itch.io

There's still a slight glow at night - but it's not as much as pure white text. It's still easier to read.

Yes, I don't have the glow effect from very white text any more.  

But will check again when it's night to see if the glow was being created by the font colour - or my lights. 

This article explains the problem some of us have. White text on a darkish grey background would still be okay. Or light grey text on black is also apparently a lot easier to read. 

Visually the page looks stunning and very professional.

I never use dark mode and find it difficult to read white text on black - so didn't read much on the page. But that's a personal preference. 

That looks amazing!

I seldom add music to my videos that I post on Vimeo. 

But I only write casual games - not action. 

In any event, you could download them and add music and sound effects if you wanted to - most of them don't have any. https://vimeo.com/user31381226

(The Trinkette videos are reasonably long. The others are short.)

Here are some examples:

 https://irnest-translations.com/home.html

https://proteanpub.co.za/

https://exclusivegreetingcards.com/

Unity is easy to use once you've figured out how it all works. They have great tutorials to help you learn how to use Unity

You are trying to publish two games with the exact same name. 

You need to change the name of one of the games. Click in the block next to guess-the-my-picture and change the name to something else like  guess-my-picture-game.

No, you won't see me on Steam. I don't think charging developers $100 to list their game is treating anyone with respect.  It keeps the site exclusive to those with money and excludes more than half the world from ever publishing there.

On the other hand, allowing people to publish their games for free is awesome. I'm sorry you had a bad experience - but Itch.io does pay people, they're just careful because of the amount of fraud they have to deal with - and all the different countries and regulations. It's not as simple or easy as it looks. 

Petal Puzzler Shapes consists of 5 petal-shaped puzzle, memory, and logic games. 

1.  Petal Move: Move the petals from one flower to another until each flower has the same shape petals. 
2. Petal Order: Memorise the petals - press GO - recreate them. 
3. Petal Pattern: Fill in the missing petals to complete the pattern.
4.  Petal Swap: Swap 2 petals at a time until each flower has the same shape petals. 
5. Memorise the flowers: Press GO - recreate them. 

The game is for Android devices and played in portrait mode. See more: https://evolutionarygames.itch.io/petal-puzzler-shapes

In defence of Itch.io some time ago when I requested a pay out - itch.io sent me an email to ask me to update my tax information and requested that I reply to their email once it was updated so they could process the payment.  It seems in your case, you didn't receive that email, while they were waiting for you to reply. Based on forum comments that's happening a lot. 

Perhaps itch.io needs an online system where people can enter their ticket numbers and see if there are any follow-up requests.

What games are you trying to download? PC, Android, IOS?  If it's desktop - try using the Itchio.App. 

An anti-virus could block you from downloading - it's a setting. Parental Controls activated on a device could do the same.

Why don't you browse the Assets section here.

You might find everything you need for free - and probably some paid items will be well within your budget.

It will be a problem if you have two live duplicate accounts with the same games.  It will look like something dodgy is going on. 

As hechelion said, it's best to ask support if they can help you recover the account, or remove it, so you can republish the games.

You can use 3D software like Iclone, Daz 3D or Poser (Renderosity.com). 

The software comes with 3D figures that you pose, and then render (create a 2D image from what's on screen). It's very easy to make the character thinner or fatter - it's mostly built into the software and characters.

There's a bit of a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it's much faster than drawing. Also the renders can look photo-realistic and professional.  In most cases, the render (2D image) is your own and you can use it for commercial purposes.  (Exceptions are freebies where the artists specifically exclude commercial use).

I turn the music off on 100% of the games I play. This is true for many players. When I play games I listen to my own music in the background (my CD's that are on a playlist on my PC).  So not having music in your game would save me an extra step - finding a way to turn it off.

 I've always wondered about adding music - the ratio of people like me that turn it off vs the people who actually allow it to play. It would be an interesting statistic. 

It's fine as it is. But if it's a horror game you could put a more sinister image in the mirror and change the white lettering to red.

1.

Itch.io is extremely dev friendly. So much so that the site is packed full of developers.  Problem is - developers need a site that is packed full of gamers actively looking for games and who are willing to play anything - even the 1000th iteration of a flappy-bird clone. Perhaps AI will create these elusive gamers for us.

But seriously: Tell people to use the App to bypass security issues. And even if your game isn't indexed, you can send your friends a link. 

Itch.io is a bit of hit and miss. I've noticed that people offering money for the job get inundated with responses, and people offer to do it for less to get the job. The majority have people contact them on Discord to continue a conversation - but sometimes the conversations from Discord filter back to here. A case was where someone had recruited a team, and offered to pay a graphic artist, but then killed the project. The graphic artist had already done the work...

Payment is between you and the person you're hiring. It's difficult on a platform like Itch.io, because you both have to trust each other with nothing guaranteeing that trust.  If you go to a site like Fiverr or Upwork, you have some protection. 

Where you might have some success is that when you browse the assets, there are developers that have posted free or paid assets but also offer their services for custom jobs. Perhaps search for the kind of asset you want, and look at the pages that come up in the search results.

Cute concept. It would be nice if the Enter You Answer Here block cleared itself after you've submitted the answer.

Yes, I've gotten help from itch support - but they simply handled the query and did not engage in conversation with me about it.  At the time it appeared they had a backlog of about 2 - 3 weeks on support tickets. 

I agree with CurioShade. The purple looks nice and stands out - judging by your Avatar - you agree with us too :-). 

If you selected the block Direct to You - they payments from the customer go directly to your PayPal account. If you're not receiving the money, take it up with PayPal.  It's possible that PayPal is blocking you because your info is not verified, or you have a private and not a business account, or you're in a country they don't currently support. Anyway, PayPal support can tell you if there's a problem.

