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[Martin 2BAM]

Caverns: An experimentation game.
It's about tiny life forms coexisting in a cavern.

Hi everyone!

I'm almost finished with this version of Caverns so I want to know if you find any bugs or have any tweaking suggestions for the game. I will greatly appreciate it.
(I'm planning on expanding the concept in the future, in another version because it's to hard to keep putting stuff on top of this one)

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the DevBlog

If you find Bugs, typos, layout problems, and (most likely) engrish, please say so!

If you please tell me what you liked most, least, how many races were left and the time you spent playing it would be rad!


Also, I wanted to ask your opinion in monetary issues:
So far in 1 month worth of exposure I had:
38500 page views (~25000 unique)
$4 AdSense revenue
1x $50 donation - 1x $10 donation - 2x $3 donations (thanks to the 4 of you!)
That's around $0,0025 per unique visitor. For a total of around $60 (...fees)

Apparently, even with the great response I had (I love you guys and gals )  this isn't actually going to work.
I don't mean to be greedy, it's just that I want this to be my job, and don't want to go back to a burocratic numb uncreative "just fix what you're told to" office job.

Have any ideas why?
Before you say it I've read the Donate Rant here in TIGS, but wanted to give it a shot anyway.

Should I bid it at FGL and "sell out"?
Should I put MochiAds when loading?
Should I just put it in portals and see if people will eventually donate?

Thanks in advance for your comments
-Martín

[jarnik]

Considering your monetary issues: there's an excellent article about Flash game marketing strategies (focused mainly on premium content) over at LostGarden.com. I'm about to try some of the ideas Danc proposes in it.

[AriTheDog]

I *really* like this game. It's very cute, and it's fun.

That said, I was completely stumped at first. I'd recommend some kind of graphical notification when something is happening. I had no idea if more water = more drops, what caused sand guys to spawn, what caused lava guys to spawn. I realize this is part of the charm, but some kind of bubbling on a tile when the right conditions are met would make the game a lot more newbie friendly.

I'd also recommend giving the player more room to spread out. Right now, it's difficult to 'win' without having a very organized and rather ugly cave layout. I'd prefer to have more room so I can have a more organic looking cave and still reach the goals!

For future versions: more types of creature movement/conditions, such as creatures that won't cross certain tile types, or fall through certain tile types. Resource management? Get more tiles to place as time goes by? I don't know.

In any case, congratulations and thanks for making a really fun casual puzzle game!

[Martin 2BAM]

Thanks for both your answers!


I've read the Lost Garden guide
I'm giving some goodies for 10USD and signed real cards and other stuff for more. But I can't even seem to even get $3 donations.

I started uploading it to some portals too see what happens.


The bubble/baloon idea is quite good actually, I've been thinking about how to tell you "what just happened", but wasn't finding a good way. Thanks AriTheDog!

Some players actually like the limited space thing, because they see it as a challenge to put a working "factory" enviroment that also looks good. (Nevertheless I thought to make it scrollable and bigger in the next version)

The next version will have more control over the nature of the creatures and also the enviroment will be more abarcative, i.e. solids, liquids, ladders, etc. (as was sort of the original idea that never got through for the lack of time). I mean, walking on water/acid/lava is not really realistic  :D

[Loren Schmidt]

My hunch is that people just aren't going to find the game often because it's hosted on your own site and you don't have the visibility of something like Newgrounds.

This is to say nothing about the quality of the game. I love this game, it's really well executed and I love the idea (it's one of my favorite games that came out of Ludum Dare 15).

I'm interested in hearing what people may have to suggest about marketing (I'm also releasing a couple of Flash games). Best wishes, you deserve success.

[Martin 2BAM]

Thanks, I've uploaded it to Kongregate. I should upload it to Newgrounds too.
I'm finishing some tweaks to finish it and release it not site-locked, so any portal can upload it, if they wish.

[tim_the_tam]

well i dont know how to help you financially either than sell out if your really desperate for money.. if you want to survive on donations its really unlikely because most people would be like why pay for something that free. i mean the guy who made passage had to get a Campbells soup apparently..

but gameplay wise.. i really liked it. i really liked the experimental aspect of the game its really well done. 

i do have some recommendations..

firstly make it is that environment tiles can only be built on the brown wall tiles. i thought it was really strange that i could make lava in the middle of nowhere.

second have the creatures have elemental weaknesses (like pokemon) so they cannont walk on their weak area. for example the fire creature cannot walk on water instead it turns around. again it thought it was strange that a fire creature can walk on water and not die.

also heres something i was thinking about whilst playing. have two modes. a level creation mode and a challenge mode.

the level creation would be like the version you have now allowing you to build anywhere and have to find all those creatures

and the challenge mode would have a preset cave. but you cannot destroy any brown walls and you cannot built any more walls. so you have to work with what you got to make a thriving colony.

another thing that got me confused and im still confused is how much material you need to make a creature. i feels.. inconsistent on how much you need. i really dont want you to explain in the controls or whatever oh how many tiles you need to make one guy but because that would ruin the experimental side. but please make it more obvious or consistent.

but yeah.. i really enjoyed this game it different, fun and the cool thing is that i can run this game while i do other stuff. so great job your an awesome designer and one ill be keeping an eye on 

[Martin 2BAM]

Hey, thanks there!

