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[friken]

Hi Guys,

I'm doing a bit of a project gutcheck. I've been working on stardiver for about a year now and am pretty proud of the progress. The thing that has me a bit worried is the lack of discussion/traction I've seen sharing info, dev blogs, etc. On dev to dev forums, the project seems to get great feedback (maybe devs are overly nice to other devs?), but as far as general gamers following / commenting etc I'm starting to worry the project is extremely niche or something glaring is turning people off to it.

I'd love some honest feedback on what your first reactions are to the project, and what could be improved.

As you can see most recent page, all posts are mine:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=37040.160

project main page (hmmm I assume most people start w most recent posts and work back? My first post info is a bit old):
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=37040.0

sample of recent project update:

[valrus]

I love a good fly-n-chat; we don't get enough of those.  For the public, I think things might not pick up until you have a trailer, maybe even a demo if you feel confident, highlighting the game's strengths.  (For me, that's interesting-looking aliens that aren't rubber-forehead humans, and creative hyper-melee abilities.)

I have more positive feelings than negative ones -- you have a lot of reason to be proud! -- but here are some uncertainties and/or negatives from my own gut that you might be able to make use of.  (I'm not actually asking you these questions, I'm saying that's what comes up in my mind as a potential customer.)

1. The emphasis on procedural generation actually turns me off a bit.  I just don't expect good pacing or strong stories when a procedural universe is advertised.  (I mean, of course it's proc-gen; every game with hundreds of stars is.  It's just that as a buzzword it's losing its luster as I realize that more often than not I'm going to get a little bit of butter on a football field of toast.)  If you've got something beyond "a random number generator made this" -- like your aliens know about their neighborhoods and neighbors and feuds and local history, and you can ask them about it -- emphasize that part of it instead.

2. Also it's unclear to me what the relationship between "epic" and "procedural" is.  Is this a long game or a short game?  If it's a long game, I'm probably only finishing it once.  (And if it's a long game and there are balance issues after 15 hours because I rolled a bad universe, I'm not even finishing it once.)

3. It's clear what I'm going to do on a small scale (fight, talk, mine) and a large scale ("save humanity" or "save the galaxy" or somesuch), but I think it's the medium-term goals that tell me the "feel" of the game.  Am I solving mysteries?  Finding ancient and powerful relics?  Getting rich?  Walking a diplomatic tightrope between hostile factions?  Running contraband?  Learning alien languages?  Am I boldly-going, sneaking, carving a path of destruction, or getting out of Dodge?  The more I know about that stuff, the more I can know whether it's up my alley or not.

4. Make sure that you only put your best writing on display.  You have to show you know where commas go, that it's not going to be pedestrian, juvenile, amateurish, etc.  Hire an editor or proofreader just to be sure, and get some opinions from some SF readers (forums, your local book club, wherever).

5. For showing off your dialogue system, choose the 2-4 most interesting dialogue choices your game will have to offer, the ones where your goal is clear but how you get it is unclear, and each option is a viable and interesting strategy.  In general, highlight Interesting Choices wherever you can, because showing people interesting choices makes them want to make those choices.

[friken]

I love a good fly-n-chat; we don't get enough of those. 

Thanks so much for dropping in -- and especially for the in depth response w/ a lot of great points.

For the public, I think things might not pick up until you have a trailer, maybe even a demo if you feel confident, highlighting the game's strengths.  (For me, that's interesting-looking aliens that aren't rubber-forehead humans, and creative hyper-melee abilities.)

A good trailer is currently top on our list of priorities. Specifically, we have a list of items we want to get implemented prior to making a trailer. We will be making two trailers. One general game promotion and one for crowd-funding. I do agree that a trailer may be the missing component to slow interest during early dev.

I have more positive feelings than negative ones -- you have a lot of reason to be proud! -- but here are some uncertainties and/or negatives from my own gut that you might be able to make use of.  (I'm not actually asking you these questions, I'm saying that's what comes up in my mind as a potential customer.)

Perfect, this is exactly what I was hoping for -- a list of things to think about to help us get the project marketed in the best light we can.

