itch.io

The correct link to your developer page.

It looks good, but the pictures are dark on a black background. They tend to disappear. I'd suggest you play around with placing borders around the images (your game icons) so they stand out more from the black background. Alternatively, try lighter background colours to contrast with your dark images.

The information you have there is sufficient. If you have your own website, you could add that.

At this point it seems you only have two projects / games, so how you sort them is immaterial.

From starting over, it took me about 48 minute to complete the game. It was a fun challenge. Thank you! 

Interesting twist on the memory game. The time limit does make it challenging.

 I only passed level 5 by constantly restarting the game. 

Yes, if you want to be a game dev, then the experience of doing a store listing and completing a game is valuable - regardless of whether anyone plays it much. 

Thank you for the solution. I deleted my post so you can delete yours so we don't give the answer away.

The game will probably take longer than you said because a few levels are tricky and take time and a few tries to work out. 

The example in question, when you explain it, it's so obvious but I was just thinking about it differently. 

That's what makes the game so much fun. It would be boring if the answer was obvious every time.

I love logic games, and this one is really fun for me. Great game!

Fun game. Very imaginative. Nice progression of difficulty between the modes. I found Challenging mode lived up to its name :-).

It's a novel concept. I had fun playing a few levels. It took me a while to figure out how the ghost aspect and scoring worked. I look forward to the rest of the levels.

Really cute game. The game actually becomes a lot more fun after you unlock the final character because of the pace of the game - but then there are no more characters!

If you play the game full screen, nothing else is shown.

There's a small square in the corner of your game, when you hover your mouse over it, it shows Enter fullscreen. Clicking that takes the banners away. 

Payment Fee = + - 3.99 (payment processor charges)

Tax Clearance Fee (once off) = 3.00 (last time I checked)

Payout Fee = + - 2.84 (payment processor charges)

You should be able to withdraw about $74.17

You can just request a payout. Itch.io will adjust the balance before paying it out (i.e. fixing up the tax withholding). 

Once you receive a payout there is a detailed calculation under Payouts showing how the payout amount was calculated.

It may depend on the developer. Those that collect the money directly typically only use PayPal. 

 I tried buying an asset before using a prepaid credit card (received digitally from the USA). Itch.io wouldn't accept it because it couldn't validate my zip code - it insisted on a 5-digit number. I had entered a 4-digit number from my real address when registering the card (South Africa only has a 4-digit postal code). In the end I couldn't buy anything at Itch.io using the card. 

It's clever. I would suggest though that you change the way you check the words so that duplicate letters can be placed in any position. (If there's an E on the top row and one on the bottom row, I would like to place any E on the top row, not look for the E you specifically allocated to the top row.)

Typically, indie games save to your local device only. These game saves are small though; they probably aren't causing your space issues. Getting an external hard drive might be a good solution for you.

To save games online, we must pay for a server to host the game saves, pay for a login system that is secure (can't be hacked), then code the game saves for the server (probably using PHP).  You also need a secure system to reset a password. Every time you switch devices you'd have to login to that account and download your latest data. Because it saves online, you can never play offline - so it's constantly using data. 

I had personally investigated that process of saving progress online, and it only becomes viable - time and money wise - if you have thousands of players. None of my games have more than a handful of players.

For short web games, which is what I mostly play on Itch.io, stories aren't really necessary.

For longer games, they're often story driven and the story is an integral part of the game.

I agree with hechelion. Give players the option to skip the story.  Those that enjoy stories can read it, those that don't enjoy stories can skip it.

Thing I find annoying - which are personal preferences:

•  Spoken narrative that I can't mute - I will mute the game in those cases.  Because it interferes with my background music. (I turn off game music 100% of the time and listen to my own music.)
• Typewriter text - one letter or word at a time. It's NEVER at the right speed for everyone and more often than not too slow. Let me read at my own speed.

In theory, it sounds like it could be a fun challenge, but logistically, how would the game characters interact with each other? 

