BrickyPlay

I'd like to announce the coming of my latest puzzle game called "BrickyPlay"

You can download it here

Now I got a few things, I'd like to ask of you.

I tried to find some way to get the money problem solved, but did not get much help from companies doing amateur games to help, only a few advises, as some wanted to see me sell it well before they sell it. Problem is how can I best accept credit cards. If you can get me some sites billing the credit cards (or semiliar paying methods) for me (preferably from the Netherlands, but the US is also fine) I'd be grateful.

Second, the game is yet in English and Dutch (as those are the only languages I speak fluently), if you like to make a translation in a language I don't know, then please do so. You can find the files with all the text the game contains in the "Lang" folder of the game, and I do believe experienced programmers like you won't have any trouble in figuring out how the language files work.

And of course tell me what you think of the concept. It's a simple concept, but I got the feeling it can be pretty addictive nevertheless. The game is practically finished, but if you got any advices for improovement, I'd like to hear it.

So far my questions. I hope you like this simple game ;)

Erm, you're linking to geocities.com!

Pertaining to the credit card/money question (and without seeing the game so I'm *not* knocking it), I personally wouldn't entrust my credit card details to anyone who uses geocities - its a haven for warez-munkies and porn-mongers.

I'd recommend sorting out some proper web hosting at least.

hahahah

Oops.... The link is fixed. It should work now!

Please lose the bizarre patterned background. The screenshot on that page is eye-grating.

I get your point. I can replace that background if that's the only point of criticism you have.

I'll try it later, but ShareIt is a good transaction partner, and www.blitzhosts.com offer some very cheap hosting ( only for Blitz projects ) if you're short on cash and need somewhere to host from. ( It's not my site and I get nothing out of it. I do have a site there though. )

"if that's the only point of criticism you have"

For now; I haven't tried the game yet. But just looking at the screenshot I can tell that the background needs to be simplified (possibly to a solid color) for a couple reasons. One, the busy contrast interferes with one's ability to see the important stuff (ie. it's hard to distinguish the blocks,) Two, that background is pretty ugly.

You will probably have to tweak this game significantly in order for it to sell well, so you should probably worry about that before you worry about how to handle online purchases.

I definitely suggest BMT Micro, though, for when you start selling.

Downloading now...

in the mean time I would do a little research http://www.gamehouse.com http://www.popcap.com http://www.realarcade.com

See what those games look like, most look very simple with bold colours... thats what players seems too like... give'em what they like. ;)

I didn't like it at all. Too much mousework involved, irritating "in your face" sound effects (particularly the one when you try to scroll left/right and a block hits the edge of the screen). I didn't even get past the first level - not because its difficult, but because it was so incredibly tedious. The later levels *might* be better; unfortunately I quickly lost the will to find out.

I agree with what Michael said - make the game sellable before you worry about WHERE you're going to sell it. I don't think many would pay for this as it stands.

Thanks to all for your replies.
I'M short on time now, but I'll come back later to go into deeper detail about what I need to say now.

Still thanks anyway ;)

Here I am now, with a little more time.



Thanks a lot. That information was really useful. And Blitz hosts only being for Blitz projects is no problem. The game is coded in Blitz :)


This is pretty vague to me. First of all the word "tweak" is unknown to me (English is NOT my first language), but I guess you mean I have to make significant changes to the game. But that doesn't say much, and basically anything could be changed. Do you have any points about WHAT to change?


Basically that's what I like as a player as well, and I always try to create something I would like to play (If you don't like your own games how's somebody else supposed to like it). And I like simple natured puzzlegames, and that's what I wanted BrickyPlay to be. I may be making diffrent screenshots of easier levels ;)


Strange comment. I mean, it's the only input device that is really useful for a game in this fashion. In fact, most puzzle games of this style are mouse only (for the reason stated above).


Want me to build in a feature to turn the sound effects off?


I already spoke with people who would DEFINATELY buy this game once it comes out. And that makes opinions pretty diffrent. I could even get a publisher to believe it COULD sell well, but they wanted to wait before taking it on. You never know how well it sells before the selling begins, but until that time I need things in pretty much detail about how to make it sellable. I got the suggestion to get rid of one of the backgrounds (or at least that screenshot), complaints about the sound (for which I can make a feature to turn it off), those are the most significant advices I got so far.

Any more advices?

My point was, it will probably take more than just taking out a background and an option to disable the sound to make the game sell well. It just isn't fun, and I don't see how you could keep the same mechanics and make it fun.

I guess that's your opinion, but I heard some people elsewhere who actually love this game. "Just isn't fun" can be diffrent per person. Still thanks for your time to try out this game.

OK, how about a list, then.

1) I won't go into the graphics, but I will say that they are unprofessional and unlikely to 'wow' any players. Shareware games *can* sell with graphics like this, though.

2) I don't see exactly how you can have load times as long as you do. They should be just about instant, and anything over 3 seconds or so is an annoyance, especially in a game as simple as this.

3) The menu has keyboard control while the game uses mouse control.

