Ah ok thanks :D I was planning to get a DS anyway to play some other games

Thanks, is interesting to see how other play the game.
Some things you could have done (of course, not your fault, is just some tips):
- you can go on barracks to rest and regain full HP/PP (so before the queen fight for example)
- in the barracks there are better psionic equipment that do more damage with normal attacks, even if the main role of psionics should be to either heal or buff/debuff enemy (or use Harm if you feel brave

But I clearly see my mistakes... giving too much freedom, without some hints for non RPG hardcore fans/experts can result in frustrating experiences like yours. Well I've learned lots of things for sure, thanks again for the feedback 

Your mistake continues to be looking at other works and using the most contrived, copyable and formal elements of them as an excuse and guide for your own.
Skilltree/Skill List/Class Archetypes... None of that is what makes a game great.

Hmm well I disagree on this I mean, OK, I know that is not the ruleset type who makes a game great, but great games like Diablo or Dragon Age 1-2 (I still believe the 2nd was a good game) use skilltrees. Is more about how you implement them, and in my case I used a skills system like Oblivion but I didn't differentiate the skills enough, I'm the first to admit it. Also probably I added many non-combat skills that aren't "so useful", I mean you can use them in some parts of the game , but probably most people will just focus on combat skills and stop.

If I were to overhaul your game, I'd have every character simply have one overt skill in battle like: damage all enemies, guard the party from damage, increase attack power of allies, stunning attack, etc. I'd change your armor types to: None, Physical or Energy and attack types from weapons and skills to accommodate that. Make the equipment universal or nearly universal for all characters. Skill points would allow you to increase HP, MP, DEF, Weapons, Armor and Skill Power.

I heard many times that game "Paper Mario", I need to find a way to take a look at him (I don't have a Wii, I'll try to see some videos on youtube about the gameplay).
I agree that adding skills gradually is probably the best idea to grab a more casual audience without boring them with lots of skills at once

Quoting Sar reply is too long so will reply in points:
- yes I know what you mean about everything at once, and the problem was that I started the game BEFORE renpy got the big ATL update. So was a pain to add a step-by-step tutorial, while now could be easier. So yes, that was lazyness in my part.
Though to be honest, there are very successful wargames like cryptic comet ones that have NO tutorial and a huge PDF manual that you need to read :D my mistake was aiming at casual market without executing the tutorial / instruction in a way they could like.
- using autosave before each battle: lol that's a great idea and something I could definitely add even now, since is where people will have most problem. So at least I can put in game over "do you want to reload a savegame just before the last battle" or maybe better "retry battle"? thanks a lot, I think I'm really going to add this!
- yes I explain in the first screen mousewheel, but after it's shown once, it's not show again (didn't want to bother player) so probably you skipped the first time and then doesn't appear again
- player demographic of those who find characters interesting... hm not sure really, were people that posted in my forums or emailed me, but I think young teenager, and mostly female I believe
- about classes, I think I shouldn't have used a skill system but something a bit more like a skilltree. Also another problem is that there isn't the equivalent of "magic classes" in fantasy games, so not a "wizard" (damage dealer) or "cleric" (healer). That was another mistake, I should have forced some more strict class choice, right now every psionicist can be a sort of jack-all-trades of psionic, while should have been more specialized.

Wow thanks, quite good feedback
(even on other stuff than combat).
Some points:
- wall of texts: yes, the game initially was intended as a visual novel with light-RPG elements, but I got carried away and light-RPG became a full RPG, but still with a good VN component. So there is lot of texts indeed I know already the solution, that would be to split the texts in a more intuitive way, though I have to say even spiderweb RPG (not the last one, I played only the first ones) had quite lot of texts, didn't they ?
- autosave: renpy has it built-in but to be honest is not really intuitive (you need to scroll down on the bottom of the save slots to find the "autosave slots"). Something to remember for next game/add-on, perhaps use some sort of "checkpoint" where I automatically save in the game
- warning about combat: yes another good point. Probably skipping the text you missed it, but you can use mousewheel to "rollback" the texts (and event) so even if a battle starts you can use mousewheel to "go back" and prepare your team.
- quickhints: I decided to incorporate all the explanation in a tutorial part when you visit the training droid (lucille). You can ask her about the battle rules and they'll be explained in details. I know that this is not really standard, since most new games introduce you with the gameplay elements gradually...

Ah no, in reality people were really complain about BATTLES difficulty. Not like "the game is hard" in general. But the battles in particular!

The number of decisions and options a player has should generally correlate to the number of desires they have. In battle, all I care about is damage so I just crammed all my skill points into the character's equipped weapon type. I have no idea what sorts of scenarios I'd be in since I don't actually control much pacing of the story. If I could actively sneak as a player or already had multiple weapon types available, I might be more inclined to use other skills. Though this is only a slight inclination as the game merely presented boring die-roll scenarios for using the skills and the different weapon types merely had different damage types which applies to the defense of enemies which is something I have no control over. So I might as well just pick most damage.

Hm no, that's not true: the psionic powers for example have a big impact, as accuracy/evasion/armor skills as well surely not in the early stages of the game, but later on they're quite important. Some psionic can lower enemy armor rating so you can hit them and effectively do much more damage. See this video:



It shows how a battle can radically change using the right psionic skill. Another useful one (and perhaps I overpowered it!!) is the shock power.