For example, let's say, I'm the mayor and raise taxes. Now the baker, fisher, and lumberjack must increase their prices, or reduce their production costs, but they don't have autonomy. I must now go and be each character and adjust all the prices. This now affects what the teacher can afford. That means I have to increase the teacher's salary, but then I might have to raise taxes again to do so...  In the meantime, are people going to leave before I've had a chance to "play them" or are you going to pause all interactions to give the player a chance to make the rounds? And what else must the player do to keep the city going? 

Yes, your icon does look like people.  

My suggestion: Chat to people in a dev log not on your game page.

Use your game page to explain the game and what the player must do - is it first person, do they just randomly click things? Do characters talk to them. What can a player look forward to?

Make a video of the actual game play.  Thirty seconds of a 2-hour game is not going to give anything away.   

Feedback on your game video:

You make the mistake on your video of showing the intro, and game name first. People don't care about that - they want to see the game being played - and that only starts 11 seconds in. My impression was that the game looked like fun, but the game elements were too big and too bright for me (which is a personal preference). 

If you read reviews on young people's games - they like bright lights, flashy things and screen movements. If you read reviews on casual games sites - those players (who are often retired) hate bright lights, fast movement and flashy displays and don't ever shake the screen! I also avoid games with those features because they hurt my eyes and give me vertigo.

I'd suggest you:  

• Upload a browser version (even a demo) so people can try it without having to download it.
• Port the game to mobile and publish it on a major app store. It appears to be the type of game people would play on their mobile devices rather than PC. 
• If you port the game to mobile, you can also submit it to Unity to help with marketing and advice.  

Now that you've explained it, I can see the pattern. I enjoy falling block games, and the three blocks adds a level of challenge.  I only lasted to about a score of 220 which took a few minutes. 

There haven't been any bundles by itch.io that were advertised in the forums for a while (as far as I know). I think they do sometimes collate bundles using Discord. 

When itch.io starts a bundle, an admin or moderator starts a thread, and people can submit their games in the thread.

Itch.io chooses the games from those submitted. The last time they included criteria of what they were looking for - such as games with the most or highest ratings and reviews. 

It seemed somewhat erratic - sometimes it would clear the entire colour-matched block, other times it would ignore the same colours on the side and only clear the 3 blocks in the middle.  

I prefer to use the arrow keys, not A and D (so I can play with my right hand).

It gave the impression that there was a large playing field, but the game play only happened in a small section of the screen which was initially confusing to me.  

Fantastic update - especially the slight speed up. The animated smileys offer a new level of fun and challenge! 

You don't need an app. You simply download the game's .apk file onto your android tablet. Double-click it, and if your tablet can support the game, it will install it.

There are two settings you need that can be found in Settings > Security and privacy (the exact name depends on your phone): 

1. Advanced: Install unknown apps. This setting lets you select the sources from which you can install apps. If you download the app to My Files (or similar) you can give your phone permission to install apps from there. Most phones, the first time you try to install it, will alert you that the source doesn't have permission and open the page from where you can set permission or ask you if you want to set the permission.
2. Google Play and Protect (optional). If the app is not registered with Google Play Store, this feature might flag it as harmful. 

It's better now. It is a fun challenge. I haven't gotten past 30 yet - but will keep trying :-).

It's a fun concept, but it's too fast. For example, the first time I timed out before I could even finish reading the instruction that was on screen. When you start shuffling the colours, it times out before I can even find the colour.

Fun logic game. Well done.

Lacks some instructions - but looks like a fun game.

Cute game!

I have a bunch of them on my page: https://evolutionarygames.itch.io/.  Most of them were designed for mobile devices (more fun playing touchscreen).

But I also have a collection that doesn't include my own games here: https://itch.io/c/1429021/fun-browser-games.   

Thanks. I didn't notice that - worked great when I followed the rules :-)

Also, with the bombs - I expected they would clear part of the board, not they would end the game. Perhaps show a cross over them or some indication that one must avoid them.

Seems cute. At level 3 it stopped recognising matches.

I struggled to figure out how to play because the instructions are lacking. But it's fun once you get the hang of it.

