Between Phil Fish quitting Fez 2 (and possibly game development forever!) and the absolutely insane things being said to a developer for simply tweaking the way a gun works in a video game, there's been a lot of focus on what horrible, negative things are being said to people. What isn't being focused on, however, is how nearly every one of us does it (albeit to a much lesser extent).
I will be the first to admit that I'm pretty quick to post some negative things. I may mock a commercial or what someone says in a reality TV show, but until I really gave it some thought I put myself miles above the people who threaten lives. It's easy to forget, after all, that the people that make those commercials are real people too. I sit and talk about how scary it is to pull up the comments section of a game I've posted, yet won't hesitate to attack something done by a bigger company for the same reasons others will gladly insult game developers.
My goal is to become a positive presence, particularly online. I'm not saying I'll never complain about a bug or being sleepy in the morning, and I'll certainly offer constructive criticism or point out things that are wrong and go against what I believe in, but I will avoid picking on anyone else for any reason. After all, "ha ha, that commercial is so stupid" does no good; "I can't believe that commercial tried to sell a car by showing someone failing to kill himself in his car" isn't mean, just sharing something that's important to me. You know, like those kitty pictures or the Michael Scott quotes.
And here's the hard part of the post, folks: the part where I dare you to do the same! Come on, people, let's all use our powers for good!
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Get a Free Preorder of Escape From the Afterlife & Enter To Win Free Games for a Year!
To celebrate National Haiku Day, I'm giving away a million preorders of Escape from the Afterlife! I'm pretty sure that's plenty, but if somehow over a million people enter, I promise to add some more ;)
EVERYONE who enters and does the two required things - posts a haiku in the comments in the bottom and likes The Critterverse on Facebook - will get the preorder of Escape from the Afterlife. One lucky person will also be chosen to get every single game we make for an entire year - a $15 value!
A preorder of any of our games includes not only receiving the game once it's done, but also every single solid version of the game as it's made until it's complete and typically costs $1! You'll also get a download of the game in its current state emailed to you after the giveaway ends. The one year subscription is similar, but for every single game we develop throughout the year. We're doing the One Game a Month challenge, so that means at least 12 small games a year, plus several big ones!
Entries will be accepted between Wednesday, April 17th - Sunday, April 21st.
Have fun! :D
a Rafflecopter giveaway
EVERYONE who enters and does the two required things - posts a haiku in the comments in the bottom and likes The Critterverse on Facebook - will get the preorder of Escape from the Afterlife. One lucky person will also be chosen to get every single game we make for an entire year - a $15 value!
A preorder of any of our games includes not only receiving the game once it's done, but also every single solid version of the game as it's made until it's complete and typically costs $1! You'll also get a download of the game in its current state emailed to you after the giveaway ends. The one year subscription is similar, but for every single game we develop throughout the year. We're doing the One Game a Month challenge, so that means at least 12 small games a year, plus several big ones!
Entries will be accepted between Wednesday, April 17th - Sunday, April 21st.
Have fun! :D
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Monday, April 8, 2013
Wait, What? Games CAN Cause Violence Maybe?
First off, let me just start off by saying that this contains NO statistics, NO proof, NO stories of anyone who played Halo and killed a whole bunch of aliens because the game made them... There are plenty of other awesome articles out there written by far better writers that make some excellent points, as well as horrible articles that somehow attempt to explain that anyone who has a video game in their home and committed any sort of crime had video games to blame.
I'm an indie game developer, and like many indie developers, I very rarely have the time or money to actually play games... I'm also much more of a casual gamer, sticking with the Marios, Zeldas and Peggles of the world more often than not. As such, whenever anyone made an argument that kids can become violent from video games, I laughed it off and argued against it. Seriously, isn't it silly? If I play Tetris, will I want to stack blocks? If I play Mario, will I really want to jump on people's heads?
Then we got a few free rental codes for Redbox, which just happened to have the new Tomb Raider. Angel (my fiancee) and I both really wanted to play it, so we got it and LOVED it! It's a spectacular game and I'd suggest anyone mature enough to play it! We played it a second time through and did everything we could.
