Tutorial Game Dev Dos And Don'ts

[buff]

Tired of seeing the same mistakes over again? Please post them here, so that new devs can learn from the mistakes of others.

Do: Post objective (or as objective as you can be) good practices. ("Don't add controversial kinks halfway through the game, upsetting your existing fans.")
Don't: post matters of taste. ("Avoid kink X, because I don't like it.")

Don't:	Do:
Use cutesie names for your Patreon tiers (like character names). Most supporters follow many games, and nobody will remember if "Rebecca" is higher than "Tiffany" or what amount of money "Soldier" is.	Just call them $2/$5/$10 whatever.
Assume that your game is the only one the players follow.	Mention the name of the game in your update posts, especially if your Patreon/Substar account name does not contain the name of the game.
Try to control a complex branching storyline using only an unmanaged snarl of flag variables	Have your first effort be of mild ambition, don't try to do "DARK SOULS BUT PORN" your first time out of the gate.
Hire a VA 1/4 of the way into the game lifecycle	Recognize that things will change, edits are likely as the project matures, and voiced lines lock your content. Wait until everything is set in stone before hiring a VA to ... set it in stone.
Ghost your fans	Communicate often and just tell people when you will release late. (People will bitch, but you will lose fewer supporters than you will by radio silence.)

 

[Volta]

Don't: Expect to be perfect to start with. Or assume you already are perfect, you're not.
Do: Make an effort to improve as you go. Know your limitations and intentionally challenge some of them but not all of them at once

Don't: Just make what sells, unless you enjoy it you won't want to finish it.
Do: Make what you would want to play, but know how big that audience for that content is ahead of time and manage expectations accordingly.

 

[Pandolce]

Some player-perspective points, mostly relevant to VN's and similar:

Do: Check spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Then check it again. Try not to rely entirely on automated checkers; it's best to have some humans take a look at your text, if you know anyone with whom you feel comfortable sharing your degenerate filthy l-lewd words you perv

Do: Be obsessive about keeping track of what has and hasn't happened in branching narratives. Out-of-sequence scenes and consequences can render a game baffling, aggravating, unintentionally comical, or in the worst case, unplayable.

Do: Pretty please include an option to display text instantly.

Do: Make scenes meant to be watched without input skippable, unless there's a good reason not to. Consider an option to skip previously viewed scenes as well.

 

[Uncle Eugene]

That's an interesting thread, I'll spit out my own observations made while checking out projects from F95 too

It is based on correlation between what concepts projects follow and how much money they're making on Patreon, also on what I personally feel/do while playing a game, what my friends do and what pros/cons people mention in a game's thread/reviews

This mainly applies to "RenPy Visual Novel" style projects, but might apply on other genres aswell

