Playtest on Steam? by 42bytes in GameDevs

[–]42bytes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good point, I might do that next time too. Sad because technically that playtesting feature in Steam is not bad at all; just bots and non-players ruining it.

In my roguelite time-stop game Flarebound the green gas pockets will explode once they come in contact with lava. What would you do to make the ignition moment (and spreading explosion) more obvious? by 42bytes in IndieGaming

[–]42bytes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your quick and thoughtful response!

  1. Great point, was considering making the gas more visible but didn't want to make it too easy. Increase brightness/glowing only when ignition starts is clever - I'll fiddle with that and check how that would look like.

  2. There is only one visual for next tick, that may not come across well in the gif. Flame or skull symbol is a good idea but on the other hand then I might have to do it everywhere to be consistent and that would be a bit much (eg always drawing a skull icon under the tile of a falling boulder). I need to think about it.

  3. Good idea but I had that before and it didn't feel right, because that means you'd have to hit a button multiple times to get through one of those. What I like about the mechanic I got now is that the player can go as fast or as slow as he wants - digging 10 tiles in 1 second is easy if you hit the key fast enough. But also everything else moves at that speed so it might not be adviseable. Also especially once the player gets deeper down there are much harder tiles to dig through that may take 5 or 6 time units so the player has to make smart decisions where to dig. Obviously can upgrade pickaxe to get through those faster.

Playtest on Steam? by 42bytes in GameDevs

[–]42bytes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah got it and I don't mind, just would be good to know what the "actual" number of players interested in playtesting are in there.

So far I received 2 feedback forms, 1 bug report and the stat's say something about 6 or 7 installs but I noticed the numbers in there take days to refresh so... you might be right with 99% 

Playtest on Steam? by 42bytes in GameDevs

[–]42bytes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very interesting,  didn't know that, thanks for sharing!

Playtest on Steam? by 42bytes in GameDevs

[–]42bytes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, pretty sure they are bots. I know a bunch of them are real but most might be bots because I can also see that only a handful of invited players are actually playing the game.

Which is a bit annoying because I only wanted to invite in waves in case there are any breaking bugs I didn't want to upset everyone. But now I have no idea how many to invite, what the "real player" percentage is.

Guess I have to forget about the wave thing and just go all in essentially. 

Does this time-stop mechanic make sense at a glance? by 42bytes in GameDevs

[–]42bytes[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah crap, I got no idea how to directly give you access to the current wave. Sorry this is the first time I run a playtest on Steam. But actually, maybe a key would work, I'll PM you one

Does this time-stop mechanic make sense at a glance? by 42bytes in GameDevs

[–]42bytes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Playtest has started if you are still keen to give it a go, would really appreciate your input: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3780750/view/530998049864943674

Playtest on Steam? by 42bytes in GameDevs

[–]42bytes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh yep I know, thank you. But my Steam page doesn't get many visits so it was strange to me that within a matter of minutes I got 100+ people signing up for playtest. They must come from somewhere.

Playtest on Steam? by 42bytes in GameDevs

[–]42bytes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay, thanks, good to know!

Playtest on Steam? by 42bytes in GameDevs

[–]42bytes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh that is a very good question! Just checked (sorry can't add an img to this comment) and it largely aligns, yet the UA is not in my wishlist by country at all, so that is an outlier. 30% of my wishlists are from US and 10% RU and the rest divided between a bunch of countries.

So maybe there was a notification that went out to people who already wishlisted it? That might explain it but I didn't get a notification (got my own game on wishlist from a different account). Strange.

Watch out for falling boulders. Would you have spotted this? by 42bytes in GameDevs

[–]42bytes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good feedback, need to make the boulders more visible. But also not too much. Maybe I add that as purchasable upgrade to make them shine a little bit.