My point is this, though: You know how once a great movie is over, you feel like a part of the world, or maybe you see things a new way because of the story? It sucks you in and it takes a while, even after it's over, to leave its world. The same is true of games, particularly these "newer games." Lara in Tomb Raider is great at climbing, so when we went outside, I'd imagine climbing rooftops, scaling walls, etc. I wanted to work out and become more fit so that I would have hopes of surviving a crazy adventure like that. But at the same time, because the game allows you to hunt animals for rewards and get extra points for "headshotting" enemies (shooting them in the head for instant-kill), I would see an animal in the real world and my brain would immediately think "I can just imagine shooting that with a bow and arrow!" (Lara's main weapon on the game).
Wait, what? When did that happen? When did successfully shooting enemies in the head turn it into a game in real life of imagining getting someone from far away? Granted, I'm 30 years old and mature enough to not act on this at all. The only thing I've ever "shot" at anything is a camera, and while I think it'd be awesome to learn to shoot a bow or throw axes, I'd certainly never do it in any sort of dangerous way.
So, can video games cause violence? I don't doubt it... This was one single game, and it's nowhere near the most violent at all! The game is rated M (Mature; basically the equivalent of an R rating for video games), and if you have children and didn't already know it, it's VERY important to follow the ratings for video games. If your child is 8, 10, 12, 15, and they play video games, don't just get them whatever is popular, please. Just keep in mind that playing a violent game is like taking part in a violent movie for days instead of just a couple hours.
And, above this, to all of you game developers out there: I appreciate the awesome scenes in the games where you press a couple buttons to jump off of a rooftop and assassinate someone, then flip someone around and use them as a human shield before running up to the shooters and plunge a bayonet into their chest, flip around and knock the other down before finishing them off too. It's really empowering to be able to do all of that! But can you hold back on the blood? Keep away from the extra gory deaths? There are games that I simply refuse to play, even though the story looks awesome, the game looks gorgeous and the play itself looks so fun, just because I'm far too empathetic to kill people in horrible ways, watch blood splatter all over and such.
I'm an indie game developer, and like many indie developers, I very rarely have the time or money to actually play games... I'm also much more of a casual gamer, sticking with the Marios, Zeldas and Peggles of the world more often than not. As such, whenever anyone made an argument that kids can become violent from video games, I laughed it off and argued against it. Seriously, isn't it silly? If I play Tetris, will I want to stack blocks? If I play Mario, will I really want to jump on people's heads?
Then we got a few free rental codes for Redbox, which just happened to have the new Tomb Raider. Angel (my fiancee) and I both really wanted to play it, so we got it and LOVED it! It's a spectacular game and I'd suggest anyone mature enough to play it! We played it a second time through and did everything we could.
My point is this, though: You know how once a great movie is over, you feel like a part of the world, or maybe you see things a new way because of the story? It sucks you in and it takes a while, even after it's over, to leave its world. The same is true of games, particularly these "newer games." Lara in Tomb Raider is great at climbing, so when we went outside, I'd imagine climbing rooftops, scaling walls, etc. I wanted to work out and become more fit so that I would have hopes of surviving a crazy adventure like that. But at the same time, because the game allows you to hunt animals for rewards and get extra points for "headshotting" enemies (shooting them in the head for instant-kill), I would see an animal in the real world and my brain would immediately think "I can just imagine shooting that with a bow and arrow!" (Lara's main weapon on the game).
Wait, what? When did that happen? When did successfully shooting enemies in the head turn it into a game in real life of imagining getting someone from far away? Granted, I'm 30 years old and mature enough to not act on this at all. The only thing I've ever "shot" at anything is a camera, and while I think it'd be awesome to learn to shoot a bow or throw axes, I'd certainly never do it in any sort of dangerous way.
So, can video games cause violence? I don't doubt it... This was one single game, and it's nowhere near the most violent at all! The game is rated M (Mature; basically the equivalent of an R rating for video games), and if you have children and didn't already know it, it's VERY important to follow the ratings for video games. If your child is 8, 10, 12, 15, and they play video games, don't just get them whatever is popular, please. Just keep in mind that playing a violent game is like taking part in a violent movie for days instead of just a couple hours.
