@bombjack. Thanks a lot This is my first time doing this so I'm not 100% sure either if this is going to help or not.

@denzgd & @Vallar I'll keep that in mind, and you are right. Context is a huge factor in every question that I should consider a little bit more before taking my answers as universal truths.

I'm going to make more tests and play-testing as time goes on . It is indeed...too general.

@RudyTheDev I see what your point. I'll keep that in mind in order to avoid trying to make a "bland" product. I'm basically coming here from the classical marketing idea of "know your customer" What would you recommend instead?

Hey guys. I’m happy to be finally developing my first commercial game. I want to start with the right foot, so I decided to do a small survey to understand my players a little bit better. Here is what I came up with:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1sr6RbOmbTEXZ2lEZPAZxfhoO7CwdMx-mYjXvLrK9x4k/viewform

Since this is my first time doing this I wonder if there is anything you guys have to say about my survey. Also, if there is any tips on how to run a survey of this type, I would really love to hear them since  I’m trying to figure this out as I go along.

(You don’t have to fill the survey if you don’t want to. I currently marked all the questions as non-required so you can just hit continue if you want to.)

My main objectives with my survey are

• Better identify my target player as well as his/her likes and dislikes
• Test the appeal of my setting and general artwork style.
• Gather some very raw ideas about how the combat system I’m thinking will be perceived by users.
• Start to build my email list

Right now I’m thinking about asking people to fill the survey on facebook groups, reddit, and other random internet forums and communities. I might ask some pages to run the survey for me hoping I get some administrators to agree.

Any suggestions comments or ideas? 

Edit:
Also, if anyone wants to take at the results of my survey. I'm more than willing to write an article about it .

[If this is not the  proper category please move the post n_n]

Hey guys. Next year I'm going to the US to finally study game development with a F-1 visa. (my game development knowledge is mostly self taught).

I'm wondering if I can use websites like flash-game-licence or sell my publish games on the android market/iOS Store while I'm studying.  I know that I'm not allowed to "work" but I don't know if that is considered "working". For me is my main hobby X_X.

Do you have any experience doing this or know something about it . Thanks!

same as chaos. I expected to be able to click the menu items.

In general I like the game (I prefer the no-blur version btw). But I don't like the colors X__X to colorful to me  . But I love the gameplay 

[Lag]

I played the game. I think it looks good but I had some issues with it:

• Lag. I had some lag. The game was playable but it was not comfortable to play (Both in the normal version and the no-shadows)
  My specs:
  -Windows 7 Professional
  - Intel Pentium Quad Core 2.66GHz
  -4 GB RAM
  -nvidia GeForce 9400 GT (512 Mb)
  
• Camera Control: The camera sometimes went "below the floor" and it was really difficult to get it back to normal. Also the camera movement it's a little bit too sensitive for me.

Juts let me reassure that I like the style of the game and I think it'll be a great one 

True.  It may be more confusing, but since there was already consideration for Left and Right handed players, it seemed worth a mention.  You Dvorak users need love, too, right?

We are in need of love  

I know this is was not included in your question but I have some suggestions 

You may want to avoid random encounters when using tactical combat. The length of a tactical combat is way longer than the standard turn based combat (mainly because of the move command) and it can be really frustrating for a "bad luck" player to jump from combat to combat.

You could polish the rate of the random encounters to a rational value or go with the ultima 4 way where enemies are visible from the over world,that way if a player wants to avoid combat (or is tired of it) they can.

Also you could go the "Chrono Trigger" way and handcraft every encounter. In that way you can make sure (using all the responses here) that every encouner is engaging. This is a time consuming way 

Finally if you decide to procedurally generate the encounter layout an enemies may want to carefully check that no "cheap" encounters are generated by your system.

I think it's easier to grasp if you see the concept in action --> http://www.kongregate.com/games/Contrebasse_/love-new-version-for-eden-contest.


It's a completely different kind of game but the concept is still valid. You move the walls and the player has to consider that when moving the avatar

Well, I really don't know how to publish a game and i'm limited only to .exe files. 

Anyway, i'm out of imagination. I can't think of other block varieties. 

If ideas are what you want. This forum surely can provide some....How about moving the walls so the player has to adjust the jumping accordingly? Or some slow blocks that act like "moving walls". (you can slide on them an jump from them)

So, you lose 'clarity' in that 1- the player don't know he can get more than one star at the beginning, 2- the player doesn't know if all the stars for a level have been earned. But maybe that fact could be turned into something compelling... I don't know if my idea is any clearer now, but it's just something that crossed my mind at the time (plus, it probably wouldn't work on something as 'simple' as Angry Birds, but more if earning stars comes from exploration or something...).

I understand now good point

I think that the first medal should still be fairly easy to obtain with a minimum of dedication. The latest SSX did that pretty well, the Bronze medals are obtainable with a minimal amount of practice, the Silver ones take a bit more dedication, and some of the Gold ones are really difficult to grab.

I agree with you. I'll try to tweak my values to allow this.

Thanks by the way :D My game is getting better and better thanks to you all

Hey It's nice to see the improvements on the game. I think you could easily implement those mechanics into a small flash game and publish it  

On a side note I agree with Kapster  

Also, I haven't tried, but I imagine the game is even more difficult on a Dvorak keyboard.  I'm not sure if it's in your design to account for non-QWERTY layouts, but you may want to consider it.

