next »

[waylonflinn]

It's called Crunch Magic and we're making it because it's getting harder and harder to find awesome games. The big companies seem to just be making stuff that will appeal to everyone and that sucks.

What we really want to see is an indie revolution, where most of the games people play aren't made by giant game companies according to some formula for getting a billion people to pay 60 bucks. We want to see games made by actual people for actual people.

Here's what we're doing about it: We're starting with the games people play now, with one of the biggest supporters of indie games we can, Steam. We've made a website that mixes proven theories in psychology with cutting edge theories in game design to help gamers and game makers learn more about what makes people love their favorite games. Then we use that to connect people with the right games for them.

We know gamers love games, so our site is a game.

We're already trying to highlight indie games, and sometime in the next few months we're hoping to open the process up for user submissions. Part of helping people find the games they'll love is knowing which games are out there.

It's super early beta right now, but we've already been surprised by how well it works. Come check it out and give us feedback. We're making this site for you guys, help us make it better.

www.crunchmagic.com

[Mister Dave]

Has anyone told you yet that they aren't getting past step 1 (login fails), or that they don't want you tracking their Steam accounts?

[waylonflinn]

I haven't had any reports yet about not being able to log in. I have heard some concerns about security. Some people are scared that we might be collecting their username and password (we aren't).

It's basically just like when you log in to a site using your Facebook account. In fact we'll probably be opening it up to Facebook logins in a month or so.

I'm sorry that you had problems logging in. That sucks. Can you PM me with a description of the problem?

[Impmaster]

Here are my thoughts.

1. I don't get what the site is for. Let's click on something.
2. Oh, look, a game.
3. It's a survey dressed up as a game.
4. Three hearts are falling towards fire. I click on one. Okay.... what was the point of that?
5. You cared too much. Try again. WTF? Why do I have that? What were those hearts?
6. Try again, more questions.
7. More hearts. WHAT IS THIS? 
8. I died. By clicking on the hearts. End.

Well, the way I see it, you want to get games based on what type of person the person is. That is an ok ideal. However, many people go into games as a form of escapism, and they act differently, making the thing pointless. Secondly, what the hell are those hearts?

Explain them.

[Ant]

Here's what we're doing about it: We're starting with the games people play now, with one of the biggest supporters of indie games we can, Steam.

haha dis made me chuckle

But anyway what games you own on Steam is an incredibly poor way of discerning a gamer's taste. There are many games I play that aren't on Steam and I've got a whole bunch of Steam games that I very rarely play because I just got them in a bundle or gift. Why don't you just allow somebody to fill in their favourite games? Forcing people to login even to just to see what the site is like comes off as extremely dodgy.

[ANtY]

Here's what we're doing about it: We're starting with the games people play now, with one of the biggest supporters of indie games we can, Steam.

haha dis made me chuckle

But anyway what games you own on Steam is an incredibly poor way of discerning a gamer's taste. There are many games I play that aren't on Steam and I've got a whole bunch of Steam games that I very rarely play because I just got them in a bundle or gift. Why don't you just allow somebody to fill in their favourite games? Forcing people to login even to just to see what the site is like comes off as extremely dodgy.

+1

[Lauchsuppe]

We know gamers love games, so our site is a game.

Sentences like this give me creeps.

I don't get why so many people don't even care to do proper research before releasing a service directed to a certain peer group. I mean, yeah it's business, you don't need to put your soul into it - but you could at least pretend.

[waylonflinn]

Here are my thoughts.

1. I don't get what the site is for. Let's click on something.
2. Oh, look, a game.
3. It's a survey dressed up as a game.
4. Three hearts are falling towards fire. I click on one. Okay.... what was the point of that?
5. You cared too much. Try again. WTF? Why do I have that? What were those hearts?
6. Try again, more questions.
7. More hearts. WHAT IS THIS? 
8. I died. By clicking on the hearts. End.

Well, the way I see it, you want to get games based on what type of person the person is. That is an ok ideal. However, many people go into games as a form of escapism, and they act differently, making the thing pointless. Secondly, what the hell are those hearts?

Explain them.

Thanks for trying it out. Sounds like you had sort of crappy experience. In fact, you may have found a bug. Sorry about that. If you'd like to help me figure out what happened, I'd be happy to. Can you send me a PM?

You saw three hearts falling towards the fire? What supposed to be there is three of your Steam games. Then, you use the hearts you earned by answering questions to save the games. But you can't save all of them. If you do, you die. You have to make a choice.

As far as whether or not it works, it is sort of an experiment. We need more people to try it before we know whether it will be really awesome. If the current data model doesn't cut it, we'll keep trying stuff 'till we find one that does.

[waylonflinn]

Here's what we're doing about it: We're starting with the games people play now, with one of the biggest supporters of indie games we can, Steam.

haha dis made me chuckle

But anyway what games you own on Steam is an incredibly poor way of discerning a gamer's taste. There are many games I play that aren't on Steam and I've got a whole bunch of Steam games that I very rarely play because I just got them in a bundle or gift. Why don't you just allow somebody to fill in their favourite games? Forcing people to login even to just to see what the site is like comes off as extremely dodgy.

What I'm hearing is that Steam isn't a great way to figure out what people like. I totally agree. I've got a bunch of Steam games in my account that I've never played. We're hoping to filter those out.

It also does sort of suck that we have to use a Steam login right now. Honestly, it's because we can't predict yet which games people have played. When games fall in the fire, we want it to be a hard choice. Seeing random games burn doesn't matter that much. Seeing two of my favorites, when I can only save one, hits me in the gut a little.

We definitely want to open it up to more sources than just Steam. Pretty soon we want to allow independent developers to submit games. We haven't figured out exactly what that process will be, yet. We're open to suggestions.

[waylonflinn]

We know gamers love games, so our site is a game.

Sentences like this give me creeps.

I don't get why so many people don't even care to do proper research before releasing a service directed to a certain peer group. I mean, yeah it's business, you don't need to put your soul into it - but you could at least pretend.

Sorry man. I'm a gamer and a programmer. This is my first attempt at doing anything remotely like marketing. I sort of suck.

I wanted it to be a game because scrolling through giant lists of games and clicking on stars is frickin' boring. The game on our site probably won't win any awards, but it's more fun than that.

We sort of hate that it's a thinly veiled quiz right now. We really want to replace it with something like the quest system from Mass Effect. Except the choices really do matter in the end. It'll just take some time and lots of people willing to try it.

[Impmaster]

Oh, the hearts are games? That explains it. I currently have no games in my Steam folder.

[Mister Dave]

I'm sorry that you had problems logging in. That sucks. Can you PM me with a description of the problem?

Maybe I was intentionally not trying very hard. Sorry.