And, above this, to all of you game developers out there: I appreciate the awesome scenes in the games where you press a couple buttons to jump off of a rooftop and assassinate someone, then flip someone around and use them as a human shield before running up to the shooters and plunge a bayonet into their chest, flip around and knock the other down before finishing them off too. It's really empowering to be able to do all of that! But can you hold back on the blood? Keep away from the extra gory deaths? There are games that I simply refuse to play, even though the story looks awesome, the game looks gorgeous and the play itself looks so fun, just because I'm far too empathetic to kill people in horrible ways, watch blood splatter all over and such.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Experimenting with Promotion using Buffer (Bufferapp.com)
We went grocery shopping today and I joked that since I'd be gone anyway, I should create some bot to spam The Critterverse stuff on Twitter until I got back, and wondered how many Twitter followers I'd lose for it. Like most of my experiments, the joke had to turn into reality!
Using Buffer, I set 9 tweets to post between 2 and 7 every 40 minutes (except for the last two, which were a half an hour apart). Each tweet promoted something that could potentially earn revenue, and it took about 5-10 mins to set them up before we left. This was about 1:15pm, and I had 1,843 followers. Note: I DID tweet quite a bit from my phone while gone, so it's not like my ONLY tweets were the promotional ones.
As of 8pm (an hour after the final tweet), here are the results:
Followers: 1,850 (+7) (I may have lost some, but gained others, but either way I still have roughly the same number!)
Clicks: 32 (out of 77 for the day on The Critterverse thus far!)
Retweets/Favorites: 12/1
Total "Potential": 25.4k (The maximum number of people who could have seen the tweet)
Total Income: $0 (Yeah, I didn't sell anything, but hey, getting retweets and website clicks is really awesome too!)
For those who aren't familiar with Buffer, IT'S FREE and it basically allows you to set up times to tweet or post on Facebook, and you can set up as many as you want per day. In fact, you can even sync it with Tweriod to let you know what times of day are best for buffering your tweets! You can use it with Facebook and other programs too, but unless you upgrade (I haven't), you can only use it with two profiles - so your Facebook and Twitter, or your Facebook and your Facebook page, or however you want to do it. You can buffer to all of them at once or just one, and you can have it buffer one more than the other (for example, tweeting 10 times a day isn't a big deal, but putting 10 Facebook posts on your game page isn't a great idea).
I'm going to start setting it up every morning now, spreading the tweets out much more of course, and then tweeting like regular... An extra 5-10 mins each morning to get clicks and maybe even revenue is VERY worth it!
Using Buffer, I set 9 tweets to post between 2 and 7 every 40 minutes (except for the last two, which were a half an hour apart). Each tweet promoted something that could potentially earn revenue, and it took about 5-10 mins to set them up before we left. This was about 1:15pm, and I had 1,843 followers. Note: I DID tweet quite a bit from my phone while gone, so it's not like my ONLY tweets were the promotional ones.
As of 8pm (an hour after the final tweet), here are the results:
Followers: 1,850 (+7) (I may have lost some, but gained others, but either way I still have roughly the same number!)
Clicks: 32 (out of 77 for the day on The Critterverse thus far!)
Retweets/Favorites: 12/1
Total "Potential": 25.4k (The maximum number of people who could have seen the tweet)
Total Income: $0 (Yeah, I didn't sell anything, but hey, getting retweets and website clicks is really awesome too!)
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| Buffer statistics on one of the links. You can click on the "Retweets" or "Favorites" to see who did it, too! |
For those who aren't familiar with Buffer, IT'S FREE and it basically allows you to set up times to tweet or post on Facebook, and you can set up as many as you want per day. In fact, you can even sync it with Tweriod to let you know what times of day are best for buffering your tweets! You can use it with Facebook and other programs too, but unless you upgrade (I haven't), you can only use it with two profiles - so your Facebook and Twitter, or your Facebook and your Facebook page, or however you want to do it. You can buffer to all of them at once or just one, and you can have it buffer one more than the other (for example, tweeting 10 times a day isn't a big deal, but putting 10 Facebook posts on your game page isn't a great idea).
I'm going to start setting it up every morning now, spreading the tweets out much more of course, and then tweeting like regular... An extra 5-10 mins each morning to get clicks and maybe even revenue is VERY worth it!
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Garage Zombie* High Score Contest!
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| Garage Zombie* beat out 34 other games for Overall and Graphics! |
Whoever has the highest score at the end of the contest (11:59pm Eastern time on March 31st) will win 20+ Critterverse games AND every game we make from April 1st, 2013 to April 1st, 2014! This is a purchasable prize that's set at $20 on the website, so it has a $20 value!
