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What is "unusual activity" and "inconsistent usage schedule" supposed to mean? That would apply to me too, given that I have a job and family and game development as a hobby can't always be top priority...

Hi MZQuest, 

the same happened to one of my games (https://smurjo.itch.io/detective-martin-gunnarson). When I search for my name, my other five games are shown, but this one isn't. Also when I search for my tags, for example "detective", my game isn't listed. I have no idea what I might have done wrong.

    Copyright: I did all programming, 2D and 3D assets myself (apart from as mentioned in the credits with some help and advice by my 12 year old nephew, who visited me in his vacations for 2 weeks during the year of the development). I am using public domain and creative commons music, properly listing all pieces in the credits. I don't use AI nor was it available at the time I made the game.

    Violence: As mentioned in the description by the nature of a detective game deaths and murders are mentioned in text. But there are no excessive descriptions of violence nor images of corpses, explosions etc.. The description of the murders is one sentence and factual, as necessary mentioning the cause of death or the weapon i.e. "died showing signs of severe poisoning", "died of brain hemorrhage after she had been hit with a blunt object", "body found on the foot of a cliff wrapped in a duvet cover", "one tomb slab wore a different coat of arms".

Having said this, I'd really like to know why this has happened - especially since I was planning to release an update with a greater world and additional cases this year. Did you get any notification why this was happening and how to fix it? I didn't get any notification at all and found out by chance.

Kind regards

Smurjo

Far simpler and my first ever published game https://smurjo.itch.io/sarah:

Personally I have decided I'd rather have less perfect backgrounds than use AI for copyright reasons alone. I also feel if I'd want AI backgrounds, I could have AI make them for me myself. 

I give you credit though for making the AI environments show some wear and tear, albeit it's possibly a bit overdone at the motel. Every floor tile damaged? Stains on the wallpaper in every corner?

There are 9 cases. It says so in the tagline. Thanks for making me notice you don't see the tagline on the page when you go there directly by the link. I'll update the description.

 It really totally depends on the gameplay. In my ball-track-builder one round might take a minute - the player places  items to guide the ball and then let the ball go. Then it depends on the player how long he or she wants to play hoping to gain points. 

Several games I have take more or less about half an hour. Those are  games the player might want play several times because there is the incentive of getting better with experience.  It's not always easy to measure. Building Bill Burton Road has a clear ending when the roads reaches the destination whereas a sandbox game like Building Baroque  just takes as long as the player likes building.

Narrative games would typically be longer as they will not be played them more than once. My  detective game, which is my only narrative game takes about 2 hours for all cases (But I'm planning to make more cases - feel free to suggest a murder :-) ).

Albeit clearly showing what they are supposed to show, some things don't add up... The police station is too clean for my taste. No cracks in the asphalt, not a speck of dirt on the patrol cars or the sign or the windows, no graffiti on the concrete (albeit it being a police station and the concrete reachable without climbing practically invites for some daring police cartoons). Light coming from the bottom of the lockers? All lockers the same number? The point of numbering is employees find their own locker easily...

It's sometimes a difficult decision, what to save a what not. In my last game I actually implemented two different types of save: One save that only saves the map (so that the player can try the same map again from the start) and one save that saves the map and the player's progress and the player position.

Since there might be the risk of exploits - before the player does something risky he'd rather save the game and reload it if things didn't go well - I think it is acceptable if the player doesn't get back to the exact game state where he was when saving but at a point shortly before. This way the exploit isn't for free.

The good thing about saving systems: If done well (modular) parts can be reused for any game you make in the future. 

Hi Melinda,

Your page is basic, but seems fine to me. In my opinion people coming through your page will not play your games anyway. Most are just curious what kind of games you do. 

To attract players you'd want to put your effort in the  path people go when browsing for games i.e. keywords, thumbnails, short description/tagline and the individual game pages. 

