itch.io

Yeah +1 for divide up your tasks

I don't have ADHD but I can still sit in front of an open project and just stare into the abyss of all the different options and ideas and possibilities.

One thing that really helps me when this is happening, is to just WALK AWAY for a little bit. Going outside and just spending a few minutes enjoying nature, or doing some task that doesn't require a lot of critical thinking like washing the dishes, can be so helpful. Often while I'm doing that I ask myself "OK, what exactly should I be working on?" and try to come up with something concrete. Then I can sit down with already the thought in my head "I'm going to do XYZ", so I can just get right into it instead of spacing out or just endlessly "testing" my game while thinking of ideas.

Sometimes I find it helps to pick something really small and seemingly insignificant. For example, lets say I expect to work on a game for the next 2 hours. That's not a small amount of time and so right at the beginning of that time slot is when I might start wondering, what am I going to accomplish in the next 2 hours? This can become one of those times where I'm just spacing out, with too many options.

Instead, I'll decide to just start with one small task. Like, make a single sprite. It is not something that will take up two hours. But it at least gets the ball rolling, and often by the time I'm finishing that task, I have a better idea of what I want to do next. And if not, then at least I got one sprite done :P

With CFS, it is probably even more important to just work in small amounts and take a lot of breaks. Also, all people benefit from sunshine, fresh air, exercise, and good food, so get as much of that stuff as you can!

Itch is cool because it doesn't have ads, also you can put ads in your game in GDevelop but since you just uploaded two of their game examples without even bothering to change the titles, I'm guessing that is too much work for you

The corpos are already doing the job for you by firing their workers.

I can't imagine any ground troops getting even a shred of ownership over the games they were working on, so there is nothing to fund.

Consumers can crush these corporations overnight by simply not buying their trash

Yeah be careful not to scam people into downloading your game for free :P

As a robot I depreciate this

You'd have to ask the developers of the game, this is for help with the itch.io site itself :)

As soon as the invisibility thing was introduced I found it frustratingly difficult to play single-player. Even for two players, I could see this being a frustrating level, and since there are no other puzzle elements introduced before this it just doesn't set a good trajectory for the game. I would have expected to at least do the "player presses button, other player walks through door" thing once or twice before being chased down by a bot. 

Hazy Road:

  Link color is hard to see. After reading the page and looking at the screenshots, I feel like I don't know what the game is really about. Maybe some more specific description of what you do in the game, or screenshot/video that makes it more obvious, would be helpful.

Ghost-Snap:

 I like this page, very short and sweet, I would change the first sentence to say something other than "snapping" because some people might not understand that slang term especially if English isn't their first language. I would just put "game about photographing ghosts", or at least "snapping pictures". 

Marble:

 This one also looks pretty good and has the most information. But I would be less likely to download this because it seems to be just a toy rather than a game? If you could build your own course that would change everything :P

It definitely looks appealing, but you might want to scale up some of the examples. Especially the animated characters, they could be twice as big honestly. I think part of the issue is the actual image size being too big, so itch.io is squishing them? Those animated characters are 192x192, and the screenshots are 1260x1000. It looks fine when you click on the screenshot for a bigger view but just on the page, you can't see the detail very well.

There is no reason to disclose your age online. And several reasons not to...

The more damage a shield takes, the harder it becomes to block with it.

I think I see where you are going with this part but it sounds counter-intuitive for a game. I mean, keeping track of equipment is already a task, but having an equipment that constantly drains away its usefulness could be tedious. And may lead to a meta where players always ditch them for one with less damage, or even stop using them altogether.

Then again I'm imagining the shield going from 100% to 0% effectiveness in line with how damaged it is, which may not be what you intend. You did say player skill would make it easier to block with a very damaged shield. However this is the one piece that is supposed to be different and not "boring" 

I don't know why you'd think that can work in the first place. If you delete the entire project, it is gone. There's no feasible way to then resurrect it later just because the name or URL is the same. And even if there was, there would be no way to know if the new project was even intended to be retroactively updated to appear in the same places as before. What if someone else creates a different project down the road that just happens to have the same name, should it get added to people's library who downloaded your old thing?

Took me about 45 minutes to figure out what Down Arrow does
Also you can fly off the screen if you jump off the cat I think? But not otherwise?

I see... I had considered that possibility but it really didn't look that way from here because of the difference in style (I did realize that Prose-Duuri was the one connection, I guess the other things listed under your name threw me off). 

