Announcements (moved)
Feedback has Win/Mac/Linux thread icons but Announcements doesn't

this new policy confuses things further:

If you have posted only a single post in the Intro thread and then a huge post about your game in Announcements, I will be moving your thread into Feedback. Likewise, if you have posted literally only about your game, I will also be moving your thread into Feedback.

[Oddball]

this new policy confuses things further:

If you have posted only a single post in the Intro thread and then a huge post about your game in Announcements, I will be moving your thread into Feedback. Likewise, if you have posted literally only about your game, I will also be moving your thread into Feedback.

I'm a bit confused by that too. If there's going to be one board where spam post are going to be tolerated then Announcements seems like the best fit to me. It is a board for pimping your indie-game-related-wares anyway.

[Jasper Byrne]

Yeah I thought announcements could be used for games which hadn't had devlogs on TIGs.  As long as the poster has at least introduced themselves (after a polite nudge if need be), it should be ok?

I strongly support the idea of being able to move these threads oneself, as starting separate ones seems wrong and confusing, but perhaps the board software doesn't support that?  I'd certainly like to able to read the entire history of a game in one thread if possible.

Thinking about it further, do we even need Feedback to be separate from DevLogs?  Could we not instead have alternative 100%-type icons, which somehow convey that a game is done but for the feedback / polishing stage (I guess something like 'Beta' kinda says it?)  I dunno, but to me it seems that Feedback is part of the development process, and really should be one of the stages we have icons for. Then when it's done, we could have a 'Move To Announcements'-type button. Feel free to shoot this down, I'm just sorta thinking aloud.

[increpare]

Thinking about it further, do we even need Feedback to be separate from DevLogs?  Could we not instead have alternative 100%-type icons, which somehow convey that a game is done but for the feedback / polishing stage

When I'm on feedback, I want to play games : )  (some people admittedly ask for feedback on non-playable things).  Devlogs is more about gawking/cheering on/being supportive.  Feedback can happen at quite early stages as well.

[Jasper Byrne]

Right.  I can see the logic in that.  So currently -

- Devlogs is for work in progress, but not public yet (although this is often not the case in practice.)
- Feedback is for work in progress, but public.
- Announcements is for the finished game?

I dunno, it still feels like the whole process could be neater somehow.  Especially at what stage one moves from Dev->Feedback.  And there's still the question of what is the done thing in terms of moving threads / starting second or third ones (say you want to maintain your devlog, but also need feedback!)

[caiys]

I wish this topic was stickied, took me a while to find it again due to it's unusual name.

But anyway I was actually looking to talk about the situation with Feedback/DevLogs as I never really know where I'm supposed to put my games, but it looks like it's been talked about already. Currently the DevLog has topics that have early design and sketches type stuff which is I imagine what it was originally intended for, but then you've also got playable indev games and finally now people just looking to pimp their games since they get stickied. The Feedback forum is tuned towards hardcore constructive criticism while the DevLogs is just about cheerleading.

It might be nice if the Feedback forum was renamed to Game Projects and was just for posting your playable games in various stages of dev where you would see both feedback and encouragement. I don't really get the deal with the percent complete icons in the DevLog forum, shouldn't the Feedback forum be the main game development forum? It just all seems a bit muddled really.

[baconman]

I'd be game after LD. I rather enjoy writing, actually; and it'll give me an excuse to go back digging through DevLogs for buried treasure. Only thing setting me back would be my specs (XP SP3/4GB RAM, no 3D card), and that's hardly indie-proof all around.

[Belimoth]

More icons in Technical!

[unsilentwill]

Had an idea, having a subscribed list on our profiles of projects and devlogs, so we can know who to keep track of, so threads don't go unnoticed after they fall to the second or third page. Some people drop  s on threads, maybe clicking them brings up a list of projects they've watched, or something.

Just because the middle stages, where's there a lot of planning going on and not much to show yet seem to be the time when Devlogs die, you could check the last time they were updated and show that there's still interest.

Andy Hull what happened to Heat Line SADFACES