This is the total for 6 games, launching one game a year:

I don't allow payment, saving me the trouble dealing with it when doing my taxes.

Hi AhhGames,

I started the game, but unfortunately I got stuck at the airport, from there I could neither move nor get into the story (It was greyed out). Trying to move I accidentally took two screenshots - possibly S is not the be best choice for taking a screenshot when it is quite common to move with WASD. Anyway I'm making the best of the screenshot to show you that what appears to be my father has neither shadow nor reflection:

Anyway I finally managed to leave the airport and got into the story a little bit... I don't typically play visual novels so I can't tell whether I struggle through the story because of my limited Spanish or because the story is kind of slow paced... In the house I struggle to figure out the floor plan on the ground floor (I suspect the rooms appear to suit the story, not necessary where they geometrically would be). I like the lighting showing the time of the day. The visuals a OK, albeit partly unnaturally clean - fine in the kitchen but in the room of a teenager?

Hi ASWhalerGamer,

remember you played my Detective game a while back? Would you like to try my Road Builder game this time? 

You find the link here:

Thanks for supporting indie gaming!

I'm using MP3 because the public domain music I use came in that format. File size matters to me. So far I haven't had issues with delays. If necessary the Unity engine also has the possibility to schedule the start of tracks for a specific time, which allows to synchronize tracks.

Have you tried in the "Get Feedback"-Section? Usually when I give feedback it is about a game in there.

Things that I think you might want to consider:

• you might want the first and the last frame to match with some neutral pose or idle animation so that you don't get any strange jumps when one animation ends and the next starts (with exception of the end of the death animation)
• Before the jump you might want her to go down slightly preparing for the jump and making the viewer anticipate the jump
• The position of her feet after the jump changes in inexplicably. This can't happen with her feet already on the ground.
• It seems strange to me she moves her hand up and down while receiving damage. It might be a little strange as you'd want to consider her taking damage continuously making her wave her hand up and down. Also if taking damage pushing out sensitive parts like the breasts wouldn't be my natural reaction. I would rather make myself small and try to protect myself e.g. by putting my arms over my head (all the time, not waving them up and down) or in front of me depending on from where the damage is coming.

I needed more than few minutes to try it out... it got boring with more of the same after half an hour, but the first half hour was fun. To your questions:

• early game pacing felt OK albeit all those help messages were bit much. Anyways I figured out what I need to do and the help messages stopped soon.
• The pricing decision had effect, which was nice. Unfortunately I started my pricing higher than necessary since I first thought the recommended sales price was my cost for the goods.  I assumed the price displayed in the wholesale screen was what I have to pay at first.
• I played on PC, the third vending machine had an issue with the size of the items inside the machine
• I also find the items weird. The vague association of sex toys in their naming makes no sense to me.

The organizers of game jams are looking for genuinely creative games. AI can't make those, since it can't make anything which isn't some kind of blend of the stuff it was trained with. So the game jam organizers might as well want to save themselves the time to review games that are just another version of regurgitated content.

Since I made game about running a café (https://smurjo.itch.io/s-caf-am-markt), I might be able to help with various cakes, plates, cups and fork. I don't have a coffee machine. Have a look here

 and tell me whether it's the style you are looking for. I would make a downloadable asset-pack for you if you kindly mention me in the credits. 

I guess it is understood that you can't sell my assets which I would give you for free. Nor do I approve their use for training AI.

I have the same fear. Of course I have anti-virus-software on my own PC but two chances of catching a virus would be better than one. 

Are you looking for 2D or 3D? How old is very old? Medieval? Roman? Egyptian? Wiking? I might have a 1900 shipyard 3D (if that's old enough):

The other thing is that tastes differ. Let's think some cozy farming sim compared to a zombie ego-shooter. To market your cozy farming sim you'd have go to a place where people expect to find cozy farming sims. I think itch.io is doing a good job allowing to search for one kind or the other. And there are enough games to choose from in the search result.

