Socoder Newsletter #045
I don’t usually repost this here, but. What the hey!
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Socoder Newsletter
“Best viewed in Peiplum”
#045 – 5th March 2010
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Hello all
The worst thing about writing AGameAWeek is that
horrible lack of feedback.
If you spend 6 months writing a game, and get only
one bit of feedback, that’s enough to depress you.
If you write a game a week, you also get very little
feedback, except the lack of feedback happens every
single week!
You write a game, nobody cares, rinse repeat.
If I wasn’t already nuts, this’d quite easily send
me over the edge!
Currently Listening To…
Old Amiga Mods!
In the Workshop
Your last remaining life..
http://socoder.net/index.php?topic=1908
In the Shoutbox..
Onions, Castles and Days of David.
In the Mudchat
Fixing
Testing
Drawing
Listening
and not bothering..
Join in, it’s occasionally fun!
Read Post$
The clue’s in the topic number
I don’t think anyone got the reference..
http://socoder.net/?topic=1901
BBC catches up
Proper games are going down the crapper, and “indie”
is leading the way forward. Why? Because “indie”
games aren’t all FPS!
http://socoder.net/?topic=1902
The big Portal thing..
1. Valve update portal.
2. Odd things are hidden ingame.
3. Big mysteries afoot.
http://socoder.net/?topic=1905
Accidental clickage
Windows 7 shoves a great big “Turn it off” button
in your face!
What do you do?!
http://socoder.net/?topic=1910
Quality?
Afr0 wants to know, what exactly is needed in order
to get your games published on Steam?
http://socoder.net/?topic=1912
Repeat : Until GameOver
A whole bunch of new games, every single week!!
Socoder Games
Jump (Pio)
A simple little rope hopping game. Not amazing,
but does show off how small FreeBasic can get things
down, filesize wise. The Linux and Windows exe’s
both fit inside this tiny little 135kb zip file.
http://socoder.net/?showcase=22295
Ted Bob in a Mario Costume (Jayenkai)
Whereas this one’s a wee bit bigger, and has to have
two different downloads for Windows and Linux!
eek.
Hop on the hens to score big combo points.
http://socoder.net/?showcase=22299
Scramble (Longarm)
A neat little word finder game. Not a lot of people
seem to like word games, but I love ‘em. They can
really soak up the hours!
http://socoder.net/?showcase=22342
Moshboy’s “Missed” Games
SlumLord27/Moshboy’s been busy this week!!!
Gotta Play ‘em All!
#9 – Mysterious Floating Something
UFO Abduction game!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsQEFSuDis0
#10 – Between Heaven and Hell
Very Flashback like!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfmdx5T8rGU
#11 – Tripline
Simple but complex puzzle game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JC5Q5SLo2E
#12 – One More Time
Single screen platformer, a bit like Timeslip!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rmyLMEZsCQ
#13 – Yum Yum
Slowpaced shooter with little ants, or something!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uXMJ_pqWPE
#14 – Mujeo
One of those “Click things in a certain order” type
of games, where doing things in the right way will
earn you more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaWKYYe1fiM
#15 – The Yore
An isometric adventure game! Oooh!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFDOIdYh1Gw
#16 – Outrage
A classic side-scrolling beat-em-up!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gmjyySFUts
Pixel Prospector’s Games
Authentic Kaizen digs for more freeware gold.
http://www.pixelprospector.com/indev/
Xeno Fighters ex-r
Fantastically arcadey shooter.
http://bit.ly/PPGames_XenoFighter
Proun Beta
I can’t describe how neat this game looks!
GfxProun!
http://bit.ly/PPGames_ProunBeta
Drone
A Tower Defence type of thing, but without the
stationary towers!
http://bit.ly/PPGames_Drone
Choke on my Groundhog, you Bastard Robots!
More Timeslippery, this time in Shooter form.
http://bit.ly/PPGames_BastardRobot
Sword of Legends
An RPG Platformer.
http://bit.ly/PPGames_ArghMenus
Goto Links
Pokemon remade in Garry’s Mod (HoboBen)
Much funnier than I expected it to be.
Sometimes the sillier things are just better!
http://socoder.net/?link=22271
Browsing
Noel has decided that he wants to make a Browser for his
Android phone..