Most of the things you say are right, I agree, but they're harder to integrate than to make them from scratch.

Originally they were going to be weaknesses, but I didn't make them and adding them now would drastically unbalance the dynamics.
I thought of several challenge modes for Caverns 2, but that's a surprise
About the material thing, you get a grasp if you play for a while, I haven't got much trouble from that side from other players. But I'll look into it anyway.

Best regards
-Martín

[AriTheDog]

Hey, glad to help. This is a really cute/cool game.

I agree that you might have an easier time monetizing the game if there was more to it. A story/puzzle mode would be great - maybe with more levels, a level editor, and a sandbox mode unlocked for a small donation ($5?). Additionally, improving the UI would be a nice thing, and make it more newbie friendly, as well as perhaps a small tutorial level that showed how to get the first few creatures.

[Martin 2BAM]

Sorry but I didn't understand the level editor/sand box part. I mean, the game is mostly a big sandbox level editor by itself :D

But I must agree with you on that newbie tutorial recommendation.

Thanks!

[Eclipse]

Also, I wanted to ask your opinion in monetary issues:
So far in 1 month worth of exposure I had:
38500 page views (~25000 unique)
$4 AdSense revenue
1x $50 donation - 1x $10 donation - 2x $3 donations (thanks to the 4 of you!)
That's around $0,0025 per unique visitor. For a total of around $60 (...fees)

Apparently, even with the great response I had (I love you guys and gals )  this isn't actually going to work.
I don't mean to be greedy, it's just that I want this to be my job, and don't want to go back to a burocratic numb uncreative "just fix what you're told to" office job.

Have any ideas why?
Before you say it I've read the Donate Rant here in TIGS, but wanted to give it a shot anyway.

Should I bid it at FGL and "sell out"?
Should I put MochiAds when loading?
Should I just put it in portals and see if people will eventually donate?

Thanks in advance for your comments
-Martín

this is not the way to actually do money with a flash game, you need to find a sponsor and they will pay you directly, the bulk of the revenue is that, ads doesn't produce that much at all and donations are not a safe way

Next time try to contact portals like Armor Games, CrazyMonkeyGames, Newgrounds and so on

[Nektonico]

Charming game, i like it. Still, i think the sandboxyness takes something away from it, once you know how to get all creatures thats pretty much it.
Maybe some sort of resource management would ramp up the challenge. Also some more outward feedback, perhaps a "narrator" of sorts that makes it explixitely clear whats going on (besides the hints).
I think if the creatures lasted longer (didnt die so rapidly), it would be more appealing; you know, having some time to get attached to the little guys.
In any case, you get 5 pandas as far as originality goes from me 
                         

[deathtotheweird]

I played the game for awhile last night, at least 15 minutes just messing about and I clicked one of your Google Text Ads, and it didn't open up in a new window! I was quite bummed (my beautiful cavern lost   ). The other (picture) ads loaded in another window/tab but not the text ones. I'm using Chrome if that matters.

[Martin 2BAM]

That's quite odd. The Cavern is autosaved every 2.5 minutes, and re-loads the saved cavern when you enter the page again. It uses flash shared objects (like cookies but inside flash, doesn't depend on the browser).
Perhaps you disabled saving? try right clicking and enabling at least 10k of data to be saved locally.

I think I'm not allowed to make them pop in another window, the license says something about not tempering with it, and the javascript code I have to paste works that way.
Anyone that uses AdSense has any idea why?

Is the version 0.96? Thanks for the report.

[deathtotheweird]

Ah, never mind. I didn't think to check and I haven't played it sense! I rage-quit my browser. I just now checked it and like you said, there it was. Sorry about that 

[Martin 2BAM]

v0.97 is up!

Just added some baloons to inform the player what's happening.
What do you think about them?

Will that be enough info to get most people started?
Are them annoying?

Thanks!

[AriTheDog]

Sorry but I didn't understand the level editor/sand box part. I mean, the game is mostly a big sandbox level editor by itself :D

But I must agree with you on that newbie tutorial recommendation.

Thanks!

Hey, what I meant is *if* at some point you create a puzzle mode which only allows a certain number of blocks, or has special win condition rules, or something like that - something with more limitations - then adding the ability for users to create their own puzzle levels and share them would be great. That's all.

And yeah, I know it's a complex suggestion that's outside the scope of this release.

[Martin 2BAM]

Oh, ok, thanks for the clarification

Yes, I think a good approach will be to use the same sandbox free mode editor to create your own puzzles. Good call!