Since I've made game development my "full time hobby" (beside my full time job), I don't really have time for reading. Which includes visual novels, so my opinion might be a bit off from the typical visual novel audience. I have however implemented a run-into-story-sections-mechanics in a 3D world in my detective game. This way, IMHO you have to do less descriptions since the world is right there for the player to experience. You don't need to write stuff like "Looking onto main street there was charming little café." Your player can see that far better than in 2D. Besides lighting goes a long way to create the atmosphere you intend.

Of course it's matter of personal preference if you rather create a 3D world or 2D images. I don't think 3D is necessarily more work. I personally need 3D models to get light and perspective right when making more complex 2D images and there are lots of free 3D assets out there (albeit I pride myself to make my own) . 

Here is the link to my detective game  https://smurjo.itch.io/detective-martin-gunnarson.  ASWhalerGamer kindly streamed it on YouTube (link in the comments), so you don't necessarily need to download the game to get a first impression. I'd also offer you to suggest your own murder/accident/suicide case for the detective game which I'd implement and mention you in the credits.

Hi DevInTraining,

I attempted the same thing  a few years back. And it kind of worked, even without AI. I don't know whether you researched story structure.  Following the rules will get you a mediocre story anytime.  But for a great story genuine creativity is needed. Something unique, that the reader finds worth remembering. Which isn't stuff already known just presented in a different mixture. Of course AI, pulling from a huge database, might find known plots that are just new to you. So it might be a great thing for expanding your own knowledge. But the more you know, the less impressed you are.

Concerning Blueprints: I tried on several occasions and came back scripting. Here is why:

• It's slower. Picking the boxes and  connecting them takes more time than just writing down a line of code. This is especially true with the automatic code completion and code snippets that modern editors offer.
• Anytime you want to insert something in-between you find yourself rearranging the other stuff to make room.
• It doesn't scale well. In my current project, which is far from finished, I already have 140 classes with a little less than 500 000 characters in total (the functionality ranging from playing music, displaying UI Screens, inventory management, simulation and player movement  to the procedural generation of an environment). If you estimate you'd need a box for each 50 characters in average (which seems a very generous estimate to me) , you'd need to arrange 10 000 boxes
• I tried Unreal but don't use it right now with Blueprints being part of the reason

Hi together, I wouldn't call myself very religious but I'm definitely against violence. So I wonder how you Christian developers think about violence in games?

Hi Imagination,

• In general I like to try out fellow indie developers games. Given the huge choice, I select the games I give a try. I didn't try your game because I don't like games with violence. The title and the words 'high stakes' and 'creatures' make me think there is violence involved.
• A screenshot plus a short summary (scenario, goal and main rules) would work best for me.  I don't think it's a good idea to reference other games much, as the games your audience might have played may vary a lot.
• I don't know where to post to actually get players. I send e-mails to people I know in person. Even then my games are not everybody. That's OK for me.
• If you like to play my nonviolent project (I guess the compass mechanics could be useful for other games too, violent or not):

https://smurjo.itch.io/building-bill-burton-road

Hi XVerse, 

 I'd like you to play my game https://smurjo.itch.io/building-bill-burton-road . 

Since I will be using the procedural map generation in my next game as well, I'm especially interested in

• how you like the environment and what could be tweaked
• the frame rate on your computer and - if you experience them - occasions of frame rate drops 

Of course I'm generally interested in any observations to improve this game. Since all my games are for free and I don't even accept donations, I'd ask you to play it for free.  

Many thanks.

"Quicksilver" might be a blob of silver liquid floating on the ground. You can't move from the moment it touches your feet until it has floated on. It might float downhill (if there is such a thing as downhill in your environment) which gives the player some way to predict its path and avoid it.

BTW I didn't check it out, because I don't do this kind of violence, not even to zombies. 

AI image? We wouldn't have suspected it 4 years ago, but in fact the research on AI is decades old. 