He’s starting with a nice thumbnail based tab system,
and is currently implimenting that first.
The Design
http://socoder.net/?blogs=22333
The Test
http://socoder.net/?blogs=22348
Good luck!
Compos!
DBF’s “Liquid” Compo
April 10th is coming quickly. That’s only 4 WW’s or
AGameAWeek weeks away! Yikes! Better hurry up and
get your Liquid Demoes in to DBF if you want to win!
http://bit.ly/DBF_4642
PlaySushi’s “Adventure” Compo
There might not be anything new to write here, but
notice how I at least bothered to try!
Stupid lazy GameDev newsletter.
http://www.playsushi.com/Contest.ps
Rant
Is my stupid ranting a weekly feature now?
FFS…
OK, lets complain about stupid filesizes, then!
Last night, Longarm tried to post his Scramble game, but
it alarmingly shot up to 20+Mb because he was trying to
shove a bunch of MP3s into the zip file.
Don’t do that!
Mods are neat, they’re small, and they repeat to create
the illusion of much longer music.
You don’t need full symphonies!
In this day and age, folk would be much happier to click
a link and play a browser game, so we all have to keep
things nice and small.
No silly installers.
No big downloads.
Just a nice little zip with a game in it.
People are happier if they can download it quick, unzip
it, play it briefly and then throw it away into the
recycle bin once they’re done.
And don’t get me started on “Death from Above”
http://bit.ly/DeathFromAFilesize
The author of the 26Mb game included a 15Mb wmv file,
the sole purpose of which was to generate a nice
backdrop for the title screen.
Yikes!!
Lovely game, mind.. Gotta love Jetstrike!
Be The Rant
Want to vent off to the two or three people who bother
to read the newsletters each week?
PM or Email me your rants, and I’ll start popping them
into futurenewsletters!
Let them feel your rage!!
Random Youtubeyness
Rant #2
I rarely listen to modern music anymore, but even I’m
sick of this bloody song..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJRMwdmFYWg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NcMsDtyNKw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4npUdfEmbQ
End of
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Comments
Comment from Jayenkai
Time March 5, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Sure, and I’d normally agree with that sentiment. I post quick games, they appear briefly, and then they fade away.
But this week, something else happened.
This week, 400 people downloaded Ted Bob.
Four Hundred.
Over on the archive there are two votes for the game.
They are both mine.
400 people didn’t even bother to click a star.
Comment from MadTinkerer
Time March 5, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Dear Jayenkai,
I’m sorry for not leaving more feedback about your recent games, but there are a few factors involved:
1) I’m trying to play more of your OLD games first, because I’m a completist and want to see what I missed.
2) Helping out with the Caster Update Beta ate a bunch of my time.
3) The Portal ARG ate a bunch of my time. I wasn’t able to contribute anything meaningful, but boy was it fun to watch the Valve Forum guys do their thing.
4) Trying to get a new job ate pretty much all of my time today. Hopefully I’ll be starting soon so then (ironically) I’ll have more free time to check out your games.
5) Hey, I loved Centipong and Centipong 2.
6) Damn, Galcon Fusion is SERIOUS CRACK! Don’t buy it if you value your time!
7) I suspect other people may have similar problems.
Nevertheless, I would encourage you to keep at it and maybe with a little more time you’ll get the audience you deserve. All webcomics take several years of obscurity before anything remotely like success happens. Also, in the spirit of this Garry’s Blog post:
A Game A Week will never be big, you should give up now before you fail and disappoint all your relatives and their friends and Gabe Newell and Derek Yu and Bill Gates and Shamus Young and Cliff Blesynsky and his dog and the dog’s vet and that vet’s niece and her goldfish the goldfish’s siblings owned by Billy next door and Billy’s Mom who usually only plays Chuzzle but checked out your site once and was confused by the fact that some of the games required a keyboard so she went back to Chuzzle, and the giant vortex of fail that results from all this crushes all matter in the universe into a tiny singularity which forms the next universe. So you should give up now. 
Comment from Jayenkai
Time March 6, 2010 at 2:53 am
See, I have no issues if you haven’t played the thing. That’s different. I’m used to nobody playing my games, and having them just sit unnoticed in the archive.
