itch.io

Maybe if you would not make suspicious sales, it would help your indexing. You are currently delisted for one reason or another. 

Don't you see, where the views come from in the analytics? Some of my views come from actual search engines.

If that was meant as a reply to the user style solution, it does remove the noise. What it cannot remove is topics, either made on forum or on game pages that do not have comment mode but topic mode. It will also not remove replies on comment mode pages, since those are apparantly not children of the comment. It will however hide all the noise postings, since that is what the style tries to match by.

I fully agree that blocking by making it stand out is rather moot. I puts attention to the thing you want to ignore.

It is a systematic problem

R-87841 R-87648

The systematic problem continues. I do not know how your system works, but I do see that it is not effective.

R-85035 might also be because of the same systematic problem.

Claiming items should be for an item that was on a 100% sale. How would it be any different from that very same item, if you had purchased it for full price?

Our stance is still that if you manually navigate to a page of a certain kind of content, then you will see that content.

My stance is, that options in settings should work as advertised.

• Show content marked as adult in search & browse

You made a workaround. But at least removing the tags from suggestion box if not logged in and having setting enabled is a tad more consistent. 

So maybe adjust that setting's wording so people will not be surprised. A (unless selecting "adult" tags) disclaimer or something like that.

Are these stats bad or good?

Doing no marketing and being practically unknown that would be good.

Having lots of followers and invested a bunch in marketing, that would be bad.

You seem to have 11 projects. I believe you are most qualified to answer such a question for anyone interested. Is this normal for your games or noteworthy worse or better and hence bad or good?

I would assume that browser games have better numbers in general, but that is speculation.

That might be a stupid question, but don't you have to upload the background as, well, as the background image anways to have them displayed as a background?

You sure you were granted css rights?

All the css sites I saw so far did all sorts of shenanigans to the site, not benefiting the page in any way, but distracting and irritate me. Why itch even allows such things is beyond me.

There is not really multi language support on itch. Parts of the page can be set to another language, but not the projects. Maybe they will add this in the future, but currently, people just put their multi language description on the same page. Or more often, the description is in English and the game is marked as having several languages. There is also the issue of tags.

Pragmatically, people that do not understand english can just translate the page with their browser on the fly.

Not to my observation and knowledge.

What would even be the purpose of page 2? You can have devlogs as subpages of your project, but those are not really things people will read regularly when reading your project description. Why would they visit a page 2? If you want to do an html game, that will happen inside the game area.

Attached projects, subprojects or as some would call it: DLC, would be a handy feature. The current methods to offer such are lacking. On page it is hard to understand and tricky. Best workaround is a new project and to offer that as a bundle with the main project. And I might misremember, but there might be conditional projects mentioned somewhere, but I have never seen such, or I mistake this feature for another one or from another site.

Is there a way to block those placeholders?

Sure. Put the code below in a user style addon like Stylus.

 Anything you can identify by an identifier can be modified by your browser. You just need to know how to identify it. And it will not block replies on game pages, since those are not children of posts. It will also not block topics, but apparantly itch does not block topics either. Just the posting inside the topic.

This was tested for like a whole two minutes. (Personally I do not block people. I can use my scrollwheel just fine. But for some cases it sure would be helpful for out of sight, out of mind blocking).

@-moz-document domain("itch.io") {
div.post_grid:has(div.post_content > div.post_body.user_formatted > details.toggle_post_body) {
    display: none;
}
div.post_grid:has(div.post_header > span.post_author > span.name_placeholder) {
    display: none;
}
}

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip

After reading that, some things in this thread will make more sense, I guess ;-)

I did not understand grammatically, what you wrote.

I am not sure if I understand your English.

execute in software is the meaning of running or starting or computing the software. The files themselves that are started are called executeables. Contrary to data files. Those are not executed, but being read and operated on by those executeables.

But all this has nothing to do with the price of a game. You pay for the project. Or not. All files are available that the page tells you that will be available when either paying or going to the download page of a free/pay what you want game. Of course you should download the versions that have the icon of your operating system. And read the text too, sometimes that clarifys what is what.

Yes. I am talking about the project page. There is two kinds of deleting and both are not good. The first is deletion and creating a new project with same url. That one gets a new id. The second is as the first, but you do not delete, but make it unavailable and create a new url. Also gives a new id, but breaks bookmarks and links as well. If you see version numbering in url, that is often an indicator that the dev engages in this activity.

