Okay, that's fair. I should perhaps rather have said that there's a correlation between poor or no cover art and poor works.

Then we're back to judging a book by its cover.

https://www.routledge.com/Procedural-Storytelling-in-Game-Design/Short-Adams/p/book/9781138595309
Procedural Storytelling in Game Design
Edited By Tanya X. Short, Tarn Adams

Have you or anyone read that and could review/summarize the main points?

I played enough to confirm that it's a real metroidvania, sort of reminiscent of Cave Story. But where are the joypad controls? I can't stand to play a platformer with the keyboard.

It's mind-boggling than in a community like this where so many people list Portal 1 & 2 as among their favorite games of all-time that no one is playing this!

So far I like it, but I'm stuck at the end of level 2. No idea how to get to that exit. It seems the portal walls must be part of the solution somehow. Having a turtle shell makes me think of Super Mario Bros koopas and wonder if there's a way to slide down the slope like a koopa shell into the portal and out the other side, but if there is I can't figure out how it's done. Nor does it seem possible to bring the springboard over there. I found a driver's license and an item in an illusory wall, but if they're part of the solution I don't know how to use them.

Since the game becomes challenging early I know it's gonna be a great brain-teaser and I want to see more.

One suggestion. Is it not possible to make the portals level with the ground so that you can walk through them and not always have to jump through?

I played it but didn't get far. It's difficult! Maybe when you're farther along in the project you'll have the player be eased into things more gradually. Right now the player just gets thrown into it and everything is hectic and confusing. Do you stay in the same room and keep shooting, trying to survive for as long as you can? In my opinion it would be more interesting if you're going places. Shmups aren't really my thing tho, and I never like using a mouse to aim.

I tried the boss fight. First phase is tedious but I can see that it gets more interesting as it progresses to pretty Touhou-style bullet patterns.

The sprites and animations look great. I would love to use sprites like that to make a (different type of) game. Maybe I should take a closer look at Vroid.
 

However, while I do agree that there's little correlation between cover-art and good works, I conversely feel that there's likely a correlation between a lack of cover-art and poor works.

Well if there's little correlation between cover-art and good works, but there's a correlation between a lack of cover-art and poor works...then the standard implied is to have any cover-art at all no matter how bad. Any crappy cover art will do, even cover art that misrepresents the product.

(Speaking of cover-art that misrepresents reminds me of the notorious cover-art for the western release of Mega Man 2 aka Rock Man 2)

Why is that, if I may ask?

Indeed, it seems to me that the cover-tile of a game on itch is its packaging, effectively.

Virtual packaging hasn't got collectible value the way that physical packaging does. (or it has weak collectible value to be more precise; I suppose you could right-click and save virtual packaging images, but who does that?) It has value to me only to the extent that it is used to show me the actual product.

Why? Because, from my experience, the correlation between good packaging and a good product is tenuous. In fact I'm not sure there is any correlation at all. Just as a paperback novel with a good cover might have a bad story and a novel with a bad cover might have a bad story, a game with a good cover might be a bad game and a game with a bad cover might be a good game. This is what is meant by the saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover". I don't decide what books to read based on their covers, what movies to watch based on their posters, or what games to play based on how they are packaged.

When you said "Especially if I'm looking for something particularly good" you seem to be implying that there IS a correlation between good packaging and a good product--that you do judge a book by its cover. Is it your experience that good packaging correlates with a good product? Do you select what books to read, movies to watch, and games to play in this way, and have the products you've chosen to consume because you found the packaging to be good turned out to actually be good?

@Thaumaturge

Yes, I meant the tile that appears in the game listings.

Of course you're right that box-art, title screens, etc is something that has always been done. I'm more welcoming of that kind of thing when it's packaging. If I'm reading an instruction manual that also has concept art on its pages, that probably means I own the game already. I already know what it's about and I know that I'm interested in it. It's when it's my first introduction to what the game is...that's when I don't like art that conveys the fantasy of things, because it really tells us very little.