I use the dvorak layout and I had to go back qwerty. I'm kind of used to it,  but I do appreciate when games consider my layout :D. Specially on heavy keyboard games. That requires  some extra programming (and menu options) though. And it may confuse the more casual players X_X.\ 

Reskinning the 'stars' can be done relatively easily, while finding new words to replace an C/B/A rating can indeed require more to make it really work.

Depending on how you rate the player performances, you can go from medals (not bronze/silver/gold, more like military decorations), to abstract shapes, or lights turning on... Pretty much anything really.

I agree. I was too fixed on star that I forgot that I can skin the star concept with almost everything.

This makes me wonder if showing the player how much star they can get in a level (say * 0/3, or by having star shapes greyed out and filled with an actual star when earned) is inherently better than not, maybe having that "what, I can get more than one star?" moment...

You lose clarity, but maybe have a boost in interest if you plan well enough the difficulty of obtaining more than one star.
You would also need a way to convey to the player that they have gotten every star...

What do you mean when you say "You lose clarity"?.

Following with the angry birds association I noticed that it has star shapes. Only filled when earned. And the lowest level is 1 star. That's also a nice way of telling the player the maximum number of stars to get.

You would also need a way to convey to the player that they have gotten every star...

That's right! a reward should be created for this case O_O! thanks! 

Presonally, I'm a fan of bronze/silver/gold(/platinum if you need a fourth tier), but only if all of them including bronze indicate exceptional performance. If I play terribly, just barely doing well enough to complete a level, awarding me a bronze medal really devalues it. The pattern I'd expect to see would be that during normal gameplay, if I'm not specifically focusing on earning a medal, I'd never see one (streaks of dumb luck aside). Stars feel like the same thing; a special achievement you earn for really trying hard and doing awesome, not just playing normally.

If this is something you want to assign to the player after every level completion, not just for exceptional performance, the letter grades feel more appropriate...but they have the opposite problem. As Graham mentioned, getting a C feels more negative than neutral. I'd want to save the negativity for actual failures, let sloppy completions be neutral, and hand out awards only for exceptional play.

Another route you could go would be to simply list the judging criteria and how well the player did, rather than abstracting it away into tier ratings. The player can see the raw numbers, decide how satisfied they are with them, and play again to try to get them as high (or low, depending on which is better) as they can. This doesn't give the player any guideline for performance expectations, which might be a good thing in some cases but not in others. Not really sure.

I agree with you on the devaluation of the medals if you get the lowest one regarding of your ability. I do want to assign them after every level completion so I think I'll go the angry birds route and everyone will get 1 star by default.It may be pretty discouraging to see only the outline of the stars.

If I ever implement a proper medal system I'll focus on awarding them only for extraordinary play like you suggested.

Thanks for all your an guys :D. I'm learning a lot :D

I thought about doing something like that. But honestly I think that my game is not as big as to support something like that. 

It's more like angry birds. It's a small flash game a fixed shooter. Actually it's my second game .

Right now I went and played angry birds (after reading your response) making an effort to do my worst!. And getting 1 star...even when you are trying to fail...feels nice :D.

I guess that C/B/A grades would be more suitable to bullet hell shooters or "hardcore" other games like that.

As I said before It's a fixed shooter based on space invaders but it also has puzzle elements mixed in the mechanics.


I do want to encourage the player to try and find the best way to complete a level. But I don't want to force that on them, only if they want to. And in that regard I also don't want them to feel "bad" if they just barely complete the level it's not that hardcore hahah

In that sense it's a lot like Angry Birds. Thinking about it I'm liking stars more and more

-----
BTW Thanks Graham I love earthbound but I never  finished it

Hey guys, quick question  .

I want to add a simple 3 level rating system for my game:
Level 1 --> Ok
Level 2 --> Good
Level 3 --> Great

It's probably irrelevant but I'm wondering on how the rating name may influence the player's response. Right now I'm trying to decide between:

• Having the traditional 3 stars
• Having Bronze/Silver/Gold badges
• The classic C/B/A grades

I think my main question is which one do you think the player will value the most?   What do you guys think?. I'm kind of on the dark on this one and my google fu didn't return anything 

The controls are a little strange. I'm guessing you're purposely trying to throw off the player by having the controls for the left hand be reversed. I didn't really like that, but I can see how it adds challenge in a way that might have been intended.

That REALLY confused me.

I like the art though, simple and beautiful. But I think that the gameplay could get boring (due to being repetitive) after a while if you don't vary it some more. Again this could not be unnecessary since it's an arcade style game.

Like the music, I don't love it though, maybe you could match the beat of the music to the average "jumping" frequency. This idea comes from the fact that I try to run everyday and I discovered than when I sync my running speed to some song I usually run more :p. Just an Idea.

One last thing, Maybe you could change the heart sprite. The heart somehow gives the idea that you are collecting "health" and when you die on the first hit it's kind of surprising. Maybe coins? or something like that X_X. Again, just my 2 cents.

No problem Upload the next version and We'll play it (I suppose)

I put the bar there to discourage the wall grabbing part. Its main purpose is really to just save you whenever you need a precise jump. Glad you liked the game!

I'll try playing without relying on that.

Also. A lot of recent arcade games usually have a store to make the gameplay a little bit more lasting. Have you thought about that?