It gets even more awful, if there is payment active, since itch and the dev are supposed to keep the files available.

I had to look that one up. It even has a wikipedia entry. It is a bad term. Because it is descriptive, and could be used and understood so, but apparantly people use it to mean shovelware.

Initially I thought this is about literally flipping assets instead of buying them.  But those assets stores are meant to be used. Why should anyone complain about them being used.

But releasing one game can not be "assets flipping", even if only stock assets were used. So yeah, the "critique" was misnomed. Should have said, boring, only stock assets. Not the term assets flipping.

It is unlikely that the zip file is the correct file. Iirc those fire tablets run android and are somewhat restricted. You need to find out if and how you can sideload apk files on that device and retrieve such an apk. Just make sure the source is trust worthy ( hosted on itch is not trustworthy in itself).

If this is some emulator thing, there are some games that can run in some kind of emulator. I have seen games here, where the developer does not create a separate apk file, but users managed to get the game running. I think it is for rpg maker games.

There is also this option in projects: Hide this file and prevent it from being downloaded

But you are talking about jam submissions I guess, so maybe those are different again. Or maybe not. For "archive" versions, I often see projects with older file versions still available.

Why he's on me?

That is not so. There are thousands of malware uploaded to itch. Your case is not anything special. I hope most of them were taken down. But there is basically not single week you will not find malware if you keep your eyes open. I spoke from experience, when I told you in the other thread, that this will happen or already has happened. Some mistake it for software piracy. Those exist too, but usually it is malware. 

That psa about the discord scams is not outdated. It is still ongoing. The criminals try different variations and why spam people on discord where they are constantly warned not to trust people, if they simply can upload in the open and wait for unsuspecting users to download. 

Why are you worried. It is not you that is getting hacked right and left. Itch should be ashamed. The reaction time to reports is very bad. You did report it, did ya. The scam is still up and your post ist 3 hours old. The fake game is not even quarantined. Anyone getting a direct link to this has no reason to be suspicous. The scam account is still indexed, but some games on it might not.

https://itch.io/t/3512426/itch-is-not-a-safe-place-do-not-download-things

https://itch.io/t/1659440/psa-beware-the-try-my-game-scam

Please.

Unless you have a very, very good reason to do so. Your game will be removed from all collections it is on. Ratings will not carry over and so on. Even if you use the same url.

Also, you might lose your uploading privileges and or might get delisted, as it can be seen as spamming. It probably is spamming in some cases.

And please think really hard, before you upload a new version as a new project. If you see a need to do that, look again. There are other ways to preserve versions of a game and people expect updates to projects - within the project, not as a new project. And people not following you, but having the game on collection or bookmark will never notice that you "updated". Of course such "updates" can also not be installed by the itch app. And who knows what the app does with deleted games. Probably nothing, since they got deleted. Games are not identified by their url, but by an id.

You need to scroll down to Directory on the page, in the footer. https://itch.io/directory

In theory, the status released would denote a game that is "finished" and ready to be deployed to customers. But in practical terms, many devs take this to mean "published" and they "release" even their very first draft to public eyes. Maybe it is a language thing. And others forget to change status from in development to released. And just because something is released does not mean, development is finished. That is not even accurate for AAA games, they often "release" unfinished games that are barely playable.

In my book, you should be able to play a game from start to finish with all major intended features to quailfy for released status. But there is no enforcement for any of those release status terms.

This could be something you suggest

It is all there, but this is not enforced or curated and we are talking about mostly amateur developers and small time indie deves here. You will find finished games that have status in development. And released games that get content updates. To make it more complicated, in the hover screenshots, in development for paid games is called early access.

When is a game finished? There is not even an agreed upon version numbering. There are devs that use 1.03 version for unfinished games that are less finished than dev's games that use 0.1.3

One can guess from the description, but searching from the outside is unreliable.

This might not look and read as you imagine it. But here, try it out. Either copy paste the middle in console of your browser or put the whole thing as the url of a bookmark and activate the bookmark on a page with a thread.