Granted that can still happen when browsing games at GameStop, but even then I typically ignore most of the box art in front of me on the shelves and reach for the games that I already know something about. DarkGran's point about presentation enhancing the collectible value of a thing applies here. I'm happy to have that fancy box art for a game that will sit on my own shelf at home which I will gaze at hundreds of times over the course of many years owning it. But fancy art on a tile listing on itch? This has no value to me as a collector. I'd prefer that space be used for the practical purpose of showing what the game actually is.

There are some games on itch that DO show a screenshot for that initial tile in the game listings, which is appreciated.

@DarkGran

Good point about how casual and hardcore players used to play the same games! The Street Fighter series (any of them since at least Street Fighter 2) is an example. At a low level of play, it's you and a buddy mashing buttons and having a great time. At a high level...well, if you've ever observed what the tournament scene in the fighting game community is like, you know that there are much, much, MUCH higher levels of play one can attain to. Although only a tiny fraction of players ever get remotely near high level play, a fighting game needs to have that depth baked into it from the core or else the hardcore base will reject it.

Haha, I have no problem at all admitting that I enjoy playing games with letters. I recommend games with just letters all the time. Sometimes people take my recommendations, often they don't. I also have enjoyed plenty of games that use text to describe the world, going back as far as the original Zork series. The presentation value of a text-based game is zero.

Isn't it funny that most people accept text as a medium when it comes to, for instance, a paperback novel, but not so many when it comes to a game? The presentation of a paperback novel approaches zero. There might be an illustration for the cover and usually that's about it.

You might be familiar with Roast My Game. It's a site where devs can post their games for anyone to critique. What I have noticed is that very often the first sentence of a critique is something to do with the visuals i.e. "The graphics are good" or "The graphics aren't good", which I worry can easily lead the dev to the false conclusion that graphics should be the most important thing about their game. (maybe for some games it should be, but not for all!)

Have you ever read a review for a paperback novel that began with "There weren't enough illustrations" or "The cover art wasn't good"?

If we demanded high presentation value from every story anyone tried to tell and every fictional world anyone tried to create, countless great stories would never have been told. That includes stories that eventually did go on to be remade into more visually appealing forms including the works of Tolkien, Rowling, Martin, and any other famous author you can name. First there needed to be an audience willing to accept the primitive and abstract vehicle they were using to tell their stories back before they had a big budget.

Text is certainly not the ideal way to tell a story from the audience point of view; visuals are far more efficient, a picture being worth 1000 words and all that. Text is good for the author, not for the audience, because there is hardly a cheaper and easier means to create content. I hope that authors and audiences alike would understand that there is a tradeoff between what's good for the author vs. what's good for the audience.

I also think that too much abstraction can be a serious disadvantage. For instance, I sometimes see games posted on this site where the visuals are all numbers and grids and shapes like triangles and squares. I feel bad for such games because I know they will struggle to find an audience. They may very well be interesting and engaging games, but players don't relate to triangles and squares the way they relate to sprites that look at least a little like people. By the time of the 8-bit era we had sprites that did look like people, which might be (part of) the reason why the 8-bit era is when games really took off?

To the extent that a dev does try to be visually appealing, they'll get more mileage by focusing on an art style that is original and unique, even if the graphics aren't particularly sophisticated.

^ There you go. You, too, felt the pressure to be more visually appealing and to up your presentation. We all feel that pressure. I guess the difference between myself and the rest of the indie dev scene is that I think it's a pressure that ought to be resisted beyond the point that it compromises your fundamental vision, given that time and resources with which to make a game are finite.

Again, looking at ichi.io is downright disappointing. The overwhelming majority of those games (even the freeware ones!) are using as their main image either a title screen or concept art. NOT an actual goddamn screenshot of the actual goddamn game with which to give me an idea, without clicking further, of whether it's a game I would even enjoy.

