So we haven't posted anything for a while. Cryophobia is quietly being worked on with no major flashy pictures to show of late, as well as the burden of school starting (which affected 2/3rds of our dev team) and poorly timed illnesses (which affected the remaining 1/3rd) making dev time less abundant than it was a few weeks ago.
For lack of game progress to show, I'd like to shift gears real quick and talk about the art of back-scratching, in the sense of the proverb "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine". This is a concept that I think most of the gamedev communities of twitter and reddit are based upon. Taking advantage of this concept can help gain exposure and goodwill that can be difficult to get from other sources.
When a game dev first sets out to create a rewarding and interactive experience from nothing but pixels and phosphors, it can be an intimidating and ultimately unrewarding experience. Here we are putting our sweat and tears into a buffet of spaghetti code for all the world to consume, and in many cases it results in vitriol and/or indifference. Gamers can be selfish and entitled beasts, spoiled from their pick of years of AAA graphics and decades of indie envelope-pushing.
At this point some would-be game developers drop off the radar, saying that game development is not for them, or some more honestly deciding they don't like the hate flung like monkey poo within the inter-webs. Others instead turn to the safety net of other game devs; after all, who better to understand that the level's not done, the music isn't final, and the art remains unpolished? It seems like the perfect storm of critique and understanding, and in many cases it is.
Each and every one of us has different backgrounds. Some of us have travelled to and fro over the face of the earth, others remaining stationary as the world moves around them. Some of us are artists, others architects. Some old, some new; some cheerful, some blue. If you took a hundred game devs and put them in a room, you'd have a hundred unique outlooks, preferences, insights, and specialties to take advantage of. The difficulty lies in getting the attention of those devs, not in finding ones that have anything to offer.
For that reason, we should all strive to offer our unique viewpoints to one another as we enshrine our dreams in code. Allot some of your game development time, some of those precious minutes, to seeking out other buried games, trying them out, and offering a viewpoint the devs haven't heard before. Chances are the devs haven't received much feedback, and yours will be cherished and help influence the design from that point forward.
This is not to say that one should wait for the world to beat a path to your doorstep, far from it. This is only to say that if we offer unexpected advice to other devs, we'll start to be remembered not as That Guy With That One Game, but That Guy That Helped Us Solve That One Design Problem, And Hey Does He Have A Game Now? Gotta Check That Out. Reaching out may seem like a waste of time, or negligible in the grand scheme of things, but imagine if everyone did it. It's certainly an ideal to strive for.
Good starting points are the #FeedbackFriday and #ScreenshotSaturday hashtags, and the equivalent megathreads on /r/gamedev every Friday and Saturday (or the midnights before, as it usually happens).
It is in that spirit that I would like to offer my part as a hardass critiquer to anyone who dares send me their game. I strive to be thorough and useful, so though it might hurt it should at least offer something of worth by the end of it.
(It should be noted that I have a PC with a 360 controller, and an Android phone, but no iOS or Mac devices, so can't help you there.)
As a taste of some of my previous critique, here are some games and my accompanying thoughts that I have done in the past:
RPG Escape:
Critique Feedback
Dev Response
Push It In:
Critique Feedback
Dev Response
Pirate Game?:
Critique Feedback
Stellar:
Critique Feedback
Dev Response
My Mecha Bird:
Critique Feedback
Dev Response
Shooter Prototype:
Critique Feedback
Dev Response
The Turtle Who Had Wings:
Critique Feeback
Dev Response
Radial Impact:
Critique Feedback
I'd like to extend this list whenever possible, so send me your games! I can most reliably be reached on twitter as @teltura.
-- Christian (teltura)
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