itch.io

Well to be frank: I wasn’t necessarily “defending” myself, but rather giving you insight in regards to the decisions that went into the current state design. My apologies if it rubbed you the wrong way. I will add though that some people tend to forget: developers (in most cases) aren’t just “work horses” disconnected from the actual gaming space; I am a long time old-school gamer myself, so I’m certainly not going into this “blind” and just applying random values that may or may not look nice on paper.

What I’ve playtested so far felt good enough to me, as well as to a bunch of other people who didn’t complain. Maybe they did so because they were friends and didn’t wanna upset me; maybe they simply didn’t know better. Whatever the case, I didn’t think much of it and left the mechanics as-is. That’s really all there is to it.

Again, I apologize if your opinion differs. After all, everyone is entitled to their own tastes and preferences, that’s reasonable. I took note of everything you brought forth and have you know that it’ll be considered moving forward with this project. I just don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep, is all.

Cheers

Hi there,

thank you very much for the feedback! Please allow me to address a few points you raised, to give you a better idea of the design decisions behind them:

a) Movement physics in this game, bare bones as it may be, were extensively tweaked and tested. While I know exactly what you mean, and I perfectly understand where you’re coming from with your assessment, those mechanics are very unlikely to ever change; at least not in the way you suggested.

The reason being that this is highly subjective - I’ve personally played a couple of indie platformers where the character behaves exactly like you described (i.e. abruptly stopping mid-air, killing all momentum); alas this is just not how physics work, and feels very jarring and unnatural to me.

I imagine many others would say the same. Popular examples of platformers with proper momentum: Super Mario Bros 3, Super Metroid. I’ve never heard anyone argue that the controls of these games feel “less responsive” in any way.

b) Regarding the somewhat unclear tutorial text instructions, I will agree that in part they might be a bit confusing. However, they’re not wrong: you do in fact lose the ability to call Luna (not just the double jumping, since that is inherently tied to the squirrel) both whenever you die or lose all health as Bella.

I’ve just tested this, and it’s working as intended. The reason why you may not actually notice any difference upon respawning is because you appear right on top of the last acorn you picked up, instantly restoring that lost ability - as indicated by the same pickup sound. Bella doesn’t have double jumps (much like Luna doesn’t have any form of attack), and while it may not be evident from whatever content is currently there, this still factors heavily into the overall game and level design philosophy.

Seeing that the project is “on hold” at the moment, I wouldn’t be able to give you any date or schedule for when new content will be added though. My sincerest apologies.

c) The “Tower Attack” mode is not a “Bennet Foddy clone” but rather a “Jump King clone” if you so will. Therefore, since the mechanics in both games are nearly identical, they are likely not changing either. I understand that it’s not for everyone, but that’s precisely why it’s an optional mode, disconnected from the main story. The name is NOT meant as a genre identifier, but is subject to change, like most of the UI and flavor text still is. So I will keep your feedback in mind, since I had actually no idea that a genre called “tower attack” even exists.

d) I agree on the boss fight being a bit wonky and not very satisfying. Turning a stationary object (like a tree) into an enemy encounter poses a unique challenge that needs iterations and fine tuning. Again, I’ll keep your feedback in mind and am open to any kind of suggestions.

e) The “optional area” in the bottom left corner of the map is a prime example of “work in progress” - while nothing is stopping you from exploring, currently it serves no purpose, but will do so eventually. Whenever that time comes, please expect the area to be reworked to accommodate any changes made accordingly.

Thanks again, and I hope you had a wonderful holidays.

Oh, no worries: the other site where the unauthorized distribution took place - believe it or not - just so happens to be the official community forum of the game engine the asset is tailored to. I’ve already made their staff aware, and the link was taken down + the user contacted. I’ve made sure to document everything beforehand, of course.

This doesn’t mean however that it should be tolerated having known thieves on itch.io - if there’s proof that someone (who even develops and offers stuff on here themselves) is pirating other people’s works, I understand that there’s not much itch can do about the distribution aspect itself… but what they can do is to ensure the user cannot engage in any further illegal activity via this platform. It is, after all, a clear and severe violation of ToS.

Again, support has been contacted now. Thanks for sharing your opinion.

Hi, thanks for the suggestions. That makes a lot of sense, and I’ll consider what you said.

To add just one small thing as clarification: it’s plausible that mentioning anything about anti-cheat etc. would possibly “inspire” some people to try their hand at it. However there’s 2 issues: a) it’s a feature of the asset, so I’d be wrong to not advertise it properly (otherwise it might as well just not be there). And b) I already happen to know why the user in question decided to go this route.