This is not recursive for replies, but you do not read lines from bottom to top either. And of course you still need to go to the last page of a lengthy thread.

javascript: (() => {
    const c = document.querySelector('.community_post_list_widget'); if (c) {
        [...c.children].forEach(n => c.prepend(n));
    };
})();

--

Or simpler yet. Use a style addon like Stylus and apply for itch.io. You can probaly use that for replies somehow to reverse them too, if you use the proper selectors.

.community_post_list_widget {
    display: flex;
    flex-direction: column-reverse;
}

that one also has some kind of upvoting mechanism on top of being ordered by newest first

Go to page 2 and higher, to see the lessening effect of the upvotes. I only cited that board, because the thread you posted was a thread about games. The board you posted this question, https://itch.io/board/580406/ideas-feedback is sorted by date of last post. Newest on top.

There is this setting in itch settings 

• Use a dark theme where available

You usually can configure extensions where they should run and what they should do.

But even when on, it is curious, how or why it cut the elements in half. I am currently working on an extension dealing with those game cells, and for them to be cut in half, there would have to have been things done to their parent element. The side scrolling collection view. That is wy I asked if itch.io looks normal to you, since there are also side scrolling elements.

You are aware of the nature of your own game, are you? Not even you could publish it on google play.

Someone could steal your stuff an publish it on Steam maybe. Or other platforms that allow it. But that is the same for every game. Respectable platforms will remove plagiarisms and copyright violations and the like. Even Itch. Though on itch it usually is malware and not trying to actually sell the copied game.

I think there is a sweet spot for the criminals. A game popular enough to copy and sell it, but not popular enough that it gets banned immediatly. Games in the nieche you make barely ever reach that sweet spot, let alone overcome it. Not only is it adult, but also ai. And it is not finished. There are not many places for such games. Actually, I am not even aware of any place except itch. One might count patreon and the like, but those have no game catalogue and library. There is some small publishers that do direct marketing and have their own shop system.

Ordering inside a thread is oldest to newest and this is so on all forums I know of.

What you refer to is a thread. Not a board.

--

So what you actually talk about, you would like to see this tread made into a board. Like that one for example.

https://itch.io/board/10022/release-announcements

Although that one also has some kind of upvoting mechanism on top of being ordered by newest first.

I do not know how the itch.io staff responds to clear license violations

Should you see such a clear violation, report it as a tos violoation. Of course it should be really clear and not guesswork. For your stuff you know what licenses apply. For stuff of other people you might be mistaken and then there is all those fair use things where it seems someone might be in violation of some things, but also might not be.

https://itch.io/docs/legal/terms#4-publisher-content

Publishers affirm, represent, and warrant that they own or have the rights, licenses, permissions and consents necessary to publish, duplicate, and distribute the submitted content.

This boils down to what game mechanic you want to implement. Games, gaming, playing a game is about rules and optimisation.

 Oh sure, there are other things that are also called "games", but are not games according to the gaming definition but according to other criteria, like having a non work fun experience. Kinetic visual novels are not games just like snakes and ladders is not a game. You have zero control over the outcome, you cannot "game".

what goes into the thought of how easy it is to allow a player to access their tools

Not much in most cases, I would guess. Monkey see, monkey do. I believe that games can be made better if there is actual thought put into this. What is the game about? Is it about the boss fights, the story, multiplayer aspects, manual dexterity, puzzle solving, etc?

If your game is about resource management, obviously this part of the game should have a lot of focus and be made well.

For other games, resoucre management is often just a thing of quality of life and the developer either not putting development time nor thought there. If your fights are made in a way, that you can power through them, if you just had enough health potions, those fights are badly designed.

Unless of course you plan your resource management to be part of the fight. Rogue like deck builder games come to mind.

But also, if you want to have outside combat resource management. You need to earn the gold for those potions in the first place. If that is hard to do, that is your limitation. If it is too easy, you can limit the inventory. You might want to bring some plausibility and immersion into this, like having weight or carry limits. But that can also just lead to players loading a save game and taking the right equipment with them.

So, as I said, it depends on what parts of the game you want to be gameable and be part of the game mechanics.

Newest comments are on top. Is your itch comment section ordered differently?

What, how, huh? 

What happens if you click on the permalink?

Is the bottom scroll bar visible?

Do you have any style addons active that might change appearances?

What happens if you change the zoom level on your browser?

Does itch.io page look normal to you? (The top landing page, no subsections)

How do profiles look to you? And creator pages that feature collections?

