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Browser Game VS Download Game Submissions

A topic by Melodicfish created Jan 22, 2020 Views: 508 Replies: 25

Viewing posts 1 to 13

MelodicfishSubmitted4 years ago(+1)(-100)

Hello everyone,

This was my first game jam and I have learned a lot about game development in this process. It has been a lot of fun playing and rating everyone's projects and seeing how many creative people that are here participating.

I personally do not have a mountain of ratings like others but out of the 369 cool dev's here (not sure why the submissions have increased from 367 but that's another topic) I've had 24 Super Epic Cool Best Devs Ever rate my game so far. Cough cough , if you want to be one of them rate my game https://melodicfish.itch.io/rugburn Shameless plug out of the way on to the topic.

I have noticed a significant gap in the rating's when comparing browser game's vs Downloads. I did a browser game as to me I thought the likely hood of people taking the time to rate my game after having to first download, extract unknown material, play then comeback and rate to be unrealistic. The ratings numbers seem to reflect my thoughts. So I wonder what you guys think about this topic, if you did post a download only game, why ? As this is my first game jam I am not familiar with the preferences of people in this regard only my own so I'd love to hear your thoughts !

Please note: I am sure there are many DL only games that have a lot of ratings but I do see a significant number of good games with low ratings that are DL only. Just thought I'd bring up the topic and see what others perspectives are on it....also plug my game ha!

-Melodicfish

LlamaMoon GamesSubmitted4 years ago

To be honest, i only play browser games on the jam, unless they rated mine then i will play it. I just feel like UUUH i can't be bothered to download it. If its on the browser, its much easier

MelodicfishSubmitted4 years ago

I am in your camp I Didn't go out of my way to player DL games, However I do feel bad about it, but there are so many games to play so I have put a priority on playing browser first and if they have played my game I will dl aswell.

Leonardo FragaSubmitted4 years ago

I made a download only game. But I just though that people wouldn't care.

I mean, come on, I feel like it's just wrong not play a game that people put some much effort on it, because you need to download and extract...

I honestly give 0 attention if the game is browser or download, and I think everyone should too.

I'm not kinda sad imagining people not testing my game only because they need to download =/ (I've download so many cames so far... rated and commented in each and everyone of them).

This kinda of barrier will soon make the standard to make browser games only, witch is a "limitaion" that I don't particularly like.

I'm trying RugBurn right now, check it out Bugoss Fight if you don't mind downloading it

https://itch.io/jam/wowie-jam-2/rate/552985

MelodicfishSubmitted4 years ago(+1)

Thank's for your reply! I get that perspective as well. I however, I will admit to you I saw your screen shots and said that game looks great then when I got to the page I saw DL and was like I put it on the list for later. I was curious if others were like me (and the numbers seem to suggest). There are a lot of games I want to play here and unfortunately with limited time convenience has played a major roll! I will give your game a try now, especially because you have rated mine! Thanks for your feedback.

Federico CalcheraSubmitted4 years ago (2 edits) (+1)

I totally understand your point of view, but to me is this is fairly subjectively coming from the eyes of a dev.

But in my opinion from the point of view of a person that just wants to play games, the convenience will always win (as long as quality is on par). Downloading just takes so many more steps: downloading, searching the folder it's saved to, clicking on the game, unziping, clicking on the unzipped folder, searching the right exe and then uninstalling after playing.

If you have read about UX you know that keeping the amount the user needs to click and wait to get to the desired result to a minimum is very important.

Leonardo FragaSubmitted4 years ago(+1)

I know and I agree.

But in the case of the JAM, I'm assuming we're all devs here, gathering together to make games and play each other games.

It's definitely easier to play browser games, but I think we should make the extra afford in the case of the JAM. I didn't quite though about it, and I feel that my game could have got more plays if it was on browser. Didn't expected to be such a huge wall =/

MelodicfishSubmitted4 years ago (2 edits) (+1)

This is why I made this post because I have been playing some games in need of ratings and well most are DL games from my in-depth and thorough analysis 🧐( glancing at the list).

Leonardo FragaSubmitted4 years ago(+2)

Nice, thanks for doing this, I'll do the same... Take some games in the "Least Rated" list \o/

Federico CalcheraSubmitted4 years ago

I test both but very much prefer when it's a browser game. It's just a much easier process.

I would definitly emcourage everyone to do a browser builds if possible. But I know that in certain engines like Unity it's a bit of a hassle to get webGL builds working properly.

