itch.io

I've got games on one account with around a hundred or so plays on a regular basis and I don't do much with it tbh....

But I'll give one general observation:

Think about it from the view of someone who doesn't know anything about anything you do. How can you reach a stranger on the internet? How can you advertise to them that makes them interested in taking some time?

Now putting myself in these shoes. Itch in of itself is pretty bad to advertise on. So you can try social media. But you also need a following on there too. You have to be consistent and regular with creating and designing what it is that you do. An active presence generates clicks generates interest generates plays. It also helps if it has additional production behind it. The majority of popular games have had at least a small handful of people creating it.

It also helps to make games accessible. My own game I'm working on isn't intended to be played in the browser, but I also know that most people  would sooner click a browser game since it's easier to just load up and start than they would download a game and try to launch it that way.

Also, as unfortunate as it is, an unfinished game is not going to be as popular as a finished one. A fully fleshed out demo with good advertisement and work put into it will reach far more people. 

Taking from this account and the one game I'm working on when it comes to unfinished games: 

My own game isn't nearly as complex, and I'm estimating 8 months before I finish my *demo* for it. That is, the entire first zone fully fleshed out and in a state that I consider finished and playable. I'm not even thinking about advertising this to many other people until it reaches this state. The only people I show it off to are those that I'm offering could aid me in it's development.

My mind after the full demo? 

That goes to paying other artists/musicians for a license to use their content for my game and serve as placeholders and seeing if it builds any kind of following before even thinking about trying to make any money off it. Not even promising anyone that helps my game "This will make it big." But "Here's $100 to help me make some assets."

It kind of depends what you're going for.

You have people say "Progression" (XP & Leveling) but there are games that barely use that at all. 

Take Undertale/Deltarune for instance. By all means the biggest thing Deltarune has going for it number wise, if we're talking pacifist, is recruitment, and who knows what that even does. That's not to say it's wrong, because there are many games that utilize progression with stat gains to it's fullest, like idle games.

Story is also good, but also not necessary. It also kinda depends on the story itself. Most people probably don't even pay attention to Skyrim's overworld story, although there are some interesting plots within the world itself that draw interest.

Graphics and music also make or break games in different aspects. Not that a game has to be triple A in either, but we're beyond the days of blocky characters. Minecraft, by all means has terrible graphics, but it makes up for it in many other different ways and the blocky graphics serve a purpose.

I don't think there's a truly 'right' or 'wrong' answer, it depends on what the person enjoys. It also kinda depends on what the creator is most skilled at, because it shows in the design of the work.

It also is vital that, if you don't do one thing (IE: Not going to do Story) that your game utilizes its strengths in the other categories to its fullest.

I've been developing my game and I'm working on utilizing what I know best and that's story writing. Not just with the overworld, but the literal characters themselves, including enemies once I get to adding them, since I know my artwork and music is generally quite horrid.

Honestly reminds me of the days that these websites would have filters for specific words or combination of words and it was so hilariously busted. People that wanted to get specific words across just....would bypass the filter, and others that didn't realize there was a filter would find themselves with a warning or the ilk.

And your options are limited when it comes to reports. I've been on places where reports do nothing and also the same time where reports just blanket ban the account even if the reports are all fake.

For...what? Gamemaker studio?

Cause it depends on the warnings?

There are warnings from "This will be depreciated" from "This function isn't called properly" or "You're only using this variable once" etc...many of them can be ignored, but others are worth looking at.

But without many other details it's like asking "There are a bunch of warning lights. Should I ignore them?" And I don't think there's ever a time when someone says "Yeah just ignore the flashing lights and proceed."

As another person has said, the biggest thing I hated with RPG Maker was it's limitations.

If you want a combat system outside of turn based combat, you're kinda SOL.

Want to create some minigames? Better turn that creativity dial to 12 otherwise you're not getting it. Even then, you're limited with movement.

There's also overworld puzzles that are a pain when it comes to switches. RPG Maker tries local switches, but this proves more cumbersome than not.

