Before serving the meat of this topic, here’s a little background…
You know what happens if you are afraid to promote your game?
You would be quite screwed, since nobody will promote your game for you.
Here’s one guideline I follow:
- “Be darn proud of the stuff you do.”
When I talk to some indie developers (developers who have far more experience than I do – my company is just an infant at the time of writing this post) and ask about their game I sometimes get shy replies where people wonder “if their game is good enough” or “if others have done better games” or whatever. It’s natural to think that way. After all, developing the game is not that easy thing to do – finishing a game is even harder (I’ve finished 3 games that have generated any revenue, and now doing my 4th one which is a much bigger project).
Here’s how I think about this:
Pieces of shit
Games are not “shitty!” even when somebody says so. If somebody comments a game saying “shit” that just means what goes between his ears. Shit. Or shitty thoughts. Or to be more exact: he just doesn’t like your game.
Why I hate Braid
It would be foolish to assume that everybody would like all games. For example, there’s this game called Braid that’s been praised and said how good it is and all that. I hated every moment playing it.
Does that mean Braid is a bad game, or that Braid sucks, or that Braid isn’t innovative. Nope – it just means that I don’t like Braid (and that type of games). Simple as that. I can honestly say that I won’t spend any more time playing Braid, but I do have a huge respect for how successful the game has been. It’s sold a lot and everybody is talking about it – so respect. I hate the game, but praise the developer.
For the record: I must say that I simply don’t like platformer games where you jump over things. Even if they have the go-back-in-time-and-do-stuff feature, to me they are still platformer games where you jump over things. It’s not Braid that I really hate. It’s any game that’s platformer game. I just don’t like them.
So, why I really don’t hate Braid and what people should do
But, anyway. So, in reality I don’t hate Braid – the truth is that I don’t like platformer games. To me they are just not fun. In reality, I don’t much care about Braid or platformers, and I think the crucial thing here to realize is:
- Your game is not about you
- Your game will be hated by many
- Your game will be disliked by very many
But luckily:
- Your game will be liked and loved by some
And that’s where the Holy Grail is. That’s where we gotta aim. It’s no use to try to get everybody to like your game (or you end up having this massively-multiplayer-singleplayer-cooperative-team-deathmatch-captureflag-roleplaying-strategy-action-racing-hiddenobject-casual game for hardcore gamers). Nobody would care (and you’d run out of budget faster than winter comes in Finland – and believe me, that’s fast).
What we can do is to pick our audience… pick the right audience and get those selected members who like our game. Then cater more for that audience.
I won’t buy Braid nor any other platformer where you jump, jump, jump. But that doesn’t make those games bad. They just aren’t for me. Maybe they are for somebody else, but not for me.
(Now, go buy that Braid – even if I don’t like it, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t at least check this game what many other people praise.
And if you read this far, go check out the next post: Why I love Braid game)
Just stumbled across your blog while searching to see if I was the only person who didn’t enjoy Braid. I made the mistake of buying it outright instead of trying the demo first and have been filled with regret over this poorly thought-out decision.
Unlike you, I don’t dislike platformers on principle (though I do like your “jump over things” description as a wonderful reduction of the genre), but what I do hate are slow games. I was bored out of my mind. I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t give it a lot of time to grow on me; when I got to the second “book room” that started the second world or whatever the arbitrary labels for levels are, I shut it off. It reminded me very much of those awful prosey parts of Lost Odyssey that were, in my opinion, very pretentious. If the game play itself weren’t so slow I might have stuck with it. Yes, the music was nice, but I simply was not this game’s target audience.
I enjoy puzzles, it’s not the puzzle part that was off-putting, it was the stilted story telling, and the general dullness of the jumping over stuff parts. Honestly, there is a little flash game that came out a few months back called A Game About Game Literacy, which I’ve had considerably more fun with along with several puzzle games that have likewise been more fun (Red Remover and Continuity to name a couple off the top of my head). Braid, while I cannot help but respect the effort and the talent involved in making it, does not float my boat.
Maybe if it weren’t for the 11th grade creative-writing wish-fulfillment story line, I could get into it more. But it’s just so mopey from the outset that it started me off biased against the gameplay. Guy went through a break up and wishes he could change the past.. maybe he ends up learning that it’s better to live through mistakes and carry lessons into the future instead of dwelling on the past, I don’t know… maybe I’ll just go read about it. But the story and the slow game play make me really not all that interested in helping that guy sort out his relationship problems.
Okay, I went and read about the story. It actually sounds like the cleverness of the construction of the narrative deserves HUGE recognition, but the gameplay just gets in the way for me, and that’s too bad because I really think that i would love to see the end of it… damn… now I need to figure out if it’s worth it!
Hey.
Yes, agree with you for most parts on this one, Juuso.
It also implies how to disagree without being disagreeable, which I find quite meritorious. (-:
I occasionally provide feedback for games on Newgrounds (http://zir0.newgrounds.com/), and while many types of games aren’t for me (like those casual, puzzle games; I don’t see what the big rave is about those, especially the ones with those fancy physics systems), that doesn’t stop me from giving constructive feedback, and when it’s obvious that the developers worked hard, and went the extra mile to put on the finishing touches.
The one part I don’t agree with, at least not entirely, is this:
“Your game is not about you”
This may just be me, but as an indie, some parts of my games ARE about me. This includes the music area, since I make my own music, which I really enjoy. Also, I make games that _I_ like, not games that I THINK others will like. If it gets lots of followers, then great. If not, so be it, but that’s not gonna stop me from making the types of games that I enjoy. At the end of the day, I still got a game done, and put out there.
Now, if I got lots of requests from people to make a certain type of game, or to add this, that, and what not, then that game might be more about them. ;-)
____________________
- Ziro out.
Heh, actually no. It was triggered by discussing with one guy who got bad feedback. :)
lol juuso, did someone said something bad about your game that triggered you?
But anyway, good advice about not trying to please everyone with your game.