About the flat characters, I don't want to comment since I think depends also on tastes. Later in the game you can romance them and they all show their personality, and also had many people telling me they found the characters interesting, so I presume it really depends on tastes. For sure, next games I'll use native english speaker writers :D

Thanks again for the feedback, very appreciated!

Yes you can switch anytime, except during combat
I could have added 2 more, and probably will in the add-on I'm making now. Also reconsidering the extra stuff in hard mode, seems a good way to reward "veteran players".
Thanks for the suggestions 

tsk tsk you didn't pay attention! 
jokes apart my post had lot of texts so np, but yes, I have 3 difficulty levels: easy, normal and hard. By default I suggest player to try normal mode, but for casual player I also recommend to try the easy.
Problem is that some people/reviewed had troubles even at easy level! It seems though that they were simply pissed because heroes dies in battle (but you can resurrect them).
I think is something based on psychology, really. Hero dead=losing, while in reality is quite normal to resurrect a player during a fight.
Perhaps that was my mistake...

Ah no, in reality people were really complain about BATTLES difficulty. Not like "the game is hard" in general. But the battles in particular! Perhaps because while in the first stages of the game you cannot really lose a battle and get "game over", later in the game when you explore the planet and get a random encounter, if you lose you really lose the game itself 

I've received some reviews for my game Planet Stronghold, and most of them talk about hard difficulty. Honestly, I don't think it's THAT hard, but probably for the average-casual gamer (or someone used to play Fable 2 where you can't die lol) could be.
So I'm looking for that kind of feedback - the first battles are obviously easy, but already after the first training section, when you have to pass the test and then clear the colony from the rebels, things starts to get a bit more difficult.
You should play at the "normal" mode. Some people say is hard even at "easy" difficulty mode but I believe they're joking! 

Anyway for anyone who wants to try, here's the official game page: http://www.winterwolves.com/planetstronghold.htm

Direct download links:
http://www.winterwolves.com/download.php?game=PSDemo.exe (PC)
http://www.winterwolves.com/download.php?game=PSDemo.zip (Mac)
http://www.winterwolves.com/download.php?game=PSDemo.tar.bz2 (Linux)

And here's some screenshots:

Yes just use BMT, Plimus or if you're not in europe Paypal (if you're in europe using Paypal for direct sales might result in crazy accounting problems because of VAT and local laws).

I don't think hostgator has SVN, and I believe it's not really a common feature, even if I personally don't use SVN

there seems to be a trend recently, with cheap indie games without demo making tons. Impulse buy? :D

hostgator is quite good, alternatively if you can spend more I recommend liquidweb. They have just announced "smart VPS" which is cloud VPS: http://www.liquidweb.com/cart/content/vps/
VPS.NET also has some interesting cloud VPS: http://www.vps.net/product/cloud-hosting

Cool, thanks for testing it. I'm particularly interested in those non-gaming PC indeed. On my netbook was working OK (not super smooth, but playable).

http://www.winterwolves.net/temp/ULTest.zip
it's a zip with PC/Mac/Linux executable combined of a small techdemo of my upcoming semi-real time battle system.

I'm particularly interested to know if runs badly (too slow) since I'm pushing Ren'Py again to the limits, the game has animated backgrounds and lots of big transparent sprites so uses quite a lot of VRAM.
You can only move left/right using the arrows right now :D
Note that in the game, you won't be able to move quickly left or right, so don't consider the "skipping" you see if you quickly press the keys since that will never happen in the game.
Thanks

I've been waiting for this one. At least there's a xbox360 version. I'm sad I couldn't play Heavy Rain because was PS3 only

Personally, I'm a fan of selling directly from your site 

I'm interested in seeing how that works. It seems like Facebook marketing is both tried and true, based on how many pages there are, not about actual people but celebrities or groups. Hope this goes well for you, too.

Well, to be honest I don't have much confidence in it I think will reach max 100-150 more fans in 1-2 months and probably 10-20 coupon used, but not more.

The only thing that bothers me is the extensive data mining operation that is Facebook and how things like this buy into that, But even i have considered swallowing my ideals and trying to make my Facebook page that of not myself, but a developer.

Yeah! I hate that too I could do this kind of promotion already in past years, but I really wasn't enthusiast to use an app to do this. Unfortunately to have an automated system (and prevent users from getting 100 codes each lol) the only way is to use a FB app. But I agree, I don't like it either.

I'm not sure if this is the right forum - moderators feel free to move it.
I'm doing a social marketing experiment too. I'm giving away 30% discount codes to everyone who become a fan of my Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Winter-Wolves-Games/305229676335?sk=app_215797628444679

The coupon is valid for any of my games, even the new ones. It can be used only on 1 game obviously
If you have Twitter, Facebook, etc feel free to spread the word. I have limited the offer to the "first 1000 users" (lol).
I'll make a blog post after a month or so with the results which I hope will be somewhat interesting :cool:

So far in about one day I got +20 fans and 1 sale using the coupon.

Just saw this thread, nice read, though some tips are a little outdated, not sure if the tips about sales are so valid with the Appstore and Steam being so accesible..

What 
Accessible? on appstore is easy to get, you have exposure for 1-2 days and then the next wave of games comes and your small little app is buried instantly.
As for Steam, I know very few indie who have a game in it. It's really hard to get in, and some top games like Gemini Rue, Democracy 2, Burn the rope and more were refused for no reason given