Guts and Glory (old, original post)

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UPDATE: Due to the significant changes to this project, I’m creating a brand new post, rather than updating this, to avoid confusing anyone new to the thread. Thanks again for everyone who gave me valuable input here. As a result, the final game will have the option to turn children and blood/gore ON/OFF!
NOTE: There is an ongoing conversation about this on the Guts and Glory Steam Concepts page as well.

ORIGINAL POST BELOW:

So, I’ve been working on this project over the past year and really want to know what my fellow game devs think. This is my first project. I spent about 6 months doing tutorials and messing around, then about 12 months in my very limited spare time building this. I’ve got all the core gameplay mechanics in place, and now just have to flesh it out with more content, a level editor, a back-end system, etc.

Here’s the “teaser” announcement trailer:

I have removed the original video. Please see the new post instead. Thank you.

I just put everything on my website a couple days ago, and just posted it to Steam Concepts yesterday (any votes/comments there would be freakin’ awesome too). I shotgun announced it on social media but still need to put a real marketing plan into place, and network, and get the word out there… probably the hardest part of being in this industry.

However, now I’m panicking! I’m worried that nobody will like it, or care, or even know about it! I had a stupid fantasy in my head that the world would go ga-ga over this and it would go viral overnight. I know I have a lot of marketing and networking to do to get the word out there, but right now I’m just worried that I should have been getting feedback much earlier on–to make sure people even want a game like this. To see if there’s even demand for a game like this. I made the mistake of keeping my project under wraps for way too long and now I’m hoping I didn’t waste my time!

So… all that being said, I really hope y’all will take a moment to review this work-in-progress, and let me know what you think. I’m not looking for any “pick-me-ups”, but just honest feedback and ideas. Does it look fun? Will people want to buy a game like this? What’s good? What’s bad? Ideas for marketing this and getting lots of people to even know about it? To get votes on Steam, etc?

I greatly appreciate any input you have and will love you forever if you help share this project with others!

I have removed the original screenshots. Please see the new post instead. Thank you.

For lots more info, feel free to check out my website. There’s social media links on there as well.

www.HakJak.com

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you have an awesome day! :slight_smile:

4 Likes
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I think its a strange idea to put a child in there, you will have a big risk of getting stuck in a shit storm that way. Other than that it looks pretty cool.

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To me it doesn’t look fun. That doesn’t mean it is a bad game. It’s just not something I am interested in.

As far as “will people want to buy a game like this?”… short answer yes. There will almost certainly always be at least a few people (2 to 3 maybe more) who would buy any one game.

Longer answer:
On the Steam comments for your concept preview people are saying it looks like / reminds them of Happy Wheels. I have no idea what Happy Wheels is. Never heard of it but you might know. At any rate a quick web search for Happy Wheels should lead you to some content on Happy Wheels. From that you may be able to gain some insight into what people like and dislike about HW. Then you’ll know what to do and what not to do to appeal to the folks are fans of this Happy Wheels. I guess the ultimate goal in this case would be to get Steam comments along the lines of “it’s like Happy Wheels only better!”

EDIT: I actually just noticed your title even says it’s like Happy Wheels. Completely missed that since I quickly scanned down.

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Thanks for the feedback guys. It’s definitely got a twisted sense of humor that’s not for everyone. Hopefully more devs will jump on here on comment… I would love to get more feedback from my peers on this.

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Hmm… nobody else eh?

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Looked cool. Then I see the kid.
Absolutely ruined it for me.

You will see a lot more success with removing the child from the game.
Ever wonder why GTA never had children running around the cities? Nobody wants to see it. It’s bad taste.

But it’s your game and whatever; whatever your into I guess…

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Thank you for the feedback! This is something I’ll definitely consider and see what potential players want… I suppose in some situations, like the Hunger Games, it’s a little different than in a game like this or GTA…

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It’s a blatant copy of Happy Wheels, except the graphics are so good that you lose all of the eye-rolling, tongue-in-cheek humor and go straight to cringe. Might be a good way to get some negative PR/attention, might be a good way to get yourself blacklisted from… everything,

Try getting a YouTuber to make fun of your game. If it is controversial enough, you could get picked up by an even bigger YouTuber. That’s your only shot, no news organization will touch this imho.

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Hmm… Yeah you guys really have me thinking…

So if I removed the dad/son character and just went with all of my other characters (that are nothing even close to Happy Wheels) and removed any kids from it, it would be a great game??

Maybe tone back the graphics a bit too? Make it more toony-ish?

I really do appreciate the feedback. Good or bad.

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I wouldn’t go so far as to say it is guaranteed to be a great game, but you have a shot at getting recognized for your hard work. Make sure the game supports players making their own levels, that’s a big part of Happy Wheels.

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Oh yeah, I definitely plan on having a level editor! That’s essential.

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You most likely wouldn’t need to tone down the gore for the game; most people aren’t turned away from gore nowadays. Just loosing the children in the game would be enough where you could promote to a much larger audience then beforehand.

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Well, a lot can sure change in a day! Word-of-mouth spread about this game on Steam and it got over 1,000 unique visitors in the first 24 hours!! Lots of good feedback on there so far too.

The issue about children in games still concerns me though, so I posted a poll on Steam to get feedback from potential players to help decide what to do.

Where would be the best spot for polls like this on Unity?

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You could keep the kid in the game if you went in a cute direction instead of a gore direction. For example, if the dad and kid took the bike through some sweet, cool jumps, then it might be fun for some people. I doubt too many people want to run the dad and kid through a bunch of giant slicers, though.

If you want to go the gore route, maybe get rid of the kid and put the dad character in a funny costume. The right costume could dehumanize the main character enough that the gore would be funny instead of repulsive. Right now with the kid and dad, the gore is only repulsive.

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Hmm… Thanks ShilohGames. I’m a little torn right now because I’m getting polar opposite reactions on Steam so far. They all want it more like Happy Wheels by including kids… but they DO want the first character changed because he looks too similar… So definitely have to change that. Just not sure how to handle the kid part yet.

I’m currently leaning most towards removing them from the game–I just don’t want to make the followers I have on Steam so far mad either.

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Think I’m going to remove the kids and tone back the graphics just a bit.

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You gotta learn to be able to check which way that wind is blowing… as a society, violence towards kids is not okay. The same people who are saying “you have to put the kids in!” are probably anti-social/counter-culture type people anyway, they probably like anything that would make their mum & dad upset. You don’t need/want those types as fans/supporters (not exactly the demographic with the most disposable income…).

3 Likes
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I think it would cool if you could maybe turn around and go backwards and slowly back up into one off those spinning blades.
A ‘slow mo’ replay with maybe matrix style 360 freeze motion would be good. Will people buy this? Of course there’s a lot of people out there that like this kinda sick stuff. I think if you could also create your own death traps, that would be a good idea but not sure how easy that would be to implement.

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The gameplay allows for full 360 degrees of movement. You can drive anywhere! Forward, reverse, handbrake and drift, etc.

A replay system will be difficult to do given the realtime dismemberment system, but it’s on my wish list!

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Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is about having a kid character in there getting obliterated. I mean it’s not like the game has you running around with the goal of killing all of the children. Just can’t see why people would care about the game having a kid in it. If anything I thought that actually made it a bit more interesting. There is a greater consequence for wrecking in that case.

Don’t get me wrong. I am sure there will always be a few people out there who yell and scream about the kid but if it wasn’t that they’d be yelling and screaming about something else. I think most rational people just don’t take such things seriously.

And yes just do a poll and ask the potential fans you already have on Steam. They are the ones to listen to more than any of us here. See what they say about keeping the kid or ditching the kid.

2 Likes