1. The emphasis on procedural generation actually turns me off a bit.  I just don't expect good pacing or strong stories when a procedural universe is advertised.  (I mean, of course it's proc-gen; every game with hundreds of stars is.  It's just that as a buzzword it's losing its luster as I realize that more often than not I'm going to get a little bit of butter on a football field of toast.)  If you've got something beyond "a random number generator made this" -- like your aliens know about their neighborhoods and neighbors and feuds and local history, and you can ask them about it -- emphasize that part of it instead.

This is a very good point. Personally, I know the "procedural" buzzword is hot -- thought elicits a potential negative view from those that understand the tech side of it. Procedural often ends up leading to generic feel, bad seeding, etc. We will need to be careful how we use the term and be specific about what is and what is not procedural. Being a story driven rpg, procedural story and/or rpg elements would suck (unless there is some form of genius implimentation far beyond us). What we use procedural for is planet surfaces, solar system layouts, few other more minor things. The single player will likely use the same seed so players can compare exact experience with friends. The multi-player will be a lot more configurable of a universe. Some aspects of that are still a bit open as we have focused on the single player / coop elements first.

2. Also it's unclear to me what the relationship between "epic" and "procedural" is.  Is this a long game or a short game?  If it's a long game, I'm probably only finishing it once.  (And if it's a long game and there are balance issues after 15 hours because I rolled a bad universe, I'm not even finishing it once.)

Sounds like we need to do a much better job of our few sentence description of 'what is this game'. Thx.

3. It's clear what I'm going to do on a small scale (fight, talk, mine) and a large scale ("save humanity" or "save the galaxy" or somesuch), but I think it's the medium-term goals that tell me the "feel" of the game.  Am I solving mysteries?  Finding ancient and powerful relics?  Getting rich?  Walking a diplomatic tightrope between hostile factions?  Running contraband?  Learning alien languages?  Am I boldly-going, sneaking, carving a path of destruction, or getting out of Dodge?  The more I know about that stuff, the more I can know whether it's up my alley or not.

I'm thinking the trailer will fill in the medium-term goals. What is your opinion on how detailed to make the 'what is this game' description. I've seen everything from a few words to several paragraphs. Personally, I fine that more than 1-2 sentences and I jump down to screenshots/video. I'm not sure if I'm typical on that or not.

4. Make sure that you only put your best writing on display.  You have to show you know where commas go, that it's not going to be pedestrian, juvenile, amateurish, etc.  Hire an editor or proofreader just to be sure, and get some opinions from some SF readers (forums, your local book club, wherever).

Great suggestion. To this point we have definitively posted a lot of development build stuff, though it is getting cleaned up more now than earlier in the project. Was there anything you saw that stuck out in a negative way? We do have a writer involved making the story arc, dialogues, etc -- though a lot is still in draft prior to edits.

5. For showing off your dialogue system, choose the 2-4 most interesting dialogue choices your game will have to offer, the ones where your goal is clear but how you get it is unclear, and each option is a viable and interesting strategy.  In general, highlight Interesting Choices wherever you can, because showing people interesting choices makes them want to make those choices.

We will likely pick 2-3 of the most unique alien races to display in the trailer. I do like your advice to also pick the most interesting dialogue exchange. Thinking more about that, we will need to be careful as so much of the dialogue is story arc specific and may be very out of context for a trailer. Maybe pick some of the quirky stuff that doesn't need the context to stand alone.

Thanks again for taking the time to give in-depth feedback!

[friken]

Here's my gut reaction: it's a space game and it is probably complicated with nit-picky customization features. I don't tend to like those kind of games, and I would be a hard sell on your title.

Good feedback. I love space games, but not at all a fan of the type you mention either (the over complicated rts / 4x/ etc). StarDiver is not that at all and sounds like we need to sort out some clear description/trailer to point that out and try to minimize turning off gamers who could be fans but assume it is a 4x or complicated space game.

What I'm not seeing upfront: a two sentence or paragraph-long description of your game. What's great about this game? Does it have a Star Control-vibe or more of arcade/twin-stick shooter? What is the goal? What is the tone of the gameplay? I want to know what makes this thing unique! Where is the fun? Can you talk about those moments that you've found and you're working every week to make a little better?

