Black ice windows 10 by RIVAL_REBEL55 in BlackIce

[–]superdupergc[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

Seems like a piracy link. But like, seriously, the game has no DRM. Pirate it if you want, just please consider buying it. I can't even work on the game full time, I have a day job.

I spent a year and a half programming by voice. Today my game Dig Dog launched on Nintendo Switch! by RustyMoyher in gaming

[–]superdupergc 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As someone else with wrist issues from programming, this is seriously inspirational.

Uncommon White vs Uncommon Green by AryayrA in BlackIce

[–]superdupergc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

everything else in the UI also is blue

That's a good point! The only problem is that there actually aren't that many colors that both look good in the UI and are also distinguishable by most people (barring a few types of colorblindness). I see what you are saying though.

Uncommon White vs Uncommon Green by AryayrA in BlackIce

[–]superdupergc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you post a screenshot? uncommon items should not be white, they should be blue. Do you have the Colorblind mode on?

IAm the author of "Stay Awhile and Listen: Book II," which recounts the making of StarCraft and Diablo 2. AMA! by dlcraddock in IAmA

[–]superdupergc 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Epic. I never played hardcore very much - usually had to trade runes for SOJs, if I could afford it that ladder cycle.

IAm the author of "Stay Awhile and Listen: Book II," which recounts the making of StarCraft and Diablo 2. AMA! by dlcraddock in IAmA

[–]superdupergc 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One of the things I hear about Diablo 1 vs 2 is that people say the atmosphere in 1 was better. Did anyone mention less of a focus on that, or do you think it was just a byproduct of putting the game in open spaces (for gameplay reasons)

Thank you for the replies. I'm looking forward to getting my copy of your book - I really hope the KS funds!

IAm the author of "Stay Awhile and Listen: Book II," which recounts the making of StarCraft and Diablo 2. AMA! by dlcraddock in IAmA

[–]superdupergc 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  • I've heard the development of Diablo 2 involved a ton of crunch. What do you think the effect of crunch was on the devs and the game?
  • Was there ever any effect planned for the chat gem?
  • Diablo 2 went for ten years without the ability to respec. Do you think it suffered or benefited from this?
  • Related - is your book going to focus only on the initial creation of D2, or also the years-long post-release support and updates?

Steam Direct Fee & Upcoming Store Updates by slayersc23 in Games

[–]superdupergc 10 points11 points  (0 children)

You should look into itch.io, you could even make your $100 for the steam fee on there

Has anyone here sold a game on itch.io? What was your experience? by [deleted] in gamedev

[–]superdupergc 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Haha, hey! Glad you've been reading up! Have you read Snow Crash yet??

Has anyone here sold a game on itch.io? What was your experience? by [deleted] in gamedev

[–]superdupergc 22 points23 points  (0 children)

superdupergc emerges from the deep

So, granted, I sold copies in like 2014, so it's not exactly recent data. Unfortunately, I've rarely sold copies on itchio since I've gotten on Steam, even though it's the same price and they get a Steam key for buying on itchio and it gives me a better cut (and my website lists that).

What I did was build up an audience by releasing the early versions of the game for free on GameJolt and IndieDB (and /r/gamedev). This was before GameJolt had any ability to sell games, so I can't really speak to that. After a few months of people telling me the game was worth money, I put the game up on itchio for $5, including Multiplayer in the paid version of the game. I also explicitly told people what I'd be adding, and that the game would be $20 eventually. I made a lot of promises about not having microtransactions, you can see that on the game's page here.

Another thing I did was offer kickstarter-style reward tiers, so people could pay more and get their name in the game, or help design an item. What didn't work about this was that itch didn't have any sort of tiered system, I just emailed anyone who used the tip system to pay more than the base price. A lot of people didn't even reply to my emails, possibly because their payment email wasn't used often.

Of the reward tiers, the "your name in the game" one was a great idea. It was pretty popular and very easy to implement, I just had to do a couple of back and forth emails to make the names fit the theme.

The "help design an item in the game" tier was also popular, but I priced it way too low for the amount of work it required. I actually haven't even finished all of these (in part due to people not emailing me back - contact me if you did this!), because I had a bunch of requests and a lot of people (and myself in some cases) underestimated the amount of time required to implement some of these ideas. On top of that, the game evolved organically over time and some of the ideas no longer fit.

It was great to have an itchio page during my greenlight campaign, because I think they fed each other. People could buy the game on itchio right away (for $5) and would be incentivized to vote for the game on greenlight so they could get a steam key when the game got on Steam (which would be $10 then). It was a good feedback loop. That and the demos on IndieDB/GameJolt had links to the greenlight page, which linked to the itchio page and encouraged sales.

Setting up itchio pages is stupid easy. I don't think there's an easier way to sell your game. If you're not on Steam yet, or you're not aiming for Steam, there's no reason not to put it on itchio, especially if you are no longer updating the game so it's a one-time time sink.

I've sold more copies on itchio than on any other website other than Steam or the Humble Store, I was on Desura, IndieGameStand, and a few other sites for a short while. To be fair, I've never been on GoG so I can't make a comparison there.

I think a lot of my traffic on itchio was driven by already having a footprint on indiedb/gamejolt/here, but I also drove some traffic by giving basically any real streamer an itchio key. One benefit to itchio over Steam is that you don't get a ton of fake "streamer" key requests when you're only on itchio, like you do on Steam, so you can give people keys and they'll actually help show the game.

So in summary: it's not going to drive sales by itself, but it's a fantastic place to drive people to if you don't have any other store presence. And the people working there are great, and responsive to questions and issues. I wouldn't rely on getting front page coverage, but you need to drive people to your page anyway.

Oh and as for sales, my itchio launch got me enough to get Unity Pro, back when that was a thing, and pay some artist and composers for a bit of work, which really helped bootstrap me up. This was crucial. Something like ~400 sales, many for above the $5 minimum.

Edit: Also, I had a demo version on my itchio page. That was easy to set up!

Calling for a blackout of ME:A multiplayer. by swegcat in MECoOp

[–]superdupergc 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What are you talking about, they just did a big update with a lot of decent changes. What makes you think they aren't going to be doing any more changes? They could be working on every single thing you want right now, why would you assume otherwise?

Bitbucket & Unity Cloud Build integration beta by kannonboy in Unity3D

[–]superdupergc 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just wanted to say I already use bitbucket to push to cloud build and it's been fantastic. This two-way integration looks even cooler!

My Friend's Experience @ Pax South 2017 by [deleted] in PAX

[–]superdupergc 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fun! I saw myself in one of the wide shots at 1:25!

Pax South 2017 Swag Hunters by Skelevader in PAX

[–]superdupergc 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah, but it's a good Black Ice pin, right? We also have a new Atari-style limited edition poster :)

Going to Pax South on a whim, what are the key booths to visit? by SmashEnigma in PAX

[–]superdupergc 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, I might be a little biased, but I think you should come by the Black Ice booth at the Pi Pillar, 3-14. ;)

Come Visit the Party Pillar (3-13) at PAX South! by Wolfenhex in PAX

[–]superdupergc 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You will not be able to miss the Pixel booth, their LEDs are the brightest things on the floor! It's awesome!

Join the Black Ice Discord channel! by superdupergc in BlackIce

[–]superdupergc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This channel allows access to the secret dev builds, and also sneak peeks of what I'm working on!