My feelings have changed. For the first few months of Feedback Friday (FF) , I was excited to see the new games, review them, and give feedback. Then, over time, it began to feel like a weekly thing I just did, until recently, it has begun to feel just a little bit like a chore - that I feel guilty for not attending to. At the same time, I notice the number of posted games has decreased, and the discussion is lagging. All of this makes me sad. And, at the same time, I wonder if it isn’t also an opportunity to reflect.
Recently, Hearthstone released a new feature - Tavern Brawl. And, what’s interesting about this new feature is that right from the get go, they set it up so there was a gap - a few days on, then off, then a new one. This technique reminds me of the special game modes in League of Legends (ex URF mode) which Riot makes available for ~2 weeks, before pulling to leave a fairly long gap with no special modes. Both are successful ways to embody scarcity - which breaks the experience into discrete events that people look forward to. “When is URF COMING BACK!”
I’d like to propose we try something similar. Where, FF is open, then shut. If we followed the hearthstone model, FF might be open for 1 week, then shut for 1 week. If we followed the LoL model, FF might be open for 1 week, then shut for 2 weeks. You get the idea.
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Anyway you want to go is fine for me. I try to give feedback on every game that is submitted but alas sometimes I miss one too. A few times I have submitted the shmup just so something is in the FF thread to checkout. lol So… maybe it would be better to only have one every 2 to 3 weeks. Or even monthly for that matter. However, we might end up with a lot of stuff to check out the longer we wait. Definitely seems like weekly is too often though.
I agree that the current FF schedule is way too dense - even if I weren’t participating in ShadowK’s PC Game Challenge, I wouldn’t be posting a prototype weekly. I find that it usually takes me about two weeks to refine a prototype, and polish the refinement.
Speaking of the challenge, though, I think it might be a good idea for challenges similar to the PC Game Challenge to happen more. One only gets better at making games, by making games. Focused challenges, with baked-in limits, help with that. (So, pretty much a forum-specific official game jam.) It would be interesting for a “Two Week Challenge” to be realized!
Edit: I had an interesting thought over lunch - while the challenge should be officially-sanctioned (in other words, @Gigiwoo allows it based on limits he feels are useful to this subforum), the actual jam should be administered by different members of the community. A Game Dev challenge that is judged, and has a winner and/or loser, is still a game. In essence, by setting up a game jam, you are designing a game, where the primary mechanic is building a game.
That could be fun. Two weeks would be 12 to possibly 15 hours for me during this time of year. Certainly be enough time to get a game prototyped though and I guess that is what the goal would be.
Well - and, as many others who do this a lot tell those of us who do it less - polish is a major part of making a game. Ideally, these challenges give us the chance to make an awesome prototype as part of the competition. After the challenge, we go back and polish it like crazy, and eventually release it however we feel would be best.
This is the design forum; we should strive for engaging experiences here. If an art challenge, or music challenge, or whatever is desired, there’s other places on these forums for that. In my opinion, I think the first consideration should be, “Does this help forumgoers be better at designing games?”, then in a very close second, “Is this an enjoyable way to get better at making games?” Everything beyond that is useful, but secondary; the Feedback Friday (or, whatever it becomes) is a great way to express those polish points and show our mechanics and promote our game in one fell swoop.
Agreed. Fine-tuning and polishing is very important but I see that as a next step after the initial design and prototyping. In my view a game should be fun even if all we see are solid color cubes and other primitives. Like you said focus on the design and game-play. Then afterward people can spend weeks, months, years whatever they want on presentation. Basically kind of like a game jam approach.
I plan on getting into 3D again (for Unity it will be the first time) sometime before the end of the year. So maybe next time such a challenge comes around I will participate. I had the impression this one was 3D specific and also had the focus more on achieving AAA presentation than actual game design or game play.
I’m new here, & to making games, so haven’t contributed yet. For me, even though its weekly, I still miss it mainly because life gets in the way. I have class all week then family in the afternoons & weekend & then find I not only missed submitting something but I missed testing.
My thoughts are, apart from being happy with what the main contributors want since they keep it running, is that getting lots of games to review in a week would be draining for those that did the reviewing. Any feedback received would likely take more than a week for the dev to refine & repost later so there will probably be more spikes & troughs in the work being presented. This is also a free service being offered by the organisers so it shouldn’t be a chore for them no matter how interested they are in the topic & generally helping the community, let them also have their own lives. Maybe have a week for submissions & then 3 weeks for reviews? This gives slackers like me a better chance to get off their butt (& iPad) & look at some games, let’s the main reviewers take a week or 2 off if they want to enjoy their own things & still have time to review, & lets the submitters have time to polish based on feedback.
As to visual & sound polish, I know they can make or break a game but anything I put up will consist of programmer art & artist coding. It is the mechanics & “is it fun” bits I would be looking at for initial review.
All of that said, getting free advice from experienced people is a bonus. If it wasn’t offered people may say they wished there was a way to get some help from industry people but they also wouldn’t be expecting to get it for free. So try different models until you are happy with what you can offer while maintaining work life balance because this shouldn’t be a 2nd job for you.
Sounds like others have had similar thoughts. Since it’s not just me, I’m inclined to try 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. The one month long session provides milestones to work toward - I know they motivate me. Plus, since there are specific periods of feedback, I’ll begin looking forward to them again. It’ll feel special, which should remove the burn out. And, by fully closing it after 2-weeks, the conversation won’t drag on forever. Get in, Rock it, Get back to work.
This is exciting! Of course, we can go more or less frequently as needed. So, once we close this friday, we’ll leave a 2-week gap. Looking forward to some new prototypes on July 17th.
Me too. With so many people developing in Unity it is surprising we don’t have dozens or even hundreds of submissions. Maybe people are a bit scared to toss their projects under the axe. lol
To be completely honest though, the only thing i dont like about FF is that it closes then another one opens up. Imo i think that having a single thread for all feedback would be better, but that just ruins the purpose of FF so…
I liked the decision to put it up every two weeks.
I tend to come to the forum - daily - to see if I can help others and if I can find some nuggets of wisdom unknown to me, but I always like seeing the new FF - every other week.
Which ever ya’ll decide is most assuredly thought out for those who desire feedback.
I think now that the first one is over, some retrospecting is a good idea.
I didn’t take part, but I did keep an eye on it (like @theANMATOR2b I keep an eye on the forums daily.) It seemed to flow about the same, and was proportionally as long as an ‘old style’ FF. There were more games (I counted four), and way more feedback, which is one of the points - in addition to being a place to refine a game, it’s also there to get knowledge of your game out there. In the old FF, you’d be lucky to see two games in a thread, and it was unusual for one to get close to a page worth of activity (this FF had nearly two full pages.)
So, I think it’s a success - it takes everything about the old FF, and improved them all. Good job, @Gigiwoo
@AndrewGrayGames - I agree. Plus, it felt less like a burden, and more like something I was looking forward to. I would have played more of the games, except they required exe downloads, and there’s just so much psychological barrier. A much prefer a web deploy for rapid prototyping.