I know a good trailer will help on this point. Our biggest goal is to modernize and revive the 1990s space-opera genre that has been long dead. That includes StarFlight and StarControl series of games. Those games had great story, rpg elements, and fun space combat. They were far away from what exists in space games today (complicated fleet rts games or 4x space games). For gamers that played the old classics, I think they will get it quickly with just the mention of the old games -- sadly, I doubt there are enough of us out there to make the title successful, so we need to sell the younger/current gamers. You are a prime example of who we would like to not turn away based on assumptions of what current space games are. What keywords would help you make a quick assessment away from the over-complicated space games?

The art is polished and it looks good, but the range of color in your game is somewhat lacking and for some reason, I feel like it points to a lack of tonal diversity throughout the game. Can you show me a range of different moods?

I think this will go away when we put up more of the different regions of space, planets, aliens etc. Maybe I can get your input when we get a trailer put together if you still think it could use a wider tonal range.

Thanks a ton for the feedback!

[wccrawford]

If you want gamers to discuss something, you have to let them play it.  When all of their data comes from your blog post, they don't have anything to say that you haven't already said.  They can't actually *feel* the game.

Devs are more likely to chime in with their experience in designing a game, but even then they can't really say much about a game they have no experience with directly.

[friken]

If you want gamers to discuss something, you have to let them play it.  When all of their data comes from your blog post, they don't have anything to say that you haven't already said.  They can't actually *feel* the game.

Devs are more likely to chime in with their experience in designing a game, but even then they can't really say much about a game they have no experience with directly.

I agree to a point -- but what about all the projects without a playable build out yet that do have a lot of gamers following it and discussing it? This is where at least seeing it played via a well made trailer and/or youtubes of gameplay is likely very helpful. A good trailer and playable demo builds are definitely top on our list to get done for the project, just trying to get the best idea of what are turn-on/offs about the project so we can address them the best we can as we get enough done for a good trailer and demos.

[Preece]

This is just shooting from the hip, but... I can't quite picture the potential experiences of playing the game. In other words, I see interesting stuff happening but don't fundamentally understand the core experience of the game. I don't instantly grasp what I would be doing, why it would be challenging and what kind of scope of experience it will offer. Reading the main post doesn't help. You go through the alien life, the procedural generation, then dive into a ton of details without ever explaining what the actual gameplay consists of. It is probably beyond obvious to you at this point, having worked on the game for a year. But it's not obvious to me! You say its story driven, but i clearly see a game very much dealing with physics and combat.

Again, this is speculation, but if you were to make clear the core gameplay (flying these ships around and fighting), especially how it actually controls (I can not figure this out), and *then* build all this fancy stuff (story, procedural generation, etc...) on top of that to sweeten the deal for anyone who is interested. I think that would be a far more effective message.

In the end, I think people play games rather than consume other media because of the enormous potential for novel experiences they hold. And I think the messaging for any game should be focused around this. What can you *do* in the game, and what kind of things will happen in response?  if I were to just look at the gif you posted in this thread, I would not be interested. It looks like your ship sidles up to a space station, fires twice and misses due to what look like control issues, then shoots a couple little missiles at the space station and nothing happens. Then the space station wiggles. Other gifs you've posted are far more interesting, but I still feel like the gameplay is not being made explicit!

[wccrawford]

If you want gamers to discuss something, you have to let them play it.  When all of their data comes from your blog post, they don't have anything to say that you haven't already said.  They can't actually *feel* the game.

Devs are more likely to chime in with their experience in designing a game, but even then they can't really say much about a game they have no experience with directly.

I agree to a point -- but what about all the projects without a playable build out yet that do have a lot of gamers following it and discussing it? This is where at least seeing it played via a well made trailer and/or youtubes of gameplay is likely very helpful. A good trailer and playable demo builds are definitely top on our list to get done for the project, just trying to get the best idea of what are turn-on/offs about the project so we can address them the best we can as we get enough done for a good trailer and demos.

You mean the ones by studios that have a past history of awesome games that the player has already played?  Those are the gmaes that have a lot of players talking about them.  And they're expecting more of the same, and are typically the people that get upset at all the changes that are made.