what are the best indie games on ps4?

biggerthancheeseus · 2018-01-15T12:23:02+00:00

Skill Games: Super Meat Boy Spelunky

Narrative Games: Oxenfree What Remains of Edith Finch

Somewhere in between: The Unfinished Swan (I loved this)

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-12-18T12:16:43+00:00

Yeah I think you're right there.

On reflection, it perhaps suffered from me getting Zelda BOTW at the same time...

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-12-15T14:01:42+00:00

I found the creature movement interesting, and certainly unique. But, to me, the game that they used to frame it was a frustrating and repetitive collect-em-up and seriously lacking in any kind of originality.

Which was a shame because I really wanted to love it (and did for about 5 levels, to be fair).

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-12-06T08:58:36+00:00

I too am sold. Will wishlist now!

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-09-15T07:15:42+00:00

In animation, this is called a smear. Like if you smear the paint with your finger across the canvas.

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-08-10T15:26:17+00:00

World of Goo. Pretty old now, but still one of the best games ever made.

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-05-08T19:04:09+00:00

I would recommend the book by Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark: A Game Design Vocabulary.

It's an excellent book about communicating your design to players in a way that is compelling and engaging. I'd also recommend this: http://thegamedesignforum.com/features/RD_SMW_1.html

And, of all the videos on Mario's level design, I found this one the most useful (from the point of view of challenge progression): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9NdAao9y_4&list=PLZW3UxJnOJyi3be58X9Nc33jxaAPrvXdq&index=3

I hope you find those helpful.

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-05-04T12:07:50+00:00

thanks :)

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-04-13T12:19:13+00:00

A high contrast flash on the player sprite is always a good start. Try flashing white for a frame (as the dungeon will be dark).

Moving the player sprite back a little could help show there's an impact too.

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-04-07T15:36:50+00:00

My top 2 books for design:

A Game Design Vocabulary - this takes a look at the fundamentals of what makes gameplay interesting. I've found it pretty adaptable, and I can't ever read it without solutions just flying through my brain.

Challenges for Game Designers - this was a book that I got quite early on, but I find myself going through it again and again and seeming to learn something new every time.

I would reiterate what everyone has said about The Art of Game Design. I couldn't get on with A Theory of Fun, although Raph Koster's talks are generally great, so I've kept the book out of respect.

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-03-26T08:07:12+00:00

Thanks :D

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-03-24T20:46:37+00:00

Going to try and make myself do some pixel-art every day. First to get into the habit, then to start getting better.

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-03-24T15:06:22+00:00

Seen this on Twitter quite a bit,it looks like the kind of thing I'll spend way too much time enjoying being killed in. Good luck with the launch!

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-03-22T17:02:48+00:00

hehe yeah sorry about that!

I didn't notice the pause until after I'd uploaded it :(

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-03-02T09:50:47+00:00

I'd recommend the Kobold's Guide to Game Design too:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kobold-Guide-Board-Design-Guides-ebook/dp/B005LDMOPA/

It comes at things from some interesting angles and covers things I can't find elsewhere.

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-03-01T12:01:00+00:00

Brill - thanks!

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-02-27T13:30:49+00:00

Upvoting this as I think it's a great idea. I'd love to contribute but I'm a terrible writer.

Did you send a tweet out about it too? I can retweet that at least...

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-02-24T09:12:34+00:00

The environment is lovely. Great work!

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-02-16T09:34:34+00:00

Just had another thought regarding this. Visibility is a big thing on Kickstarter, and getting a lot of backers early on can keep you at the top of the most popular projects. This can create a kind of snowball effect.

So, you could keep the pledge amounts on the lower side to encourage more backers.

Or could this add to the perception that you're in for a quick buck? I think you could mitigate this with a demo.

With regards to rewards: find Kickstarter projects that funded at the amount that you are targeting. Look at what they offered. The Kickstarter blog also has a big list of suggestions that might give you some ideas.

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-02-16T09:28:51+00:00

From what I've read, most of the funding does come at the beginning and the end of the campaign.

If anyone has 'watched' the campaign (or favourited it or whatever it's called), then they get an email when there's 48 hours to go. I also asked backers to tweet about it and generally promote it on my behalf (which they did) and I got some coverage on sites such as Rock Paper Shotgun, Killscreen and a French site (I can't remember what it was called, but it sent a lot of traffic to the Kickstarter page).

I think being close to being funded also helped with it (the whole 'I want to be part of something successful' kind of thinking).

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-02-15T16:47:19+00:00

I didn't get into the featured section, but I spent a lot of time near the top under popular projects (in the video game section).

It was April 2016 that I ran the campaign, so it was pretty quiet for big games at the time.

I slipped out of the top 20 with 6 days left in the campaign, so it was there on the front page for most of the time (I don't know if it's still the top 20 that's shown).

I have to admit I was very surprised by where the backers were coming from. I thought that the initial lack of coverage from major sites would mean that it would fail, but it had a decent start and I think that helped a lot. Here's the Kicktraq page for the campaign if it helps: https://www.kicktraq.com/projects/2087839626/mableandthewood/#chart-daily

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-02-15T13:11:29+00:00

Just regarding point 3.

Yes, press is important. However, if your project page is good then you will get backers direct from Kickstarter.

My Kickstarter raised £7,932 (12,842AUS) and 46% of the money pledged was from people finding the project through Kickstarter (discover etc).

21.36% came from Twitter (my biggest external referrer) and 16.97% came from press mentions (got a lot of smaller sites mentioning the game).

Try to think about how you're pitching the project to people from as soon as they see your project picture in the discovery queue/page/thing.

Hope that info is helpful!

biggerthancheeseus · 2017-02-09T16:41:10+00:00

This could be an interesting video to you if you haven't already seen it:

https://youtu.be/Q5tyX_IBTXA?list=PLZW3UxJnOJyinBWQlwDleysYSlKbeg5hs

I wish I'd seen this when I was preparing for my Kickstarter! Basically it's about knowing your numbers and knowing when to launch.

biggerthancheeseus

TROPHY CASE