A few people on other forums had asked me about doing a post mortem for my game Planetary Defense, So I have done so and put it up on my site in case anyone finds it interesting:

http://www.positech.co.uk/planetarydefence/postmortem.html

Enjoy!

Very interesting read!

I've only just downloaded the game today and have had a few plays already. I'm very impressed with it - just my kind of game!

In the post mortem you mention about the music, and that you're still not sure about it. I think its fine and fits in nicely. It reminds me of an old "808 State" tune but I can't remember what it's called!?! Anyway the sound of me blasting missles left, right and center soon drowned out any music.

Graphically I think its done extremely well. Lovely explosions and a nice screen shake when your planets getting wasted. What more could you want!

The only gripe I had with it was that the medium level was a little bit too easy. I thought I'd be swamped by missles but there was a couple of times when I had about 10 seconds of breathing time - obviously the enemies were re-grouping ready for another assault! I haven't played it on the hard level yet but I'll let you know how I get on.

Sure interesting! And good luck with selling this cutie! :)

Hi Cliffski,

Really nice game and thanks for the postmortem link.

I noticed you used DX7 and a reasonable high spec for testing(Athlon 800 with GeForce2MX and 256MB RAM. Also tested on 400MHZ Celeron with TNT2 Ultra 32MB).

Just wondering what your thoughts were regarding the other thread on this forum on the use of DX7 over DX5, or even the use of D3D.

Thanks for the useful article! However, I found white text on black background hard to read.

Good read!
I downloaded your demo too despite it being 7Mb - and it's an excellent game! I used to play this on paper with my little brother when we were 5 or so - turns out it became known as Missile Command :) Became more a war of biros and scribbling but you can imagine the long winter evenings just flew by.

You know, I'm sorely tempted to buy it but I've promised myself not to buy any new toys until I've finished my own first!

Cas :)

weird, for some strange reason i cant download the demo...
iv'e clicked and clicked on the download free demo button
but nothing...

I'm downloading demo right now:-)
The link under article bring you to a new page where you can download it.. only strange thing is that it's written there that PD is about 2mb large, not 7...

works now.
i tried to dl it before from the main page.
seems that i can only dl it from real.
oh, well

ehh, the real thing is a disaster.. did I ask it to install on my system?
At least I got it deinstalled... but it doesn't work for the game, no uninstaller:/

Game is fine, althrought a bit boring (too little action, too much "strategy" - all in all the difficulty isn't to shot fast enought anymore, but to aim those pesky aliens / calculate missile time to get there and make a big BOOM...

Graphic is nice, althrought everything is small.. you said that you have a lot of particles? ehh.. those particles are so little-tiny it's a joke:-)

Overally game looks nice, seems smooth (althrought after running it seemed to be v.slow.. not sure if my changes in settings made it work ok or maybe it just started to work fine by itself) but it's a bit boring... I doubt I would still want to play it after 1h of demo.

my specs:
duron 600, TNT, W2K

I agree with MirekCz,
the real thing is a disaster. and it took TOO long to install
on my system.

but besides that, great game. very addictive, great gfx
and nice sound effects.

youve got my thumb up.

Agreed on Real Arcade - I'm one of those that refuses to install it on my system. I actually wanted to try Planetary Defense when it first came out, but wouldn't.

Glad to see you release it without the Real thing. Gotta try it out.


BTW, speaking of Real Arcade, I see lots of games by authors on this board published by Real. How are they doing these days? I know they were generating quite a few sales way back, but I wonder how that has changed now that (a) they have the Real Arcade install, and (b) they have a _ton_ of free game demos to play through.

Real still tick along nicely generating most of my sales, but they are so focused on puzzle games its almost pointless to ship anything else through them. Also I agree on the Real Arcade thing, which is why Im now selling it shareware.
RealGames get thousands of visitors but most of them stay on the front few pages, great if your games one of the top sellers, but not so great otherwise.

Originally posted by MirekCz
Game is fine, althrought a bit boring (too little action, too much "strategy" - all in all the difficulty isn't to shot fast enought anymore, but to aim those pesky aliens / calculate missile time to get there and make a big BOOM...


Aha! This is more or less exactly what I was talking about in my review of the game. Here's what you do... crank up the speed to about 75% of the drawbar in the options. You'll have a lot more fun. It goes from stategy->arcade and pretty darned good arcade at that.

Originally posted by cliffski
RealGames get thousands of visitors but most of them stay on the front few pages, great if your games one of the top sellers, but not so great otherwise.

That is so very true, and so very disappointing. In our case, we chose to use Real for an exclusive launch of Cyclone (http://realguide.real.com/games/?s=game_download&sub=cyclone). First, your game better convert real damned well - over 2% - or they will NOT push your game on their site/client.

Second, though exclusivity will give you a bit higher royalty, they have nothing special set up to promote the exclusive titles. The contract states they will promote more than a non-exclusive title, but only "when those opportunities present themselves". When we asked about getting special attention after the first few weeks when Cyclone no longer was on the front page, which meant our download count significantly declined, they responded "Hey, a separate page or portion of the page highlighting exclusive titles is a good idea - we should do that". That to us was an indication that these guys don't have all the answers, yet - or even close.

In summary - Real is a channel to use, but don't bother with exclusivity unless you are damned sure it will convert higher than 2%. Even then think hard about it.

Luckily for us, our exclusivity is over now and Cyclone will start rolling out to other sites.

Could you give us the names of a few of these 2%+ games so that we might check them out. Thanks.

I think rebound is one. hardly original, but nonetheless very polished.

Collapse, Bejewelled, Mahjongg Towers, Gutterball 3D, Jigsaw Puzzle Golden Edition are a few that I would guess are getting over 2%.

About "originality" - I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss a solid game like Rebound/Ricochet. Although in terms of game play it starts with the basics of Super Breakout and the like, it is a solid game through and through - it is not a simple knockoff. And it sells very well.

It's tough to come up with a truly original game, but if you can take some cues from other games out there and make them into a game that is your own, that in itself can be innovative. We at 21-6 plan on making many different types of games, but the key is to make it our own - give each a twist. You could do a set of card games, and if you make it your own in some way that the player/buyer really digs, that's pretty damned cool.