What I would like is that the users who bought my game these days, even if it was a free offer, can freely obtain the game even when I put it at €5 (for example)

That is how it works. https://itch.io/docs/creators/pricing#pricing-options

They have to actually pay you, not merely download it for free. Downloaded for free games do not appear here https://itch.io/my-purchases

DRM only hurts legitimate users of a product. Non legitimate users do not care.

Purchases are project based, not file based. If I give you money, I own access to your project, even if you later set a minimum price. It is the same with a sale. If you have a paid game with 20 $ price and make a sale for 2 $, the people that paid 2 $ still have access, if the sale is over.

If you want file based selling for an ongoin development project you should rethink your approach. What you sell is an early access game in beta or probabla alpha or pre-alpha stage. People excpect updates and the finished product when they buy.

Itch should add some ongoing support possibility, instead of driving people to subscribestar or patreon and all the other less known platforms that can do that.

Unfortunately, itch has something called individually priced files. It creates a lot of confusion and harm. It is not as the name says individually priced files, but a donation level. A level you cannot increase! You can set this level to give access to files based on that level. But as long as itch does not fix this feature, it should not be used. People cannot increase their level. They would have to buy again.

People abuse this feature to appear in free games, but still have a sale price. They should just make two projects, one free, one paid. Or include a public version as a demo in their paid game.

Not in general. I understand the reasoning behind the filter option, but it is not a good design choice to take control away. It supposedly is to suppress complaints from developers not finding their own game.

Does it work? Apparantly not well, as I see complaint threads despite this. People just open an anyonymous window for testing and still can't find their games...

This might be so. But this would also be quite unfair to the developers that simply update their games regularly without logging about it - if this were the only way to have an update be considered a major update. Even more so as devlogs have their own place to shine and be found, regardless if there is any associated refreshment of the recent status.

Yes, the itch app uses some butler process to communicate with itch.

Please ignore any such advice to deactivate protection software. The official itch app is an app from an official source made by people that mostly know what they do. They would not create a thing that gets blocked by common antivirus, especially not the one distributed by the operating system. But there are "uncommon" antivirus that are acting aggressivly. If you would have one of those, some whitelisting might help. Since the itch app and the butler would seem from the outside much like malicious software that is capable of downloading and executing additional software - which in a way is precisly what it does. It is a chromium browser at core iirc and than there is this butler process.

Itch default install location for your games is in appdata. Of all places. Maybe this is what is also causing trouble.

Oh, and please, please do not white list the games installed by itch. I am serious. The itch app itself is of course no malware. But there is a ton of malware on itch and they take their time to remove it, even if it is reported. Also, many are not reported for months. I cannot stress this enough. Do not trust things, just because they are hosted on itch. Be suspicous. The criminals try their very best to circumvent any automated scans, even on multiple antivirus scanners and there is no curation process to go through to upload stuff. Sorry to dwell on this so long, as it has little to do with your problem and is meant for people landing here by searching the forum.

If you managed to get it installed, you should use the sandbox mode it provides. This gives a little bit of security, as it hinders malware from stealing your session cookie and taking your account away. Not even 2fa will protect you against that.

https://itch.io/games/top-rated/free/platform-windows

If you prefer a specific genre or topic, select a tag or genre to that. Some tags are genres.

I am not aware that any games are specifically friendly to people new to gaming. There might be some technicalities, like indie developers not heeding to any standards of quality of life and introduction of controls.

It is like food. What is beginner's food? Hmm. Ok. There is milk and porridge. So what is the porridge of gaming?

Never ever turn off your protection software. Especially if someone told you to. In the rare instance that you do have to "allow" a file you know for sure gives a false alarm, you can tell the scanner to ignore that file. Do not deactivate it wholesale.

Butler is the helper application used by the itch app in background. And also to upload games.

You said you have trouble downloading games. So why do you refer to butler specifically? You should not even see any butler app, unless you look at the processes created. Also, what does your browser cache have to do with this? The itch app is a browser all by itself. Once you have downloaded the itch app installation file, your browser has nothing to do with all this.

And what do you mean with adding the folder to your whitelist? What folder? For what purpose?

You need to fix this. This is not a one time occurence. It is a systematic problem, and the criminals are exploiting it. R-84776. Are the reports not believed? Is information missing? Are other things more important for staff to do than protecting the users of this site against scams?