How close to completion do you generally want to see a project before it's up there? Concept art? At least part of a functioning game? Thoughts and prayers?
At what point should you put a thread up in the game thread?
- Thread starter Julie L Griffin
- Start date
people probably hope something to play from first launch. but it's not like anyone can stop you from doing whatever you like.
that said, I doubt you'll get donations with concept art, so you'd be just wasting dev time and energy on something that's not advancing your actual game. wasted effort.
also if that pre-launch phase keeps stretching out it's hard to not think you've already abandoned the game, and any claims to the contrary without launching will just cement your reputation as a probable scammer. so if you THEN against all odds actually manage to launch something the only expectations you'll have induced would be negative. "Isn't this the guy who tried to scam people to donate with just a couple of renders?"
I'm not saying it CAN'T work, but you only have one shot at first impression. do you really wanna gamble with it to gain maybe 3 one dollar patrons and a bad rep forever?
I think there's just two great ways to launch:
1) WOW people right from the start. make everyone think this one is gonna be awesome. for most of us though this isn't realistic as we simply don't have the skills beyond categories 'shit' and 'passable'.
2) make a short first game and COMPLETE it quickly, just to establish yourself as a known finisher. you'll already beat 99% of competition with that, and it'll go a long way to establish the trust required for supporting you. it'll also make your second game 10x better in every way.
that said, I doubt you'll get donations with concept art, so you'd be just wasting dev time and energy on something that's not advancing your actual game. wasted effort.
also if that pre-launch phase keeps stretching out it's hard to not think you've already abandoned the game, and any claims to the contrary without launching will just cement your reputation as a probable scammer. so if you THEN against all odds actually manage to launch something the only expectations you'll have induced would be negative. "Isn't this the guy who tried to scam people to donate with just a couple of renders?"
I'm not saying it CAN'T work, but you only have one shot at first impression. do you really wanna gamble with it to gain maybe 3 one dollar patrons and a bad rep forever?
I think there's just two great ways to launch:
1) WOW people right from the start. make everyone think this one is gonna be awesome. for most of us though this isn't realistic as we simply don't have the skills beyond categories 'shit' and 'passable'.
2) make a short first game and COMPLETE it quickly, just to establish yourself as a known finisher. you'll already beat 99% of competition with that, and it'll go a long way to establish the trust required for supporting you. it'll also make your second game 10x better in every way.
Last edited:
- Jun 10, 2017
- 10,369
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It's not about what we want to see and more about what the staff would accept.
For a game to be moved in the game section, it need to be... a game. It will not matter much if it's a demo, a proof of concept or a completed project, as long as it exist as something playable.
So you can forget about your concept art, it don't have it's place in the game section. But it possible have it's place somewhere on the site, among the many others threads presenting concept art as well as concept stories and concept game mechanisms.
At least 20-30 minutes of play, with mostly non-breaking-game bugs. As I've said on another thread, I don't like when devs puts their V0.0000000000000001 proof of concept, with barely 1-3 minutes of play. If you have a patreon right from the start, and you're a new dev, oh man, you're in for a rocky start.
Nothing wrong with having a Patreon page up from the very beginning. Would be silly not to.
But yeah, OP, as long as you have 30-60 minutes of gameplay and a strong basis for what's to come, that's good enough for a first release.
Oh yes, but I mean with a proof of concept of 1-5 minutes long as your first "game" and rolling out the patreon out of nowhere. Heh, I did that, I rolled my patreon right out of the start, but I had +1 hour of gameplay on my game already when I released it.
You can set up a development thread, either here in General Discussions or over in Programming, Development & Art
Here's some examples:
https://f95zone.to/threads/shadows-of-the-past-viredminds-discussion-thread.70117/
https://f95zone.to/threads/bloodcra...st-new-update-pov-with-binaural-audio.151425/
https://f95zone.to/threads/sana-revamped-v0-1-test-v0-1-light-version-wip-devlog-thread.103683/
For fun, here's the one I created for Love of Magic, back in 2019. It's been a fun journey since then.
https://f95zone.to/threads/love-of-...nt-thread-build-available.37869/#post-2626451