Itch.io only initiates pay outs for developers who have selected the "Collected by Itchio.io, Paid later" option.  

I disagree with No Time to Play. 

In the past my Tax Interview was out of date - I requested a payout. Support sent me a request to update my tax info and activated the link to do so - and asked me to reply to their email once I had done so. After that, I was paid.

As far as I know, Chromebook can run Android and browser games. It would be unable to run Windows games - it would probably just show you the files.

You'd have to look for games that have .apk as a download. Or stick to games you play in the browser.

If you buy a game, I would recommend you back up the installation files it up on a cloud server - whichever one you use because as itoldyousoso said, they can be removed from Itch.io. If you keep the installation (zip) files, you can reinstall it.  

But even with the backup, the game might stop working after a few years because of updates to Android / Windows etc. So it's not a forever license. There are some games that are regularly updated though - if you click on More information it shows you when the game was published, and when it was last updated. It will give you some idea whether the developer is still supporting the game.

Perhaps if you leave a comment on the actual browser game page, the developers can look into it.

 I don't own anything IOS (it's just very expensive in my country, compared to Android and PC). So none of my browser games are tested on IOS. I would have no idea if they work - and I think that could be true for quite a number of developers. But if I had meaningful feedback, I could go back to the forums of the software I use and ask for help in solving the problem.

The issue isn't copyright. You need a royalty-free license.

There are several artists on itch.io who have released free music packs and give you a license to use it royalty-free in games.  Search itch.io assets with "Royalty Free Music".

Typically the game saves are in a different folder to the game. So while you may delete the game, the game saves still exist on your hard drive.  When you play the game again - it finds those game saves and reuses them. 

For example, when my game starts, it will look for a save file. If the save file exists, it uses it. If there is no save file, it creates one. These files are usually stored in a location like Appdata that is often hidden. That's not too be sinister, it's just the way Windows works.

We're not afraid of risks. Itch.io is full of innovative games. But most games are extremely hard to find on itch.io - so you may not be aware of them.

 I think the biggest problem is that you need a large network. And to get that you either need to be popular in the real world, or have money to promote or boost your posts on social media. In the absence of those two factors, our games languish in obscurity - risks or no risks.  Time is also a factor. I much prefer making a game than spending the hours making content to promote the game on social media - so my store is slanted to more games, fewer players. Someone who spent more time marketing would have fewer games, more players.

It's really a very tiny portion of games that get lucky and get noticed by the right people - odds are probably similar to winning a lottery.

Try TikTok. You can promote your post to get followers, it doesn't cost much. And you'll need to do that at first to gain followers unless your posts capture the imagination. 

Of course there's no guarantee TikTok will show your content to your followers - it's just easier to get numbers, and hopefully some interested followers. I have 400+ followers, but new posts don't get anywhere near that many views.  TikTok never shows me their videos for some of the people I follow.  I have to specifically go to their profiles and view the videos (that happens when you have diverse interests - they tend to show you more of the same).

Are you prices fair? Sure, who's to say they're not.

Will Indie developers pay that? I doubt it, most are on tight budgets (as seen by the quantity of unpaid vs paid requests on itch.io).

Is it market-related? For a commission, perhaps. For an asset pack, no. It's far above the market.  

I can pay $2 - $15 per character that is rigged, comes with animations and is pre setup in Unity at the Unity Asset Store.  You're charging $80 per boss character with fewer animations, and I must set it up myself (which is no big deal for 2D, but it is an extra step).  

Perhaps have a look at Fiverr. You can see what other artists are charging and whether they get much work.

My opinion is:  If you are already charging for the expansion, then you should disclose that the expansion is in development so people know what they are buying. If someone thinks they're  buying a completed game, and some features are missing, or there are bugs, they may ask for their money back, rather than wait for you to fix those issues.

It will probably be more effective to market the game on social media or discord and offer the full game for free in exchange for beta testing and providing feedback on the prototypes.  

• If your game earns anything, it will be shown on your dashboard both under earnings and in the top summary.
•  You only need to complete the Tax Interview once you qualify for a pay out. 
• When you request a pay out, support will most likely activate the function on your dashboard and let you know .
•  You can only request a pay out when the amount you will receive equals $5 or more.
• You'll qualify for a pay out probably once you receive about $10-$12 the first time because itch.io's cut, payment processor, and the one-off tax interview fees are deducted.  
• On future pay outs,  only itch.io's cut and the payment processor fees are deducted.

Candy Crush is a match-3 game. There are thousands if not millions of match-3 games out there. There are also match-2 games. They are all variations of the same theme - and the makers of candy Crush were not the first. I'm not sure where the concept started, but it was around long before mobile games - mobile smart phones - were even a thing.  I think Bejewelled by PopCap was one of the early popular releases in the genre.

If you're making a match-3 game, please go ahead. 

If you're making a candy-themed match 3 game and your graphics look like Candy Crush, then you may need to reconsider and change your graphics to something else. 

The thing with games like Candy Crush on mobile is they capture their audience, and get them to just play their game. They release new levels etc. every few days. They have gimmicks to retain their audience. If you're designing for mobile you may struggle to break into that market.

On the PC casual game side,  where match-3 is very popular, people often release a game say with 60 levels for someone to play (often with a story line). And they will perhaps play the game once or twice and then buy / find the next game. That creates a market for these games. 

Keep in mind Itch.io does not have a ready market of players willing to snap up every game. 

With your early-access scheme, unless you have a strong network or following elsewhere that you can bring over to itch.io - you're unlikely to sell much (if anything at all). This is a reality for many of us developers.  Our games just get lost in the ocean of games. Having a partially made game might make it even more difficult for you to get players' attentions (or money).