Simply put: they’re disgruntled because I didn’t wanna “be friends” with them on social media.

Anyways, I’ll do as No Time To Play suggested and contact support now. Thanks again.

/edit: everything so far has been thoroughly documented of course.

Hello there,

just as the title suggests: I’ve unfortunately fallen victim to software piracy very recently, i.e. one of my products I’m offering here on itch was first purchased, then almost immediately pirated (i.e. given away for free, publicly) on another website. The user in question was even stupid enough to do all this under the exact same username - so they’re the same person, obviously so, both here and on the other website (besides, there’s been only 1 sale to this day anyway, so I know it’s them).

I’d like to revoke access / cancel the purchase or something, to prevent further illegal spreading of the software. Is this at all possible?

If a moderator would like to see proof, please get in touch with me.

Thanks.

Okay. Still, consider this: someone just followed you here on itch, and by their name and behavior towards you, you can clearly tell who it is - and that they came with ill intentions in mind. It might be a stalker that’s keeping tabs on every single site you’re on.

This can severely impact someone’s mental health, knowing that they’re actively stalked - but powerless to do anything about it. That’s why you need to have these moderation tools. Maybe not to the extent other sites offer it… but the “follower removal” thing is the least one can ask for.

Exactly. It “triggers shitposting migraines” which is all the reason you need. People on the internet feel empowered and entitled due to a false sense of anonymity all the time and are not shy to exploit it whenever possible.

You starting an argument with me over something that should be common sense proves this point.

As a counter-argument, let me ask you this: why would a billion dollar company like Twitch (owned by Amazon) implement the features I mentioned, when they’re not really a “social media” platform either?

Yes there’s private messages, but that’s just one very minor thing which is rarely ever used.

First and foremost, it’s a live broadcasting / video-on-demand platform, i.e. offering entertaining content - either for free, or paid (if people put it behind a subscription). So it’s not that much different from itch’s general concept.

There would be no real need to ban someone from following you on Twitch - follows are a good thing, right? And why would anyone think it makes sense to disallow someone from giving paid subscriptions to your channel? That sounds ridiculous, right? …but it’s done anyway, because people are unpredictable and will find ways to flip things around so it becomes an annoying factor to you, just to tick you off.

And just like that, “triggering shitposting migraines” becomes a thing that needs to be moderated, for which people should have the proper tools at hand to do so.

You say: “I cannot spam and harass” (here on itch). That’s a false statement, because YES you can. There’s no technical limit on how many comments you can post to anyone’s page, and as far as I know there are ZERO bad language filters in place so verbal harassment is very much possible.

The ONLY point that I would agree on is that, on second thought, yes you’re probably right: being able to block someone and remove their negative rating that way does seem exploitable, so not a good idea. However, what they could (and should) do instead, is: check whether someone leaving a rating or review has downloaded the product before. And if they haven’t - don’t let them do it.

Boom! There, I fixed it for you.

I haven’t exactly had the chance to properly test it myself yet, but if the website’s notification (i.e. the one that you get when attempting to block someone) is to be believed, then the ONLY things it does is:

• It hides their community posts (forum, comments) from you, and
• it prevents you from getting notifications about any of their activities

…which is completely baffling to me. All this does is literally just “turning a blind eye” without actually doing anything about the root issue and reason why you may have wanted to block the person in the first place.

This is why I think it’s worse than not blocking them: they can probably just continue to post on your uploads, maybe even harass other people, and you won’t even be able to moderate it - because you don’t see it.

Whoever implemented this feature clearly didn’t think it through.

/edit: alright, so I’ve just tested this with my own secondary account.

The result, after blocking myself:

• The blocked account can still visit the main account's profile and follow them.
• The blocked account can still purchase and/or download your games and assets.
• The blocked account can still add your uploads to their collections if they want.
• The blocked account can still write comments that are visible to everyone but you.
• The blocked account can still rate your posts and uploads.

Now, there’s one caveat: you could technically see the blocked account’s posts, because they’re greyed out and labelled as “post from blocked account” so when you click it, it’ll become visible. But what’s the point in blocking anyone then, if all it does for you is to cause extra work when it comes to moderation…

Plus, the “you won’t receive notifications anymore” thing seems to be a complete lie, because I did in fact receive a notification - from the blocked account posting on my upload.

So half of what the feature promises to do… doesn’t even work properly.

Yeah I don’t get the point of the block feature here either.

