Flash Game License's First Impressions

I'd heard all kinds of good things about First Impressions over at Flash Game License, so after some hesitation I decided to get some myself. I got $20 worth (which gives 20+3 as a bonus, woohoo! Couldn't quite convince myself to jump on 50 right away...) and tried 4 out on Million Dollar Words. After a few hours (they warned they were having issues and would be more than the normal hour (!!!) it would take; I honestly expected to wait at least overnight and part of the morning) I had my first review. Within another hour or so I had all four. It seemed that basically everyone said the same things: the lights are distracting and the game is hard. The game being difficult is understandable; they are crazy difficult words! That's how I wanted it set though, to be honest...

So all in all, for $4 I learned something! And everyone had said they found no bugs, which is awesome! Here is my takeaway list of to dos:

1) Tone down the lights during game play only, see if this is what people mean by the lights being annoying.

2) After spending all kinds of time thinking it may not be worth the effort, I am going to go ahead and voice the game... I think it will make it much more humorous and fun, and it will also level out the "I don't read as fast as you do so I don't get as many points" issue.

3) I want to add some graphics to the game, although I'm not quite sure what yet...

Once these are done, I'll resubmit for some more First Impressions and see how it goes :)

Million Dollar Words is Ready for Testing!

Writing this blog half a day late, oops! Admittedly it's because we got a Nancy Drew game (Crystal Skull), and while we thought it was quite dumb at first it actually got to be quite good. So good that we were up til 4am trying to figure out more clues and solve more puzzles! Oops...

So, the main thing is that Million Dollar Words is ready for testing! It's the first version of the game, but it's there! I'm going to give First Impressions over at Flash Game License a shot for the first time. They're $1 a piece so it's an actual investment into a game, but I think it'll be worth it to get some honest feedback from random people.

Finally, Mini-Ludum Dare 23 is set for the 28th-30th this month! As usual I'll only have Friday night after work, Saturday night after work and then Sunday til the deadline (about 12-14 hours of the 48 gone there), but work time lets me think about the concept. (For those not familiar, a Ludum Dare - or Mini Ludum Dare - is a challenge to make a game based on a game concept within a 48 hour period. The challenge is that you don't know what concept the game has to center around until the beginning of the challenge, so it's 48 hours from concept to finish.

Hope the day finds you well! I will blog again this evening for tonight :)