Sweet! If you would prefer to discuss via email or discord here's my addys:

magicsofastudios@gmail.com

Discord: magic.sofa

Hey there... I was wondering if you need a soundtrack??

Yes, but it is up to the uploader to write the license terms, usually included with the download in license.txt or similar

Another option is to look for assets from people here on itch or other places where you can download stuff directly from creators. It only involves a little extra work (i.e. importing the assets into your project manually instead of letting the store do it for you) and you will be able to find more unique works. You'll also be supporting indie artists by hopefully crediting them and/or paying. 

I think they look quite nice! It is definitely not "the usual style" which is a good thing in my opinion, but does affect what projects they could be used in.

What I mean is, the overall look is slightly messy and I mean that in the best way possible ^.^ Compare to something like this which has softer color transitions and more distinct boundaries. I do like your work though, it has a grainy naturalness to it which is cool. I point this difference out because I think the rest of the game would have to have a similar vibe in order for these sprites to fit in properly. I guess that's a consideration for all artwork and sounds kinda obvious, and really someone might come along and say "this is exactly what I'm looking for." I would consider adding some tags that might help connect to that person... words that they might search for such as "natural" or "grainy"

I do see some things that I think could be improved, mainly with the outlines and shading. For example some of the bars are not looking too hot... the red and olive green ones near the top look the best to me, while the magenta one looks the worst. Some of the pieces of wood look flat rather than round. A few of the outlines are interesting colors that I'm not sure about... I guess some of them are supposed to be glowing? I'm mainly talking about the purple rough ore that has a red outline, and some of the cubes. I would think these outlines should be darker.

Using assets that you are allowed to use, or that you paid for, is certainly OK.

Basically this person is accusing you of making a generic game just to make money. An asset flip isn't just any game that doesn't produce everything in-house. That would be insane... tons of developers use free and paid assets from other people. The term is really supposed to refer to games that are slapped together as quickly as possible for the sole purpose of making a few bucks.

It sounds like they are just being a harsh critic, I mean if it is your second game (congrats!) then nobody should expect it to be some sort of masterpiece. But people don't always look into your history or even come up with a legitimate criticism. Like maybe if you had a history of reusing the same assets in similar games over and over, and you were actually making a lot of sales from it, it would be fair to say you're a "flipper." But to say this to someone who is just starting out is pretty much ridiculous. 

Yeah I mean by keeping my number of chickens low I also had an easier time focusing on the foxes when they did appear.

There could be a break in the action periodically, such as at night, if you want to give a rest to players... but there is a pause button anyway so I wouldn't think its a huge issue. (I used spacebar which is definitely superior for me)

I'm pretty sure anyone who downloaded your game will have access, even if they didn't donate. Also, if there is an issue then you could generate download keys for anyone who should have access (found in the Distribute tab)

c u t e

It is really easy though. I didn't feel compelled to get more than 6 chickens, and didn't even upgrade the water at all. I almost left it at 3 chickens, but when I realized the price of the coin was going up I decided to speed up the process.

My question is, why am I not picking up eggs? I happen to have chickens IRL and as much as I would like it they don't drop gold coins :P

It would then make sense thematically to be either hatching the eggs or selling them for sweet sweet coin $ (big coin for a dozen??)

It would also be cool if you could buy a rooster, after all the only way to have fertilized eggs is to have a rooster around ^.^ also they of course defend against predators so this would give you the opportunity to increase the pressure from foxes. (for real, they can attack hawks and stuff, its crazy [also they literally feed the hens by picking up worms and clucking at them to come eat it, is freaking adorable])

This would make it so the player has to balance their egg selling with protecting and restocking the flock. I didn't lose a single chicken so even as it is now the challenge could be higher in my opinion, especially as time passes. Just having foxes become more numerous as time goes on (and as you keep putting more tasty nuggets in front of them) would accomplish that. It should be extremely hard and/or impossible to win with just 3 chickens. Even better if there's a lynch-pin like not being able to get more chicks without at least one rooster and one hen.

Sounds cool, is there a page for the game?

What exactly do you mean by "provide the player with optimum experience"... are you referring to how much XP can be gained in specific area of the game, and being able to determine what level the player should be at any point? 

