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Author Topic: Curve Masters - Worth continuing?  (Read 3757 times)

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Exilef

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Curve Masters - Worth continuing?
« on: November 29, 2017, 04:13:33 pm »
Hello everyone!

I decided to share a project (my first and only one so far) that I gave up on some time ago. It was meant to be an Android game that is a "clone" of Curve Fever (Achtung, die Kurve!), but with some new mechanics to make it more interesting ("Extreme" means with rockets and stuff : )  There is also a "Solo mode", which is like a puzzle game as a snake/curve. The other modes are local multiplayer only for now.
Curve Fever is a really fun game you play together on one keyboard, if you didn't know. We loved it in school

I had some problems with SFML+Android (either SFML's bugs or i misused the NDK), I posted here but no one responded so I was sad and gave up :(
But after a lot of work I wanted to release something, so I turned it into a PC game and uploaded it on itch.io a few months ago, but no one noticed it.
It is unfinished and not very polished yet, but does anyone think this would be worth working on more and later maybe release it on Steam?
Would be awesome if someone interested could test it, I don't even know if it works on other PCs :D

https://exilef.itch.io/curve-masters-extreme

Tank

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Re: Curve Masters - Worth continuing?
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2017, 08:25:59 am »
Hi Exilef.

Quote
It is unfinished and not very polished yet

I guess there's your problem. It looks very unfinished and unpolished to me and doesn't motivate me enough to download it.

Quote
but does anyone think this would be worth working on more and later maybe release it on Steam?

Your goal should be making the game polished and fun to play. Distribution is what follows thereafter. At first you need a good product, then you take care of marketing.

Of course it's worth working more on it — if that's what you want. Don't see releasing on Stream as the ultimate goal, it's just one form of distribution and marketing that you may use after you already made a fun game to play.

eXpl0it3r

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Re: Curve Masters - Worth continuing?
« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2017, 09:19:16 am »
I turned it into a PC game and uploaded it on itch.io a few months ago, but no one noticed it.
itch.io can get in the multiple of hundred games a day that get uploaded. Just uploading it and expecting people to see, download and play it, is a wrong expectation to have. ;)

I do agree with Tank, that the game needs some polish, especially in the graphics department. Plain colors with high contrasts isn't considered very pleasing to the eyes. Which then leads to people just not getting interested enough to click on the thumbnail among all the other games if it does come up on someone's list.
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Exilef

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Re: Curve Masters - Worth continuing?
« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2017, 10:50:40 am »
Hey, thank you for responding Tank and eXpl0it3r!

Your goal should be making the game polished and fun to play. Distribution is what follows thereafter. At first you need a good product, then you take care of marketing.

Of course it's worth working more on it — if that's what you want. Don't see releasing on Stream as the ultimate goal, it's just one form of distribution and marketing that you may use after you already made a fun game to play.
You are right of course, the first goal should be to make a fun game that I feel confident about before releasing it. But I was simply frustrated working on it for so long without having anyone to share it with.
I learned C++ by myself and have zero experience, which resulted in a code mess... I would have to redo most of it from the start and so I was hoping to see if people would be interested before doing that.
The few people I showed it to thought it's a great idea, but they all knew the original "Achtung, die Kurve!" and know how much fun it can be with local multiplayer. But hoping for a sudden hype from nostalgic people was probably wrong :D

itch.io can get in the multiple of hundred games a day that get uploaded. Just uploading it and expecting people to see, download and play it, is a wrong expectation to have. ;)
Yes, that's true, I didn't expect it to get much attention, but I was hoping for more than 3 downloads and 0 comments... xD But growing some kind of community first seems really hard / impossible alone :(

I do agree with Tank, that the game needs some polish, especially in the graphics department. Plain colors with high contrasts isn't considered very pleasing to the eyes. Which then leads to people just not getting interested enough to click on the thumbnail among all the other games if it does come up on someone's list.
Hmm I didn't see the graphics as a concern, I only wanted it to look like the original. There is not really much I could do, as it needs pixel-perfect collision, so I have to draw to a sf::Image at the same time that is used for the collision detection (Pixels in front not transparent -> collision). Implementing that was already difficult enough (as a beginner).
I showed it to a friend who showed me the original "Achtung, die Kurve!" back in school and he loved it, because he knew it's supposed to look like that. I guess I was hoping for other people with nostalgia for it.

So, I guess it's better if I work on easier projects first, so I can show something worth sharing before getting frustrated, right? I do have many other ideas :)

eXpl0it3r

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Re: Curve Masters - Worth continuing?
« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2017, 11:13:34 am »
Hmm I didn't see the graphics as a concern, I only wanted it to look like the original. There is not really much I could do, as it needs pixel-perfect collision, so I have to draw to a sf::Image at the same time that is used for the collision detection (Pixels in front not transparent -> collision). Implementing that was already difficult enough (as a beginner).
I don't know the original game, so I didn't know what style to expect.
Since you want to get close to the original, this decision seems fine then, but it won't help you much with getting attention from screenshots, as it doesn't look as nice next to the latest and greatest pixel art game.

Having a quick Google search, shows the game always with a black background, which I have to say looks best out of the screenshots you have on itch.io.
The ones with color backgrounds are problematic because you use complementary colors, so you get the highest contrast possible, which leads to eye-hurting experiences. You could try to make the static objects in the puzzle mode less single-colored or try out a whole different palette of colors. Like go with softer tones instead of plain colors, maybe some pastel colors?
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Exilef

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Re: Curve Masters - Worth continuing?
« Reply #5 on: November 30, 2017, 11:39:07 am »
Having a quick Google search, shows the game always with a black background, which I have to say looks best out of the screenshots you have on itch.io.
The ones with color backgrounds are problematic because you use complementary colors, so you get the highest contrast possible, which leads to eye-hurting experiences. You could try to make the static objects in the puzzle mode less single-colored or try out a whole different palette of colors. Like go with softer tones instead of plain colors, maybe some pastel colors?
Oh, I didn't put that much thought into the colors. I made it so you can change the background color in the main menu by clicking in different places. Top left makes it black (default). I just thought it's funny being able to change it like that :D
But you are right, I didn't think that choosing nice colors is so important for the first impression, thanks for the suggestion, I will try something like that.

Phanoo

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Re: Curve Masters - Worth continuing?
« Reply #6 on: January 03, 2018, 05:16:10 pm »
What you are experiencing is the result of the market saturation, entry barriers to app developement lowered so everyone can submit their app. As a user, you have to choose where to click, so you click on the most appealing ones. That means a polished shitty game will probably get more players than a great, unpolished game...  ;D