4) The background in the menu is completely and utterly annoying. Use a full screen image instead.

5) Your Terms of Service as completely laughable. Leave them out.

6) Never, ever refer to yourself as "Tricrokra", and you will probably want to leave out your full name (instead only leaving the name of your company) as well.

7) The loading screen is big, bloated and uninteresting, and the splash screen at the start containing text should definitely not be there.

8) The game doesn't instantly hook the player, mostly because the game board is WAY too big. The board shouldn't even be that big on any insane difficulty mode. It should start out at about 4x4 and then work up.

9) You don't state your price from within the game.

10) You don't push the full version at all - you don't state its benefits, and that is what you are selling.

12) There is no purchase option, only a link to your web site.

13) Your web site is extremely cumbersome to navigate.

14) There is no score, or sense of reward on completing a level or any small tasks. This is IMPERATIVE to making a puzzle game enjoyable.

15) The sound effects are completely and utterly pathetic. I would definitely turn them off - but then the game would be soundless!

16) The download size is excessive to say the least. It's bigger than my Juno Nemesis, which contains lots of sound effects, music, graphics etc. ~2.5mb isn't *bad*, but I can hardly see why it has to be as big as it is.

17) The game isn't difficult enough at the start - and it doesn't accelerate in difficulty nearly fast enough to compensate for good players.

18) The game flat out crashes when you run it from the link on the desktop.

19) You haven't gotten a proper icon for your game - it *really* doesn't suit it.

20) You shouldn't use a password system for saving games. People that forget their passwords or lose them will lose all incentive to play.

That was kind of off the top of my head, so I could be more specific if you wanted. I could probably list a lot more if I were to play it more. Which I won't.

A constructive list Michael!
Here's a review for you Tricroka.

Upon navigating to the site, I was greeted by geocities popups and a link that led to Quake3. While Quake3 is impressive, it's clearly not yours. Pushing on with determination, I found another link hidden along the side which enabled me to download your demo.

Upon installing, the installer brings up some terms and conditions in a weird large text:

I didn't intend to blurt out laughing, but needless to say it is incoherent and rambling. It doesn't matter if English isn't your first language. Make an effort if you intend to sell it to English speaking people. Find someone or an EULA you can use. This is just rambling and any court would probably let a warez user off on the basis that it's dense and confusing.

Onto loading the game...
It took longer to get into the game than loading Unreal Tournament 2004 -and- playing the level. So you need to do something about that. I took a look inside your source folder and it appears you've packed up your media. Perhaps you're clearing the media after loading each one? if it's by terabit then there's tips.

The main menu: butt ugly and without scheme. I suggest that you make it entirely menu driven with large blocky colourful buttons to be used with the mouse. Help screen is unhelpful because it doesn't even tell you how to navigate the help screen let alone anything else. A rethink is needed there.

It also has a disturbing lack of timing, running too fast or too slow.

Onto the game...

Visually I quite liked it. The mandlebrot fractal in the background wasn't too imposing and actually looked rather pleasent. Your control method truely sucks though, with the user having to travel the mouse all the way over to the other side even if they make a mistake. A TERRIBLE control method.

To fix this, I suggest you have a row and column drag system. This means all the user needs to do is click any row or any column, then hold the mouse down and drag either left or right or up and down. The mouse will lock to that AXIS and then allow free dragging along that axis. It's intuitive and you can pretty much control it with the mouse WITHOUT any of that silly clicking the arrow business.

Thanks to your current control method, I completely lost the desire to play any further and quit the game.

I hope you will sum up the points I've made because I know that deep down in here, there IS a GOOD little puzzle game - you do need to make it a lot more friendly to play though.

The point I was getting at, is that all the controls are arranged around the outer edge of the screen. Where mouse-controlled games are concerned, all clickable icons should be kept somewhere in close proximity to each other.
I'd rather you changed them to something more suitable. A game with no sound is as bad as a game with poor sound.
People here say that all the time. How many of them do you think actually do it?

I don't really disagree with anything Michael has said, except maybe number 20. I kind of like password systems myself. But to single out one point he made regarding the terms of service. I didn't read it all (who does?), but I have to say that the first page (the one with your date of birth and everything on) did bring a smile to my face. Nobody cares where and when you were born!

Something like this would suit you better. You may have to adapt parts of it to suit your needs:

Nice constructive reply GFK, I hope he uses that EULA. I would actually remove having icons and have an intuitive drag system though.

ROFLMFAO! I'd never have installed it if i'd bothered to read that far. That tells me it *IS* going to bust my PC!

Yes, yes, yes, yes, *YES*!

Er, yes. Splendid idea.

1) I won't go into the graphics, but I will say that they are unprofessional and unlikely to 'wow' any players. Shareware games *can* sell with graphics like this, though.

I used simple graphics on purpose indeed. I don't think a game of this fashion needs more, and for Shareware it all it's needs.

2) I don't see exactly how you can have load times as long as you do. They should be just about instant, and anything over 3 seconds or so is an annoyance, especially in a game as simple as this.