MelodicfishSubmitted4 years ago(+2)

I much prefer the WebGl projects, I can test and rate much much faster that way. However of the games I did test I played the DL's longer most likely because of the time investment of downloading them haha. Thanks for your input!

DezueSubmitted4 years ago(+1)

For me, the question is 'How convenient do I want to make it for the player to test out my little game?'.
And a browser build is the best answer to that question ;)

MelodicfishSubmitted4 years ago(+1)

I think that is a excellent point Dezue

nurbrunSubmitted4 years ago

I've been playing both, but browser is easier because i'm on a mac and some download only games are inaccessible to me (which is a bummer, because they look really cool!)

if folx make it download only, i'm cool with that, but if it's not too difficult please include a mac option for us mac-bound folx (:

DefineDoddySubmitted4 years ago(-1)

It's always you being attacked by yet another virus. If only there was a way to control it...

In this fun, yet simple game, you play as a computer virus that tries to destroy every last PC on the planet. The only problem is: some people are smart, and have installed an antivirus software. However, it's your job to make sure that the bugs don't get caught and destroyed. Can you do it? If so, try and beat your best time and comment it in the comments section of the game!

This game had a lot of effort gone into it and I would greatly appreciate it if you were to rate it. Thank you :)

https://itch.io/jam/wowie-jam-2/rate/553008

lenscasSubmitted4 years ago(+2)

I made a browser game for one simple reason: I can't build and test on windows or mac (I'm using Linux). And though I can put effort into setting up a build system for windows the fact that I still can't test it afterwards just makes it too much of a risk.

This also means that I am pretty much limited to testing browser games, and the same is true for any other Linux users. I'm currently going through all the games that are labeled as having a Linux version though to help offset it a bit. However, while doing so I discovered that there are quite a few games that just aren't well packaged for Linux.

Some downloads are labeled for both Windows and Linux, but only contain a .exe
Some are packaged inside a .rar file. (Means that I can't use my normal archiving software)
There was one game that had the name of its binary start with a dot (.). Meaning it was hidden, it also was packaged inside a rar file so I actually ended up wasting quite a bit of time trying to figure out why I was missing files.

I'm guessing that I'm not the only Linux user out there who experiences these issues, and looking at the amount of mac games I'm guessing that their experience isn't much better. So I totally get it if they just stop caring about downloads and play browser games instead.

JirushiSubmitted4 years ago

Made the mistake of using a tool that would lock me into publishing the game as download-only.

MelodicfishSubmitted4 years ago

that sucks sorry to hear that! I'll make sure to give your project a try

JirushiSubmitted4 years ago

Thanks so much! I'll try yours too then

Leonardo FragaSubmitted4 years ago

Well, after seeing most of the opinions here, I made a BROWSER VERSION of Bugoss Fight ( https://itch.io/jam/wowie-jam-2/rate/552985 )

It's a bit laggy, I really wish people would play fullscreen with no lag, but people may also like it in the browser. At least some will at least try it at the browser :D

Federico CalcheraSubmitted4 years ago(+1)

I had played it before, but tried the browser aswell, runs smoothly for me.

MelodicfishSubmitted4 years ago(+1)

Awesome! I will check out the browser version let you know how it runs for me!

OgelGamesSubmitted4 years ago

I generally prefer native games myself, but I don't really care as long as it plays properly.

In fact that was the main reason I didn't make a browser version of my game, as there were a few things that needed changing to get it to work correctly... :(

There will be a browser version when I update it after the jam, but for now it's windows only: https://ogelgames.itch.io/ant-apocalypse

MelodicfishSubmitted4 years ago

I'll give it a try soon.! Yeah there are definitely some quality compromises one must make when doing browser only. For a jam it seems like browser games with a better choice in terms of getting plays

River Forge GamesSubmitted4 years ago

Why not both?

In a game jam game, particularly one with ratings that are not from a panel of judges, you want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to play your game the way they want to.

For Glitcheon (https://river-forge-games.itch.io/glitcheon) we have had almost 800 browser plays, and 40 downloads (for windows which has been available since submission).

By our specific case you can see that the browser build is most valuable, while there is still some value in releasing it for download as well.

In most cases if you've made your game WebGL compatible you won't have much if any problems porting to windows, linux, and mac.

DefineDoddySubmitted4 years ago

It's always you being attacked by yet another virus. If only there was a way to control it...

This game had a lot of effort gone into it and I would greatly appreciate it if you were to rate it. Thank you :)

https://itch.io/jam/wowie-jam-2/rate/553008