How did it get so that that whole community thinks wowing people with visuals is more important than showing what their actual game system looks like? Is it that they seriously believe that presentation is more important than gameplay, or is it that they believe players can't tell the difference? Are they correct to assume that most potential players are not like me--the type who will walk in the other direction when I see indications that a developer's priorities are towards (perceived) marketing expectations rather than the developing of a great game system? I'm not sure what the answer to this last question is.

That's a new one. It's an original idea, but will it be fun. Is there any representation of the hiding person on the map, or is it just months-old google map images you look at?

Some sort of game which incentivizes people to show off their homes and hometowns has potential, if that's what this is or could be.

[if and only if they cut back on presentation]

Well I can tell you why the indie scene fails to excite me personally. I don't know if this is what the OP meant, but it does tie in with the Jonathan Blow quotation.

I'm a hardcore gamer. I like games that can immerse me for tens if not hundreds of hours. Although I gravitate towards rpgs since they tend to be more on the hardcore side of things, I'm capable of enjoying any genre whether it's platformers, real-time strategies, fighting games, rhythm games, cooking or farming simulations, really anything...just as long as the gameplay is deep. Give me something I can become obsessed about.

But there are no shortcuts to making a deep game. It requires writing, implementing, testing, and graphically representing heaps and heaps of content.

That last bit--graphically representing things, or in other words, presentation--is imo where the bottleneck lies. In order to produce a game with heaps and heaps of content that meets "glossy" standards of presentation, you need hundreds of employees. Only a AAA game corporation can do it.

To say that the other way, an indie developer can make a deep game if and only if they cut back on presentation. All that art, animation, music, fancy lighting tricks and frills, etc, which certainly does enhance a game, but is taking time/resources away from other things. And--here comes my larger point--if they were interested in making a deep game, marketing concerns aside, that is what they would do. Because while presentation is helpful with marketing, for *most* games it does not matter as much as the game system and/or story. Thus, most of their time and resources should not be put into it.

Plenty of very deep and replayable games have been made with the most primitive presentation. Sometimes simply text or ascii graphics. And often developed by a single person. (I also think that the potential of the text parser as an input method has not been fully tapped)

An example I often go to is the freeware roguelike Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, which I have been playing for years and am still discovering new things about, new playstyles, new secrets, etc. It's as deep and complex and replayable as any commercial game I know. And it's only one step up from ascii graphics; characters are represented as tiny static sprites.

So it's totally possible for any development team, no matter its size, to produce a game that can entertain me to the same degree as any high-end game.

And yet when I browse ichi.io, it's all casual games as far as the eye can see. I can tell from looking at them (and my suspicions are almost always confirmed when I actually try them) that they won't occupy me for more than an afternoon at most. Don't get me started on the mobile scene.

What I think is happening is that indie devs are trying to cut a middle ground where their games looks reasonably nice...and consequently are not very deep. Because they CAN'T be too deep if they're also going to look nice, not without enormous resources sunk into them. A person of my tastes will pass them by. I'd rather be playing a deep and complex game on the high end of presentation such as something Fromsoft produces, or a deep and complex game on the low end of presentation such as Dcss. My playing time has become split on the two extremes.

In fact, it might be getting to the point where nice presentation almost has a negative impact on me. I think, these screenshot looks nice so the game system will probably be simple. Mind you, not that there is anything objectively wrong with simple. I'm just one guy with one guy's tastes which current trends don't cater to.
(I will completely drive by any game that tries to pass off a title screen as a legitimate screenshot, which to me is like saying, "there's no gameplay worth speaking of here so let me show you something that doesn't matter at all")

Obviously, overemphasis on presentation plagues Hollywood too, and nobody who is well-watched is not going to have at least some low-budget low-res black & white films on their top 100 list, presentation not being what makes stories meaningful.