Here are the rest of the instructions:

1. After the vowels are displayed - click the keyboard to fill in the missing words in the order they must appear.

2. When you've filled up the row, click Enter to submit the word and open a new row.

3. If you get an error or make a mistake clear the places words using Back on the keyboard.

It's a very different market. Daz - and I assume you mean Daz Studio or Daz 3D is mostly used to create 2D representations of 3D assets either professionally or as a hobby.

Assets here are meant to be used in games and many of them are low resolution (would look rubbish in a high-quality 2D render) but work fine when your character is running past them in a game.

To import the assets into Daz would be a mission. You'd have to import them multiple times trying different sizes until you got the scale right. Then you'd have to re-apply all the textures manually, and setup the Iray settings (e.g. if you wanted something metallic). The assets would also not be rigged in Daz - i.e. there would be no animation of movement of limbs. You would basically have a static prop - that's all.

Pricing: Daz does not operate a free-market system. They strictly control the prices to cover their overheads, marketing, price of testing and packaging the product, and paying their published artists. They do not accept products unless they feel they will recover all their costs from the products. 

In contrast, Itch.io accepts everyone and everything (subject to certain payment and legal restrictions). They have no physical quality control (in terms of checking the actual product) and allows users to charge what they want. Most users have to do their own marketing - there isn't a ready audience because of over-supply.

Since you mentioned dogs, I had a look at 3d dogs here and noticed a pack that has a reverse sale (more expensive than usual). Comparing those dogs to ones you'd buy at Daz:

1. The ears, mouths, and eyes can't move.
2. The bodies are a single colour and some look like plastic. You might not be able to easily retexture it to look furry because it will depend on how the dog is UV mapped.
3. Their feet are not defined - no toes or nails.
4. You would have to rig them yourself to get any animation or expression outside of blender.
5. But if you need a dog for a 3D game - they're awesome. 

In contrast at Daz:

1. The eyes can move.
2. The textures look soft and furry.
3. The dogs are animated - mouths can open, eyes and ears can move, they can have expressions.
4.  Their feet are defined with toes and toenails.
5. They will work out the box in Daz - or you get your money back.
6. They probably won't work well in 3D games - too high resolution. But would make stunning 2D renders that can be used in games.

Also be aware that some assets are packaged for specific game development packages. For example, an asset pack packaged for Unity could probably be imported into Daz but you would need to first import them into Unity to "unpack" the assets, and then find them on your hard drive, and reimport them into Daz.

I had no idea someone would still have a working Commodore 64 - I used one last when they came out!

No. 

(If you're the only one asking - it's probably something you're doing, and not something itch.io is doing.) 

Probably best to ask in the comments of the visual novel. 

For example, the save might have been designed with Windows features, which might not work on Apple or Android devices. You one device might have certain settings that block the visual novel from writing to the device. 

I had a pdf book on here for a while - years ago. If I remember correctly, it probably had less than 10 views and definitely zero downloads. 

Unless it's adult content and illustrated you're unlikely to find an audience for it here (i.e. it must be a visual novel which is classified as a game - even when most of them have no interaction whatsoever). 

And although visual novels were among the top downloads in the early days of itch.io, I think that was more by accident than by design: It's on the popular list so you download it - see it's rubbish - delete it after a minute or two - but you had downloaded it - so that download makes it even more popular...

Try sites like Smashwords and draft2digital (the latter merged with the former).

Great game! I always kick myself for using a calculator to do maths I can actually do in my head. This game is good practise.

At the end of each level it shows Crear.  Did you perhaps mean Clear? 

I tried the update. I'm getting stuck on Level 11. But the buttons are missing. I must now play the game full screen - and when I press Escape to go to a smaller screen it just restarts the level, and I can only see half the screen.  (Level 11 I run out of time - so I don't know if it's passable or not).

Something to check: 

Sometimes when you watch videos from certain sites they require "codex" to be installed supposedly to decode the video. That so-called codex is actually just a script that will show you ads everywhere you go on the internet - no matter the site - you would need to find the installed codex and delete it (which will unfortunately, also disable the video.)  The same might apply to any software you recently installed - the software might have installed adware.

In these cases, the sites (like itch.io) earn no revenue and have no control over the ads - the scammers who got you to install the codex are the ones making money.