As this is entirely download-based, the competition is open to anyone from anywhere in the world, and you're welcome to play it as many times as you'd like (the game is very largely based on luck, so it will most likely take numerous tries to get 1st place and keep it!)
The ONLY RULE is that you MUST use one of the following as your name on the high score board, so that I know who to contact once it's over:
- Your Twitter Handle (@Whatever)
- Your Facebook Name (www.facebook.com/Whatever) without the www.facebook.com part
- Your email address (Whatever@Where.com)
If you don't, I'll have no way of knowing who won!
And one last thing: if you enjoy the game, please consider preordering it! It's only $1 and you'll get every version of the game as it's made through development, so you can even test it and leave feedback! If you preorder the game and win the contest, I will give you your $1 back! And you get an immediate download of the game if you preorder - one with ads and high score board and one without ads or the high score board (the two are tied together, so I can't make a version with the score board but without ads).
Oh, and if you want to give the game a shot, CLICK HERE TO PLAY GARAGE ZOMBIE*!
Good luck! :)
Thursday, March 7, 2013
The Adventures of Rubberkid Brings Out Some Amazing Stories
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| The Certificate Pledge, made by Ariel Marsh |
We went to pick them up today and the lady there said that she thought they were really neat, and asked what they were for. I told her a little about The Adventures of Rubberkid and how it fights bullying and so on, and she said that she thought it was great! She had done some school work (thesis? studies? I don't remember honestly) and so she was intrigued by it.
As we were getting ready to leave, another guy in the store who was making copies (not sure if he worked there and knew about them or just overheard us) turned and said that he thought what we were doing was great, and that he lost his son two years ago to bullying. Angel said she was sorry to hear it, and he said that he was in Heaven now, and bless us for bringing light to such a horrible problem.
It's times like these when I realize that I'm on the right track and doing the right thing. Every time someone tells me their story or shows any kind of appreciation, I feel that much more successful. Thanks so much everyone!
Friday, March 1, 2013
MARCH to Victory! ... Or Off a Cliff...
Like Mario reaching Bowser's castle, or Link drawing his sword on Ganon(dorf), or Mega Man walking that tiny hallway and getting ready to face off against a boss, March stands against me now.
February came and went, surpassing or at least meeting nearly every one of my goals (except for money), and overall I'm about even for Jan and Feb monetarily thanks to The Adventures of Rubberkid Kickstarter funds hitting January and selling a few copies of When Asteroids Attack.
What this means is that The Adventures of Rubberkid bought me enough time to finish the game and line up a surprisingly awesome March. It's going to be one crazy month, though:
Luckily, we're going to have some major fun at the end of the month with some of Angel's winnings, so that will give me something to look forward to throughout all of the upcoming challenges.
Now, the challenge: While I'm going to *fingers crossed* HOPEFULLY have three full, new games done this month (and a jam game!), they have to make money! It does me no good against the evils of the MarchMonster to make unsuccessful games.
Wish me luck!
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| Also much like the ghost in Escape from the Afterlife, not knowing if the next square could be its downfall or salvation. |
February came and went, surpassing or at least meeting nearly every one of my goals (except for money), and overall I'm about even for Jan and Feb monetarily thanks to The Adventures of Rubberkid Kickstarter funds hitting January and selling a few copies of When Asteroids Attack.
What this means is that The Adventures of Rubberkid bought me enough time to finish the game and line up a surprisingly awesome March. It's going to be one crazy month, though:
- March 1-8: The Adventures of Rubberkid
- March 9-17: Escape from the Afterlife (the same dates as 7DRL - Seven Day Roguelike - but won't technically be part of it since the game has already been started)
- March 18-21: Hangman
- March 22-24: (#1GAMCRUNCH? Ludum Dare? Some sort of jam?)
Luckily, we're going to have some major fun at the end of the month with some of Angel's winnings, so that will give me something to look forward to throughout all of the upcoming challenges.
Now, the challenge: While I'm going to *fingers crossed* HOPEFULLY have three full, new games done this month (and a jam game!), they have to make money! It does me no good against the evils of the MarchMonster to make unsuccessful games.
Wish me luck!
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