Nice game and quite addictive. I was a bit disappointed because after I'd managed one strike for bloom the greenhouse wouldn't open anymore after the next scoring  and my cursor was gone. So I guess I'll never get to the other levels.

All for games in historical setting. I think history has valuable lessons to teach. One of them being war is generally a bad idea...

In my opinion you shouldn't publish every game you ever made but the ones you think are worthwhile playing. If you publish a game you need to go the extra mile with a help function and a credits page, maybe even localization (which in my opinion has the extra benefit all your texts are in one place and easy to find should you - and it is going to happen - discover a typo during game play). I myself have started about 30 games over the years, most of them playable, but I published only 6. The last game I didn't publish felt more like work than like fun and I had to admit to myself the idea wasn't as brilliant as I thought.

Hi simenhs, 

I played your game and I like it.  Nice concept and nice graphics. I feel the roads are getting comparably expensive very fast.  I also didn't like that I couldn't remove forest to build something else (I can understand I can't remove mountains). I guess it is also a question of experience playing this game to make the most money.

Since I place buildings by drag&drop in my newer games it felt a bit complicated to me to first click and then click again to place the building. You can still show what the building wants with drag and drop when it isn't dropped in a valid location yet.

I wonder if the player actually needs to click the NPC if this is the only option he has anyway in the store. You might play a video as soon as the player enters the store (or display a text, if the video is too much effort. In my estimate 1 min video = 1 day of work, of course depending on the amount of new assets and animations you need). You can make videos as well as play them with the Unity engine. 

After video is over the player stand inside the 3D store and needs decide where to go next. You might want to provide the player with some guidance where to go next. I have done this in my detective game by footsteps on the ground using decals in Unity.  

BTW if you'd like to provide a murder case as a story I'd offer to build it into my detective game. After the first section, which presents the intro for the investigation, the other sections appear in random order.  Mixed in are sections to confuse the player. This might be irrelevant facts or a person lying. Finally, after the player has filed his investigation report, a summary of the murder case is presented, so that the player can see how right or wrong his investigation was.

Hi, I tried it and found it simple to understand and funny even though it isn't the kind of game I'd usually play. I felt the reaction time from pressing the button to the chicken moving somewhat long. This did cause the chicken to move further than I intended (and got it killed).

I could pick up the card but I couldn't insert it. I could only drop or throw it.

Unfortunately I got stuck in the elevator and never made it to the upper floors... I had the impression I should press L but nothing happened. 

For my taste the colors are quite dull - I don't understand whether that's intentional. The elevator doors material might benefit from a normal map. 

It would be a compass:

That compensate for the problem that the compass in the game - to make it easier - doesn't actually work like a real compass works. It points in which direction you are going whereas a real compass always points  north.

It looks more like the steering wheel of a ship than a handle of a valve on a pipe. I've looked up how handles on valves look on some random internet page (https://boilersinfo.com/types-of-valves-with-images/) for you;

The red color for handle I feel is a good choice (assuming it is somewhat consistent with other interact-able parts in your game). Additional it would help if there was some light hinting at the valve. Currently your eye is immediately drawn to the light on the left. 

The sound effect is nice, albeit not very realistic (I have worked in a lab testing valves in the past). Mostly valves operate noiselessly. There might be an occasional squeaking. And there might be the noise of cavitation, which can occur when the valve is almost closed. Cavitation is vapor bubbles imploding (you might want to look up cavitation) and damages valves over time.  You might be able to hear it if you open a faucet just a tiny bit (so that the water runs into the sink mostly without noise just a little above dripping) and put your ear close to the handle. You listen for short, sharp sounds like "pop" not unlike firecrackers.

You set out to develop game of low quality? Like sloppy and buggy? Really?

Wow, that's impressive number of possibilities. So I'd like to share another link I use since I am doing games in historical setting.  These are public domain recordings of classical music from https://musopen.org/.  Among other criteria you can search music by instrument and time period there.