In its current form, dare I say, it hurts more than it helps… because aside from the lack of content filtering, it also doesn’t really do anything to stop a bad actor from harassing you (or your community), which makes no sense. It’s like there’s someone getting assaulted in your living room, but instead of having a phone to call the cops, you only get a sleeping mask and a pair of noise-cancelling headphones so you don’t see or hear any of it.

That’s not how these things are supposed to work. Platforms like Twitch are a pretty good example of how it should be: blocking someone not only hides all their activity, but also deletes them from your follower list (if they followed you), and prevent them from ever re-following or subscribing to you again. They can’t spend or redeem anything in your channel, they won’t count as a viewer, and whispers are automatically rejected.

In the same vein, what itch’s “block” feature should do (in my opinion):

• Remove and keep them away from your follower list
• Prevent them from leaving anything (comments, reviews, ratings) on your uploads
• Automatically hide (or delete) their activity from your uploads (for everyone)
• Filter your content from their search results
• Filter them from your search results

Thanks for the demo app :) it was a very nice tool to pitch against my own engine, putting its speed and accuracy to the test. In case you’re curious about the results:

I’ve won 100% of the time in about 25-30 full moves. Picking either white over black or vice versa did not make a difference for the outcome. On average, your engine started being at a serious disadvantage after about 12-15 moves.

This was playing on hard. I didn’t even bother touching medium, let alone easy (I imagine those would be a complete pushover).

I do agree with the review from Justin B on the YoYo marketplace however: as nice as it appears, especially for testing purposes, this engine is hardly worth half its asking price… and even that might still be over the top, depending on whether or not the review’s claims (i.e. your code lacking comments and being a big mess) are justified.

All in all: nice effort, but way too expensive. I like that it feels pretty speedy, is written in pure GML and supports polyglot opening books. Alas, the flaws far outweigh these technical benefits.

That being said - keep at it, maybe reduce the price (or put it on sale for a while) to give a better purchase incentive, and once the engine has improved enough… I’ll be looking forward to a rematch :)

A couple of notes for your to-do-list (if you have any):

1. Your AI rarely (if ever) castles. Instead I’ve seen it move the king multiple times on its own, throwing away castling ability altogether very early on in the game.

2. Especially during the mid and endgame stages, your AI seems to be pretty much clueless about basic king safety. I don’t know if it’s just falling into a “panic mode” or what, but I’ve seen it blindly blunder into checkmates a bunch of times, even if there were still other (better) legal moves left.

3. Sometimes your AI appears to follow a specific strategy (e.g. attempting to go after a certain piece of higher value or something), but is then immediately stopped in its tracks by a pawn capturing the attacking piece. It almost seems like your AI doesn’t see pawns as potential threats at all.

Off the top of my head, that’s all. :)

Cheers,
~Thraxx

Just chiming in to give a recount of my own experience:

I never had any issues whatsoever with payments from itch.io in the past; in fact many of the previous transactions came through way faster than the 10-14 days they give as a rule of thumb. However this time it's different: payout was initiated on the 7th of March. I've waited patiently up until the status read "14 days ago" before I decided to contact support.

Side note: I routinely check all info on my profile out of habit, and about 3-5 days prior to contacting them, everything appeared to be in perfect order still (including tax information). And I'm not kidding: within mere minutes of sending my email, they replied, telling me my tax info was apparently expired or something. Of course I immediately went to check - lo and behold, it now read: "Invalid" and asked me to refile everything. I strongly suspect that the same person who read my email also kicked my info out of the system to make their claims look legitimate.

So I did that; actually had to do the tax interview twice because after the first take, it still showed up as "invalid" for no reason (trying to trick me, itch.io?)

Anyways, their reply also stated: "This process of manual validation typically takes 48 hours at the most" - that was about 46 hours ago at this point in time, and I have zero confidence whatsoever that I'll receive either payment or another response within that window. Heck, looking at y'alls reports of how long you've been waiting... I'm starting to think they're unable to pay and just won't admit it.

This is unacceptable and absolutely bordering on fraud. They are withholding money that isn't theirs, for which they definitely should be held accountable to the fullest extent. The lack of communication and unwillingness to act on the matter would almost warrant to collectively sue them, in my opinion.

I have earned this money; it is mine, they owe it to me - denying that without ever giving a valid explanation factually equals theft.

I still like itch.io as a platform (not taking into account the shady practices of whoever runs it) but this'll be the last time I trust them with anything. As soon as the currently pending transaction goes through, I'm switching payout mode for sure.

I'd rather deal with a little bit of extra paperwork than dealing with scam artists.