I think that as a lonely and isolated indie developer you’ll always feel limited on something and have a hard time realising that great ambitious project you thought of, exactly the way you pictured it in your head.
Say i’m an alright programmer and want to make a 3D game. Well, chances are that I’ll need some models too. Depending on how ambitious my project is, the models might require good texturing, rigging, animations… Okay, let’s scratch that. Maybe try a 2D game? A’right, how hard can it be… Up until you realise you suck at drawing and could really use an artist’s/designer’s help.
Say you actually get to learn a little bit of everything and manage to put it all together by yourself. Advantages are (at least in my opinion) that you are spared of team discussions like “nah bro that idea is stupid. let’s add mor gunz and s**t to it” and if skilled enough you can get the things actually look and move just the way you wanted them to. However, you inevitably end up with a long development time and a lot of work on your shoulders. Then say you also have a short deadline to respect and you run out of time. Then what do you do? You were so busy modelling, texturing, rigging, animating, programming and setting up the scene in complete isolation that you forgot the fact that you’re not making the game for yourself… hell, you surely already got bored of it.
Someone should look with a fresh mind at it and point out some obvious (sometimes shameful) mistakes that you’ve in your rush or simply things that are not pleasing or just wrong. But as a recluse dev you don’t really have people to test the game for you before publishing… *Can anybody relate?*
Thankfully there’s these people who review games and also record their experiences. This, at least for me, is a great way to spot problems with your game. Be it the fact that it’s confusing to play, there are glitches, graphical mistakes or things look out of place.
Long story short, there’s this 30-days Halloween horror-ish project i’ve been working on and I have to constantly adjust it as new reviews were made. Here are all the videos I could find of the game and quite frankly each one of them helped me fix something :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkK2NNihczU#t=8m20s
At minute 8 and 20 seconds there was a little, rather happy accident. No notes were supposed to show until you found the gate. However it was enough to distract his attention so the doctor could come closer :D
Great video over all, thank you for playing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMQKCie4k30&feature=youtu.be#t=0m41s
Here’s quite an embarassing one… In the tutorial pages I wrote that you have to press RMB (Right Mouse Button) in order to collect the pumpkins when in fact it was Left Mouse Button… Might not seem like a big deal, but it might be enough for some players to think it’s just broken.
And i’m still trying to figure out what that fatal error on switching to windowed might be caused by.
Anyways, thank you so much for the heart-warming review overall! Great video, awesome channel dedicated to horror games!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOuIGu3cskc&list=UUbebww06T4jNmtM_M93ecNA
This was the first video of the game and it showed that having that counter on the top right might give you the impression that you have to collect all the Pumpkins (about 1000-2000 on the whole map). Which shows that i should have payed more attention to the indications. Added more indications in the tutorial.
Also, it was very obvious that the game felt very slow paced because you were just able to walk and jump. They suggested adding running and that is now you can run! (Even though you run out of breath quickly).
Thank you very much for the video guys, keep up the great work!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC11uy8Tzxc&list=UUqeVgg-2PcRaZF8AmwPzyPA#t=3m45s
Another very helpful one, at miute 3 and 45 seconds the doctor got a bit too close and personal with him. In fact, so close that his beak clipped through the camera. That has now been fixed.
Thank you very much for the video, really concise and well made!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iw2xH1qQuI&list=UUPBQnvzwkE8nta1izob4-5Q
Although it might have been a problem from his setup as well, brightness has been a constant issue for me. On some devices it is too bright, on others too dark. Esspecially on mobiles!
Tweaked that a bit… Thank you!
WinGamer97 LP (German)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiLkwCt1Pd8
Sorry, I have no ideea what he’s saying but it’s quite clear that the messages were disappearing too fast esspecially for a non-native speaker. That will be fixed in the later versions!
Thank you as well!
And that’s all the videos I could find. Thank you all for helping me correct the game by pointing out both the strong and weak points!
Sorry for the long post, here’s a virtual potato : potato**
Oh, by the way! The game is also available for Android Devices! You can find it on Google Play here :
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.SlothyGames.ThePlague2&hl=en
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