That is something I may sort out in updates. The backgrounds are the evil ones here. The encryption engine used for that isn't that fast. I'm considering to try it out with Terabit's packer.

3) The menu has keyboard control while the game uses mouse control.

Good one. I mustn't be so damn lazy. I'll fix that up.

4) The background in the menu is completely and utterly annoying. Use a full screen image instead.

Hmmm... That could be an idea, but such images are not my forte, so I solved it this way. I could give it a thought if I can get somebody to design a good picture.


5) Your Terms of Service as completely laughable. Leave them out.

What exactly is so funny about it.


6) Never, ever refer to yourself as "Tricrokra", and you will probably want to leave out your full name (instead only leaving the name of your company) as well.

Trust me, I was never intended to explore the internet as "Tricrokra", but that name made me famous (that and much other things). My company name is not fully protected (yet), and therefore I use those names to make sure nobody can ever try to rid my products my stealing my names.

7) The loading screen is big, bloated and uninteresting, and the splash screen at the start containing text should definitely not be there.

The loading screen was supposed to be as simple as possible, in order to surpres the loading times. The "splash" screen is more a leftover from debugging routines. I can remove the text or prevent it from being in the screen too long. The screen itself however is something Blitz does automaticly, so I cannot get rid of it for 100%. 98% should do...

8) The game doesn't instantly hook the player, mostly because the game board is WAY too big. The board shouldn't even be that big on any insane difficulty mode. It should start out at about 4x4 and then work up.

That's exactly the opposite from the criticism I got from the 1.0 version (never released and written in the good old DOS era). There I got the criticism that the boards were way to small. I had to pick a size to work with in the end, because the size is always to be put into discussion.

9) You don't state your price from within the game.

That's because the price is not yet decided. That will be done once the actual full version is released, but for that I need to get the transaction partners in order.

10) You don't push the full version at all - you don't state its benefits, and that is what you are selling.

I should check out the site for that once again.

12) There is no purchase option, only a link to your web site.

Will be there once the full version is released (when I have a good transaction partner).

13) Your web site is extremely cumbersome to navigate.

The link only leads to a fraction of the website. In fact, I only placed that code there to keep Geocities satisfied.

14) There is no score, or sense of reward on completing a level or any small tasks. This is IMPERATIVE to making a puzzle game enjoyable.

I personally didn't think it would suit THIS type of game. And is that the key to make this game enjoyable. In "Lemmings" or "Clockwiser" to name a few commercial puzzle games, I also didn't miss the score. But who is me. You're not the first to suggest this.

15) The sound effects are completely and utterly pathetic. I would definitely turn them off - but then the game would be soundless!

Do you know a place when I can find better ones?

16) The download size is excessive to say the least. It's bigger than my Juno Nemesis, which contains lots of sound effects, music, graphics etc. ~2.5mb isn't *bad*, but I can hardly see why it has to be as big as it is.

I don't know where the evil one lie to make the size *big*, as I have written more complex games with smaller sizes. But I do think the size is acceptable.

17) The game isn't difficult enough at the start - and it doesn't accelerate in difficulty nearly fast enough to compensate for good players.

I wanted to start as easy as possible, to get people to know the rules of the game. Balancing out the difficulty is always hard, but there are some hard ones in there, trust me.

18) The game flat out crashes when you run it from the link on the desktop.

It does? Strange. I'll try to find out how that happens.

19) You haven't gotten a proper icon for your game - it *really* doesn't suit it.

Ideas for a better one?

20) You shouldn't use a password system for saving games. People that forget their passwords or lose them will lose all incentive to play.

Okay, savegames a better idea then?

You aren't going to change the game much at all, are you?

None of terabit's routines have been used, but I am considering it. The base is the same though. The temp files are removed after EVERYTHING is loaded. I hope Terabit's can make this faster, but the main reason for me not to use Terabit's packer was because it misses vital featues. At least for me.



Drag & drop? Hmmm, I gotta say that method has never been used before by me in any production (never needed it so far), but I'll take it into consideration.


I'm glad you see it that way. I'll try add a friendlier method of controlling, next to the controls it already has.
I have a few ideas, but I need to see how to work them out.


Suggetions where I can get better?


My birthplace was merely put in there because I found out that there are people having EXACT the same name as I do, and spelled the same (I mean my real name, not "Tricrokra"), this was the only way to make sure we got the right person. It was a silly method, but it should work.


I'll need to time to dig that through, but thanks...

That's personal. The chose for passwords or savegames is for me always pending on the type of game. I'm normally not fond of passwords myself, but I found it better for this game. For "The Fairy Tale" I would DEFINATELY not use passwords (that's an RPG, in case you didn't know).



Roger! I'm not sure about dragging, but I think I found an alternative that should also do the trick.

I think I found in here a lot of valuable points to put on the drawing board (as I always call it).

Good luck!

The spelling and the general abuse of the English language.

You encrypted the backgrounds? PARANOIA

For the terms of use I think you can do with stating that it's yours, that it may not be altered and that you can pass on the unaltered demo.

See everything Michael said, especially board size, load time and difficulty.