My issue comes when hundreds of people DO play, and yet nobody actually says anything.
That’s much more disturbing than having nobody play.
I rarely get time to play anyone else’s games anymore, but whenever I do I’ll post a comment. I know how crappy it feels when nobody does.
Comment from Jayenkai
Time March 6, 2010 at 2:58 am
Oh, and my motivation doesn’t come from a horrible spite filled rage.
I write games because, god knows why, I still love to write games.
I love that little thrill when your otherwise dull set of sprites suddenly jump into life, and your engine becomes a game.
I thrive off the moments when a single character fixes a humongous bug.
It’s fantastic when you’re lying in bed at night, and your dreamy state is busying away fixing those annoying little math issues.
I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if nobody ever plays, but if you do, at least bloody well say something. I can’t get better if all I have are my own opinions. We’d just end up with the same shitty 2 or 3 games repeating themselves endlessly.
Comment from mosh
Time March 6, 2010 at 5:40 pm
I just went through and rated all the games I remember playing (quite a few of them actually). I tend to spread myself a little thin on the web in general though. I do try to give encouragement when I can though.
Comment from Jayenkai
Time March 7, 2010 at 12:57 am
Much appreciated, ta
(ironic that this wasn’t even the rant!)
Comment from Joe Larson
Time March 8, 2010 at 6:54 am
I can tell you why I didn’t click any of the voting buttons:
1. Download game
2. Close browser
3. Unzip game
4. Play
5. Reopen browser(?)
6. Re-find site on my own(?)
7. Vote
No one’s gonna go through those last 3 steps
after playing the game. Maybe 1 in 1000. If you were making browser games then you could expect more votes OR if your game said “please go to http://www.agameaweek.com and give feedback for this game…” when you exited.
Comment from Jayenkai
Time March 8, 2010 at 7:29 am
You don’t leave the browser open, specifically to add feedback?! How bizarre!
And, yes, the games will now have a little “Add feedback” popup. I added it to the framework on Thursday night, just before I wrote this newsletter.
Comment from Jayenkai
Time March 8, 2010 at 9:44 am
Added a second little popup, as per your suggestion, when the game quits, which is a nice little friendly reminder.
To be honest, I think that second one’s a bit bitchy considering there’s already a little window in the game, but what the hell..
Comment from Joe Larson
Time March 8, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Oh, I forgot my other suggestion. You do a lot of games but you never develop them past the initial week’s development. I think you need to have a game showdown. Take 3 games over 3 weeks and whatever gets the most votes gets advanced to the next round. In the next round you develop the game just a little more and pit it against 3 other games that won round 1. At this point you’ve had 9 weeks for round 1, 3 weeks for round 2, and at the end of round 2 (it’s been 12 weeks now) the winner gets developed to a full game.
Comment from Jayenkai
Time March 8, 2010 at 3:14 pm
So, a bit like the Krypton Factor, then?
The winner of each heat moves on to the final.
It’s a decent idea, but with one slightly annoying drawback.
Centipong, for all intents and purposes, should’ve been REALLY easy to improve upon. As would this week’s game.
The main issue, though, is that it’s really really hard to actually come up with additions!
I find myself, nowdays, thinking of ways to make games quicker to build, as opposed to trying to extend them.
Centipong 2 took AGES to build up, but in the end it turned out worse than the original!
That sucks!!
So, even though it’s a decent idea in theory, it’s not something I could do by my self.. So.. It does very much hinge entirely on feedback.
d’oh!
In addition, I just realised you’re Cymon, and not DD, the StudioFortress guy, who I assumed you were..
Joe Larson, meet Joe Lenton, whose name is close enough to yours that I’ve been wrongly assuming you were him this whole time!
Probably should’ve got that when you mentioned wanting to chat about the site..
(“but.. you’re always in the mudchat!!”)
derp!
Comment from Joe Larson
Time March 5, 2010 at 11:06 am
Aw, Jayenkai, I love your stuff. You know I do.
There is a problem tho. Game a week. It’s kinda disposable. I mean, you’re not exactly building a magnum opus here. You’re throwing together something, throwing it into the void and acting surprised when nothing comes back.
I’d love to chat with you about this because I really think this idea can be something great. You have my e-mail address, contact me. Please.