It's simplistic in nature which makes it much easier to code than many other game engines that require a lot of time and patience to figure out. (3D drawing, anyone?) but you're going to struggle to create anything more advanced than what winds up becoming a generic RPG because anything creative is *SUCH* a pain to put in that you'd be better off using another engine.

Let's take you back to the old days of the apple store. You had several gems like Plants VS Zombies, bejeweled, fruit ninja, etc. These were not made with AI.

Now the apple store is, by and large, full of slop. I haven't used it in months granted solely because of that. There's way too many things placed on it in a sheer attempt to make a buck and people use AI to try to chase the next big algorithm.

If you want to state that you need to use AI, you can. By all means, you're still allowed to.

But a lot of people develop and create things with time and patience. It's not even just the copyright issues of AI that makes people irritated.

It's the fact that the majority of AI work is half-assed slop shot out in an attempt to make a quick buck and bury games that people put literal years of effort in.

You are often your best critic when it comes to designing your games. Playing your own game makes you realize what feels right and wrong and what adjustments feel off.

If you want feedback from others though, it helps to make your game as accessible as possible. Think about it from an outside perspective. 

Example: Why would I, a random nobody, want to play your game? Why would I want to take it a step farther and provide feedback for it? What would make it easiest for random people like me to play your game? Does it *have* to be downloaded? Can I make adjustments to the game to make it playable in the browser? Sharing it with the right communities?

Kinda depends. I've made game jam games you can complete in like 10. Gravity Control takes maybe an hour? Give or take I never really speedran it.

My newest game I'm putting more time in I intend to take maybe 6-7 hours in total but it's years from completion.

The length of the game doesn't really matter though so much as the content of the game itself. You also have to account for people that just skip things, those that go into everything, etc....

The AI hate comes from fear of misuse and replacement

The AI hate comes from several different levels.  I've used AI but I find there's a difference in how you can use it VS how people are using it. 

The example of using it as an aid helps, because I sometimes use it for aid too in more complex situations. Even then, it often doesn't know what it's doing. When I use it, I have a general idea about what I'm working with, realize what it said is broken, and I'll have to google it since the AI didn't know.

And the solution is like from a 5 year old reddit thread account from a deleted user. The joys of software programming, amirite?

But, in the case of a lot of AI here, people refer to the artwork it produces. 

I find the artwork AI makes is often lacking in any real sort of 'life' or 'meaning' and this is before I even know it's AI. I can look at an image and I know something is off 9/10 times...other times...

I mean I'll speak from experience. As I'm trying to design a long term RPG.

My friend is showing me artwork of one of my characters "Cookie", and I appreciate his help. At the same time, I can tell the images he's showing me are AI and that none of them would ever realistically work for me. The artwork is far from what I would want, and the stylization is so strongly AI that it's off putting. I have a very strong feeling that, no matter how much I prompt the AI, I will never get a "Cookie" that I like. the Cookie that was made several years ago by someone when this was an undetermined RPG feels much more authentic than any of the AI artwork he offered.

I've developed a few games under different websites and the such. What I can tell you from my experience as far as getting people to play it...

Game Jams was one way I got people to play my games and give feedback regarding the game in question. Moreover, this attracts people to your page in general to check out other games if the one developed for a game jam is particularly good.

Also a playable demo in browser would make a world of difference. The prototype I recently released for example is meant for windows but I know people wouldn't want to download it, so I rescaled the assets and put up a web version. It doesn't look the best, but it works.

Also time to develop does, unfortunately, not matter when it comes to a game. One game I built took maybe 1 year and gets no views and no plays despite how much work I put into it. 

Compare this to another game I had on kongregate I built in a month that had a bug that trivialized the difficulty with music that was so horrible I encouraged people to use the music disable button that became briefly popular. That said I have fun when designing it.

I also have a small community outside of game development. One of my accounts (I develop a variety of games and different accounts for different kinds of games and 0 interaction between them) gets a few hundred plays per day and I genuinely can't explain why that is because I don't advertise at all on that account outside of "Here's a game I made." Post.

The TLDR of game design is though is you really can't expect your game to become popular. For every indie game that becomes a massive hit, there's thousands of games that never make it.

If it does become popular, great! But developing is for you first and foremost for the fun and experience.