itch.io Community » Game Development » Devlogs

Help us make devlogs better (What should we do with this board?) Sticky

leafo · 2018-07-07T20:26:55Z

Hello, thanks for taking a moment to check out this topic. When itch.io first launched its community , there was no way to post to a blog on project pages, so we added the Devlogs board for people to post their updates. Fast-forward a bit and we added the ability to post devlogs directly to project pages , and we integrated it into the creator dashboard. Over a thousand posts a week are published through it. I left this board around because there are a handful of people running interesting topics. It's pretty confusing that there are two places to post devlogs though. Additionally, there are some logistical issues with this board that we never really fixed. There are quite a few disadvantages with this board: Confusing with devlogs feature, should you be posting in both places? The rules aren't clear: should you post a new topic per update, or have one topic with posts for updates? (you should be posting in 1 topic!) We weren't strict about moderation: many of the topics are lower quality link dumps. The topic listing shows a lot of lower quality and abandoned posts that you need to sift through There's no way to sort the posts, and no clear way to follow the progress of the game. (For topics, you have to subscribe to get notifications, but I think it's more valuable to get people to follow your itch.io account) Where the best place to post to drive traffic to posts? This board could potentially be a source of traffic, but it's unclear how much. We've put more effort into making browsing tools for the proper devlogs feature: https://itch.io/devlogs I've created this topic to get to get feedback about what to do next. The devlogs feature on project page is here to stay, so I want to decide the fate of this board. The format of having a devlog be a message board post is used by a lot of older indie game communities, and has its merits. Do you like this format? Is it important that this board stays around? What are ways that it could be improved to make it more useful assuming it's kept? I'm also open exploring different ways to format this board. Maybe it could be used to share links to your devlog posts? By the way, here are some example topics that are doing a good job of having devlogs: https://itch.io/t/145701/no-love-jrpg-action-adventure https://itch.io/t/60734/delvedown-2d-platformer-downwellgameboy-inspired-game-is... https://itch.io/t/188623/epicinium-environmental-turn-based-strategy-beta https://itch.io/t/36171/battle-gem-ponies-devlog https://itch.io/t/26523/error-ware-2-try-the-demo If we make any big changes, then I'll definitely look for a way to make sure these posts are migrated and can live on. Thanks

A topic by leafo created Jul 07, 2018 Views: 9,450 Replies: 49

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IPv61 year ago (1 edit)

Hello! Is it possible to download posts from my devlog into md files (for example)? It is not possible via API, as far as i can see, and since devlogs are not pay-protected - API is an overkill, imho.

my usecase: i have a site (landing page) for a game, the site generated with Hugo static site generator. I want to keep adding devlogs entries for my game on itch.io AND THEN show them on game landing page, from time to time. And to avoid manual copy-paste work for keeping landing page up-to-date - it would be cool to have python library (or any cross-platform solution, win+mac at least), that can grab my latest devlog posts and save them as md files locally in proper place for later use with Hugo generator

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papaysailor1 year ago(+1)

Hi leafo! First of all, THANKS! I DO LIKE this DevLogs board very much. Brilliant!... but.......hey, you knew a "but" was coming....:

Among this Board's (DevLogs) rules, one is is for allowing only "unfinished" projects which is somewhat confusing to me; because,....is there such a thing as a "finished" project? (meaning done 100%). Seasoned Software developers say: "there is no such a thing as a completed project....only ABANDONED projects. To what you might reply: "if you released the project, then you consider it 100% done so it doesn't belong in this Board". But then I would say: "No, it is not done. It is USABLE and/or PLAYABLE and/or STABLE; so I released it but there is a lot to come after the release (specially once you get user's feedback) and it is impossible for me to know at what percentage it is right now".

Some of us want more visibility for our projects, and this would help:

I think you could allow any "completed" games in this DevLogs Board if the author think there will be ANY improvements in the future. I'd like to see what others would comment about this.

I do understand that for Released Games authors have the DevLogs in the games's pages. But there you, as an author, do not get as much "traffic" or "views" as you might get in this Board. On the other hand, you were asking "how to make this board better", so... IMHO, again, I think allowing authors to post their progress HERE would make this board better.

Thanks again!

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Coven Head1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

Why not try and make this devlog forum into a more technical one (by devs for devs) while the one on the game page would be a more general one (by devs for players) which doesn't get into technical parts of game development and instead focuses on the gameplay aspects.

A cool feature to add would be the ability to show parts of the game page devlog here so that people can go more in-depth on how those features were made. (something that might not be good to put in a devlog thats read by everyday players who don't make games)

On another note the devlog forum isn't that visible, as you have to enter the community tab first and then find it. Instead when clicking on the Developer Logs tab it should either ask which one to go to or somehow display both Forum devlogs and game page devlogs.

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AppleTwuffle33 days ago (1 edit)

I like this idea. Though keeping up with two dev logs instead of one can be a challenge.
I will admit I do a bad job documenting the technical bits when I work on a project.

Maybe have a feature that allows you to add technical notes like they do on text books?

Would be fun for a reader to come across the devs notes while reading through. (not that I read that many dev logs ^^;

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DesiredName10 days ago (2 edits)

Please, make it work at least =))))

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DesiredName7 days ago

Ok, I got the idea!

I have to have a project first.

So, the dialog with some meaningful text, when trying to convert a post to a devlog entry, would be very handy =)

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