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Why demo is an Important aspect of the game?

A topic by CodeModeller created May 25, 2020 Views: 565 Replies: 15
Viewing posts 1 to 4
(2 edits) (+7)

The demo or prototype is the first thing you have to show to your audience, so that they can react to your game and tell you about glitches and bugs and crashes etc. If you don't publish a demo and Launch your game directly and if you receive a ton of glitches and bugs and you'll feel depressed and you'll likely lose the hope. So before launching your full release give your audience a try!!!!!!



I've also uploaded the demo of my game!!!!

https://abhay-tiwari.itch.io/theunsavedcm

Go give it try!!! Give me feedback, follow, like, share, comment give me advice,tell me about bugs and glitches........

I hope you will stay with me till the end of this project

Thank you very much...........

And pray that this corona virus ends as soon as possible!!!!!

(2 edits) (+2)

What you say is all true! In fact, I've always made demos available. Unfortunately, they were demos that could not include many of the game levels of the version of the game on sale, otherwise it wouldn't have made sense to sell it.

On the other hand, making the demo too complete gives the same result.

Two of these things happened to me:
- A: many downloads of the demos - few sales: the demo was unable to give a good idea of the game.
- B: many downloads of the demos - few sales: the demo was too complete.
Now I've removed all the demos from the ultra-tested games that I selling.

However, it is likely that my games are not in step with the times, that the graphics, in comparison with that of the other games, are poor, that the music is obsolete ... But everyone has his own style and there are those who do not like to change it, albeit going against the tide, at the expense of the success it will have. Doing everything yourself "is suicide" ... it is good to have at least personal satisfaction as an alternative to profit: the fact that you still have someone who is interested in what you have done, thus making the demos always available.

(1 edit) (+1)

Yes! Demo should give a glance of your work. It should not be too lengthy or contain too many levels. A clean and short demo is a perfect option as audience tells you about what they like and dislike in your game so that you could fix those things. Demo is just like the foundation of the game, if foundation is not good then the building  collapses!!!! As you have mentioned, the demo should be perfectly fit in between A and B.

btw thanks for reading this article!!!!

(+1)

Thanks to you. It's interesting what you wrote and gave to me a valid suggestion. But how to stay perfectly between A and B ? How to find good collaborators, without they are dependents from a company that you would to create, if you are alone ?For example: a marketing expert. Maybe these last two questions are not relevant, however if you want you can answer me ...

(+1)

I am just a Student not any marketing expert. I am making games for more than three years. So to balance between A and B is to just give the audience a good glimpse of one or two key features that the game would extend later on, and for this a demo gameplay of 5-10 minutes is a perfect timing or if it had various levels then show them the intro of the story and the first level. Show the players that the features have possibility to be extended and do not get bored over time. Show them interesting things also like artwork, illustrations or music that also enhances the quality of the demo. I hope you've got your answer. 

By the way I am a solo developer doing all the things alone.

(+1)

Pleasure. I am also one who develops games alone, but I am no so much young as you: i've not so many physical resource. My problem is that my video games do not have a great story to tell, but should induce curiosity as they are handmade. I, as you say and I have already done, always put the first level or a level that does not exist in the full version, but is compatible with the style of it and the synopsis.

yess I can understand well!!!

but the greatest motivation is that age does not matters at all if your motivation behind the game is bigger then you'll cross over every hurdles. But if you are having any trouble(physical resources) then you collaborate with others would be great!

And the second question(actually the first) I also don't have any idea about the collaboration cause I am solely developing this game.

But you can find people which are relevant to the genre of your game contact them and if they are interested they'll surely collab with you.

(+1)

Thank you very much. Good learning!

(+2)

My games are mostly RPGs and so 8-10 hours long. My demo is simply the first hour of the game. You play the game normally for an hour and if you like it, then you can buy the whole game. If you don't have the time, there is a short gameplay video of a key scene in the game. The demo is free, obviously, but I'm always surprised that few people load it down. Why not? What better way to test a game? For those interested:  https://criacuervos.itch.io

(+1)

you can cut it down to like 20-30 minutes cause if anyone likes your game they'll play for the whole duration but if they encounter any issue with that they'll surely leave that. Keep the key features in that 15-20 minutes session of the starting to make an impact and the rest would be the normal gameplay!!!!

(+2)

The main thing to keep in mind with RPGs is that they are huge time investments and the average player understands that it can take up to an hour or more before the game really starts to get interesting. That's personally why I very rarely play Indie RPGs -- there are so many of them and most of them look more or less the same. The ones I have played had very excellent character art and backgrounds. But while the art is crucial to getting people to look at your game in the first place, it's the story that will keep the player there for a long duration.

In terms of demo duration, I think an RPG should be maybe 10% of your whole content. I recently played a point-and-click adventure where 25% of the game was free to play. By the time I got to that 25% I was already hooked, so I went and bought the game to play the rest of it.

That being said, it is also true that the longer your demo is, the greater chance there is of having bugs that might turn away players. However, the mechanics of an RPG are usually pretty simple. Issues like clipping and poor hit detection don't really apply, especially if the combat is turn-based. As long as the story is fairly linear and events play in the correct order, there really isn't much to worry about.

(+2)

Couldn't agree more with you, thanks for taking the time to reply to my post!

He(@40wattstudio) is absolutely right the demo should contain 15-25% of the game with hook of the game that may be an artwork, a good story, ,great actions, soothing environment, great puzzles etc. And that would raise the interest of the players to buy the full game!!!!

Moderator

Although that’s just my opinion, I really disagree to treat your Demo as a tool to find bugs.

Ideally, the Demo should be a slice of the game, giving an idea to the user what to expect once they purchase the full project. It should focus on communicating to the user what experience they will get, what mechanisms the game includes, and how long the game is.