Hey everyone, I'd like to get input on this game.

http://www.arcadetown.com/blox/index.asp

It's been selling well and have gotten it on a few decent sized sites. Trick is the big sites such as Shockwave, RealArcade, etc. have given just lukewarm interest. Here's the most common things we've heard.

- the game is fun but the art needs some improvement and game needs more excitment.

I tend to agree with that however here's the statements I have questions about.

- needs a timed demo. I've heard 3 or 4 people say they want to see a 60 minute limited demo play instead of 10 free levels.

- needs randomized levels. Reason they are asking for this is they want people to be able to play the game forever. My lady sits down to same online jigsaw puzzle game every moring because it has a new random puzzle. I just don't know how it's possible with our game as on harder levels the solutions must be very complex yet humanly fun. A randomizer don't think would be fun plus would make our game just like all the other randomly genrated games out there.

One person pointed my to this game. I don't get how this adaptation of Popcap's game ever sells. The buy nagging is buried away and hidden. You can't buy it from links on site. Only once you download it you see a little message saying "X plays left". Why would anyone buy it if can play exact same game online for free forever?

http://www.gamerival.com/index.cfm?game=EE792CD4

Personally I think our game is selling well because of the human designed levels. Think people are boring of putting randomly dropped shapes together ala Diamond Mine. But it's really hard to fight the big site's perceptions.

Anyhow, you guys have any ideas on how to improve this game and what you think about random levels and timed demo?

I hate random levels. They are almost always boring. Seems you feel the same way. Trust your instinct. You're not wrong.

If your game doesn't fit the realarcade/popcap/whatever formula, ah well, sell it some other way. I would hate to see everyone changing their game to suit the whims of publishers based on their perception of what casual gamers want. That's so very anti-indie. You know what makes a good game so do it.

We were talking about timed demos just yesterday. Where is that thread?

Ah yes, here it is.
http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2088

wrong forum methinks

Just an observation, but maybe some people do like random levels. I know I do.

For example my wife still plays Age Of Empires 2 every night and it's always a new random level when she plays. She doesn't want to play any new games. If AOE2 didn't have random levels she wouldn't play it any more. And she is exactly the demographic that Real Arcade and others are selling to.

Originally posted by Cartman
For example my wife still plays Age Of Empires 2 every night and it's always a new random level when she plays. She doesn't want to play any new games. If AOE2 didn't have random levels she wouldn't play it any more. And she is exactly the demographic that Real Arcade and others are selling to.

Age of Empires also has hand made levels (an entire campaign). Following a similiar formula of having both a set of handmade levels and an infinite random level thing could work well. The random generator would be challenging to write, but if you are into such challenges, that translates into great fun!

The game itself is very well polished and I love it. Two suggestions would be to inform the player when the level is in an unbeatable state, and maybe provide an undo option (maybe not unlimited undo though, just last step, or something). I hate accidentally moving a block without thinking and having to restart level that was almost done, grrr :)

Don't take the random level generator idea too seriously, it doesn't look very easy to write. If you want to approach the problem out of a more academic interest, then go for it.

Anyone have any input on the artist quality front? I've heard generally that the game needs polish to make the bigs but no real feedback as to what that means. Any big or little things you guys think stick out that needs improvement? Art wise or game play wise.

I have just downloaded the trial to check out the gameplay and graphics for you.... but you have the following in the EULA.


"You acknowledge that by downloading, installing and using the Software, your browser may be added onto and you may receive offers, advertising and other informational messages. Based on your computer usage and web surfing behavior, your interests will be identified and you will receive advertising and contextual information and services that are matched to your viewing habits. Advertisements are delivered to your computer screen by pop-up windows and other Internet advertising formats. The ads or offers are determined by the web sites that you visit. Advertisements are often from web sites of competitors of sites that you are viewing or have recently viewed. See Privacy Policy below."

I dont know about anyone else or possible customers, but I wont be trying this game.

Alfie

When are you guys going to implement games for linux too, so poor sods like me can actually try all the games here? Come on, it's not that hard.

- elias

SPYWARE !!!!!!!!!! Arghhh!

Yes, I noticed that later too. The game installed tonnes of spyware. Took both Ad Aware and Spytbot to remove it all. This is terrible.

that sucks bigtime. A game that installs spyware would make me blackball that developer forever.

It wasn't spyware but we just removed it anyhow. It was simply a tool we experimented with that if you typed in an invalid url it went to a search engine's site instead the standard microsoft invalid url site, nothing else. Trying to find ways to help pay for download bandwidth is all.

Find better ways.

I have several spyware type programs installed now, thanks to you.

This isn't cool.

:mad:

Oh dear... spyware is the thing Dex forum people hate most of all!

Brian's a good guy I can personally vouch for. Just a bad decision.

I thought so.

The reported "spyware" was that if you typed an invalid url that the incredifind website came up instead of the microsoft site. I'm not sure if that qualifies as spyware in the classic sense but we have removed it anyhow (listened to you all).

Apologize for any inconvenience. Can we please stop talking about this?

If you guys think it installed anything else, please let me know. E-Universe promised me that it only did that one setting and stated so in the contract. I'd be very interested if they did something outside that agreement.