Looks cool and all but why are you pretending that this isn't your own video?? We can see the uploader... also "recommended read" usually comes with a link to something that you can, you know, READ

+1... it could also help to make comment section more organized, since anyone writing a long review or something could wrap it in a spoiler to take up less space

ok

It needs some work in order to look professional...

The lynx is OK, but I don't understand why it is even there. Is it supposed to be your logo? Or is it promoting a specific game/project? The dotted background doesn't make sense to me either, it is very generic and doesn't fit with the lynx itself which should be framed with some nature scene or nothing at all (i.e. transparent background). It would be fine for an artist just sharing their work, but for a logo or promotional image it is somewhat lacking. Some of the outlines are even crossing over each other.

The lynx image and introduction paragraph take up a lot of space, I would want to see at least the first row of games immediately upon loading the page. Also it is strange to have "Leonard Somero Productions" written just above the projects list. Your name should appear at the top. Since you have a banner image it would have to be included in the image.

The first paragraph could be shorter. "Is a software company" is redundant - nobody will be guessing what your page is about if they see a list of games. Your name should have already appeared at the top and thus not necessary in this paragraph either. The "provide curious games that enrich people's lives" line is filler, it doesn't really say anything about you. Every developer on the planet wants to make games that people like. Personally, I would remove that and just let the games speak for themselves, but if you really want a self-promotion here then try to think of something that actually makes you and your products unique. Something like "I make games that use physics in unexpected ways." It should be specific, not general.

So with those edits the paragraph might read like this:

• Based in Oulu, Finland. Founded in April 2023. Focused on creating games with _____ and _____. Over 10 years of game development experience.

Honestly saying you have 10 years of experience isn't very important either. A customer is unlikely to buy something based on that.

"please pick one i'm hungry i need money" sounds very pitiful and unprofessional. Delete!

The second paragraph is a bit strange, people who are looking for games to play do not care about your vector graphics library. Developers who are looking for resources will be searching for the specific thing they need and do not need to read this either.

 The page is visually pretty basic, just a green background with a standard font. Some more variation in color, or some more graphics such as a background image, could help with this.

Finally, you have several projects listed that are not credited to you. The four games on top are from verysoftwares. If you were part of these projects then you need to ask to be listed or else people will assume you are just faking it. If you did not contribute to them, posting them as if you did is just dishonest and also kind of silly since you are directing people to someone else's game and if they choose to donate to that creator, you get nothing. If you want to link to other people's content then you should make a collection called something like "Projects I Follow", so that it is obvious which things are yours and which are not. You can also use collections to separate your projects by category (i.e. Games, Resources, Music)

Right, but I mean they could then download it from the safer store instead

It helps if the project is also available on major marketplaces, specifically Steam, Google Play, Apple store, etc as these places are more strict about uploads.

If there is something specific you are worried about it, you could ask if anyone else has tried it :P

I would ask the developer, most likely they changed something that would cause it (such as the storage path for the save data)

"You do not have access to this page

This game has been restricted by the author and can not be downloaded. The owner of the page must give permission to those they wish to access the page. If you think this is a mistake, please get in touch with support.

Go to ung_fl's page"

There are lots of free resources out there that artists willingly share and only ask for attribution (or not if it is CC0). There are also free character creators, basically like a paper-doll thing where you choose a base and then costume with premade pieces.

Or if you want to steal from artists without consent then go for AI <3

It is not needed, but it is pretty much your only chance in court. The whole "mail yourself a copy" thing is a myth and pointless since as you said, just creating the thing is when you technically receive the copyright, not when you publish or register.

For videogames you can register the source code as well as tangible assets such as the artwork, soundtrack, and writing. I think it is similar to music where you can roll it all into one registration (for music, you can register the actual written music as well as a physical recording of it at the same time).

You don't get a copyright for some parts of it such as the name, or the gameplay mechanics.  And yes, this process is probably not done by amateur developers who have some free projects up on itch. But I would think that anyone who is selling their game and netting even a small amount of revenue would be wise to get the registration.

It doesn't matter if the game is "successful." A large company could see potential and steal it anyway. Copyright law deters them from doing that, especially if you register your copyright which only costs $35 in the USA. It is there to protect IP, not revenue. Obviously the corpos abuse it in the opposite direction, by trying to squash anything remotely related, but that's the company misusing their legal team. It's not like copyright law dictates that companies have to go looking for knockoffs to target.

yes, windows 10, it is potato computer I have at work so I'll try again on my pc later <3