I completed it. I don't normally play platformers where you have to use a keyboard, but since you also have to use a mouse  I suppose it can't be helped.

The shadow effect was a nice touch in the first area. It became clear that shadows aren't just for show, but a necessary mechanic.

I enjoyed tossing scorpions around.

The room with the millions of boulders was excessive. Did there have to be so many? What's worse is that you can't toss them into the pits. I wanted to hang myself in that room. At least you were very careful to make sure the player can't get stuck.

In the circular rooms that came after I experienced major slowdown.

But the final boss was nicely done. I don't understand who it was and what it was doing there, but it was pretty cool I guess.

I would like to playtest as well if it is not too much of a problem!

Absolutely! This is a complex game and it needs all the testing it can get.
Even if people could tell me whether there is slowdown/stuttering on their machines that would be useful information. I'm very concerned about performance.

I've sent you a PM.

This is a quality game. Somebody should playtest this. The reason I didn't try it for long is that I find playing an action game with the keyboard intolerable (gamepad support should be built-in imo), but I can tell that a lot of work went into this.

I'd be happy to play it and do a public or private feedback video.  (no charge)

Thanks much. I've sent you a private message.

If by any chance you're interested, that game I'm making that I mentioned in the post above has gotten to beta. I actually did write them 270 or so story events. Whew. Had to force myself to do a couple new ones every day.

[The game generates not only its geography but ALL of its characters procedurally.]

7-24-2022 Update
Hello. The beta is now public. Downloads are below.

I'm now seeking an answer to a single question--Why do players stop playing the game?

The few who have played past the tutorial have had positive things to say about it. However, I can't help noticing that everyone stops playing before getting too far and never returns to it. Consequently, I have no feedback on the story or much else that happens beyond the first hour of play.

Is it that the game feels too open-ended and directionless? That's my best guess, being that the main story (by design) can be missed, but I'm not sure. Is it lacking some other quality? Whenever we stop playing a game there is always a reason. The reason might be a memory in the back of our head of a frustrating moment, or it could be something else.

This game is not a casual game and it has a learning curve. It is intended to be something that can be played over and over once you "get" the system. But if everyone is quitting early on then it is failing in its purpose, and I need to know why. I need to know whether it's something I can fix, or whether I should cut my losses and move on.

So if you try the game can you please tell me why you stop playing it? I'm not looking for a full video review...just an honest answer to why everyone likes the game but doesn't want to play it much.  



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Hello! I'm looking for testing/feedback on a complex simulation game that I've been developing for the past 10 years. I'll be glad to help test your game if you want to do a "trade".



About the game
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Earth City, the most prestigious new metropolis built in the 24th century, implements a protocol known as the "Social Imperative" whereby citizens must meet a weekly quota of new friends made and/or relationships deepened. Failure to meet one's quota means exile.

As a new citizen you will work yourself up from dirt to increasingly nicer living conditions. The freedom is yours to set your own daily schedule of work, study, and play, explore and familiarize yourself with the city layout, and interact with other citizens through conversation, collecting and upgrading an arsenal of conversation topics. While doing so perhaps you will discover the closely-guarded secrets of Earth City that the old generation "olgies" have kept hidden....

Where One Citizen is a hybrid that borrows from multiple genres including adventure games, role-playing games, romance simulations, card games, roguelikes, and visual novels, resulting in a unique multi-faceted turn-based system with depth and replayability.

The game generates not only its geography but ALL of its characters procedurally. Their visual appearance, their personalities, their familial relationships, where they live, what they do each day, and so on are all unique to each new game started. On a new game you won't meet the same character from before.

Where One Citizen official site



Downloads (beta)
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8-17-2022 the current version is 2.3.2

Download for Windows
Download for MacOS



Screenshots
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Is this a metroidvania? It looks intriguing.

That's an interesting new take on Puzzle Bobble. I like how the tracks are not basic shapes like squares or circles but more freeform.