Do Not	Do	Otherwise
Write a whole shakespeare book for your dialogs	Keep dialogs short and simple enough to not lose the gooner's attention, while maintaining story, humor and character development balance	Player gets bored or lazy to read text and skips everything
Try to explain your entire world, story and characters in a first 5 minutes of the game, people will just skip it entirely	Make your first few scenes and dialogs as short and entertaining as possible to get player interested and invested into reading some more	If you've failed to get players attention immediately your game is guaranteed to be skipped in it's entirety
EVER remake previous bits of content you've already released, unless it's just a dialog typo, this never ends up good for developer	Accept it and move on to new content, new characters, new quests, etc.	You will lose money and time remaking content while getting absolutely no appreciation from your current playerbase and missing on new update. It's your perfectionism killing you and nothing else, accept it, move on and make NEW content better instead of losing what's already done and seen
Think that NSFW content is purely full CG of dick penetrating any female organ	Treat every character interaction as potential NSFW content, make character flash tits by removing clothes layer, make character talk naughty, make character redo simple stuff including full CG scenes and simple flashing	The pure ability to remove clothes layer from RenPy character is heavily underused, somehow great portion of developers think they absolutely must do hardcore stuff and draw it in full. Starting penetration scenes too early could be destructive for your character development/story, so utilize infinite other ways instead: introduce side characters, make main characters accidentally flash you, catch them naked (like in/after the shower) and don't hesitate to make it too simple. Good NSFW scenes do not necessarily require tons of time to produce
Implement a minigame just because you figured out how to code one	Consider if you really need it, is it REALLY fun to play or you just think so, is it skippable or repeatable	If your minigame is repeatable nobody will play it more than 3 times, even if you think it's extremely fun. It is not. So reconsider adding it or make sure you're not forcing player to play it more than once
Disable RenPy's rollback features or default shotcuts/keybinds	Keep default RenPy's functionality untouched	Forbidding player to remake decisions and rollback is one of the biggest mistakes you can ever make. Players who want these features will either find a way by modding or just uninstall your game. Also you might undestand where disabling a shortcut player used to might lead
Disregard "storytelling" aspect and character development	Spend time writing characters and dialogs	Even if your greatest side and focus arent story nor dialogs having a likable interesting characters makes NSFW stuff much better and memorable than just slamming CG after CG, even if visuals are not that good or player doesn't personally like the character visual design. Otherwise you might've just uploaded your renders onto any other site in any other state than "game"
Chase money	Focus on making the project you love and invested into, build a playerbase	There's money in every niche, some have more playerbase some have less, but regardless the most earning projects I've seen were the ones where developer is heavily invested in what they do and does it because he likes it and not because it sells. As soon as developer starts focusing on making money out of it the quality drops, players become upset and quit the subscription. Of course it is still about balance, if you won't think about monetization at all you'll lose on a good portion of income, but focusing on it too heavily or too early will ultimately lead either to complete failure or to missing profits
Stay silent and out of touch	Read your game's thread and participate in discussions	After releasing a game it is very important to gather feedback from players and figure out what your playerbase is. Some people won't like your game because of the core style/kink it's based around but some will love you because of it, listen to those who love the game and figure out what they'll like to see more of to further expand your playerbase
Rarely release updates	Try to make a solid finished "chapter" for the update and release update once a month	Releasing update once a month will make sure your game is bumped in Latest Updates and gets solid portion of a new traffic. Also your fans will know you're working on a project and has not abandoned it. Releasing an empty update of "bugfixes" just to get a bump is destructive though, because your players won't expect anything from next updates and might start skipping them entirely, so make sure to wrap it up nicely and include solid portion of new content if you have time. If you don't it's better to just skip it and release next month
Include new kinks to expand playerbase more	Include those kinks that your current playerbase DO like	Some people like gay porn some can't stand it, it's complete opposite of a groups and if your game is not gay do not add a single gay scene to it thinking that now you've got yourself gay fans. Those who like it won't play your game just because of one single scene and those who don't like it will be dissapointed aswell. This applies to every other not so critical kink. If your game is based around MILFS adding petite character won't expand your playerbase with those who like it, but people who expected more MILFS will be dissapointed in update

 

[justaplayer69]

Don't: create overcomplicated stories, interfaces and minigames which require high concentration and uber-mensch reflexes
Do: assume your game will be running in the background, played by occasional players only with one hand

Don't: use MTL, but if you have no other options, then at least
Do: make sure to use the exact same consistent wording and spelling every time for an in-game object or character (even if you don't speak the language, you can surely copy'n'paste some words/names)

Don't: display texts letter by letter and so slow that your player's hair grow gray
Do: always provide an option to display texts without delay (display speed slider is the best imho)

Don't: use unskippable mandatory intros, dialogs
Do: always provide a key/button/whatever to skip intros, dialogs (nope, speeding up text is not the same as skipping)

 

[eevkyi]

-- Don't officially release demos or "0.1" versions with little or no significant content.

For many players, your first public release will be the only chance to make a good impression, not only of the project itself, but also of you as a developer. It needs to be an honest presentation of what to expect from your game and needs to be in a polished state, especially if you need funding to continue the work. Releasing very raw and unfinished versions is only acceptable in the case of open source projects and/or if you are deliberately doing a "build in public" approach.

-- Don't lose your temper over criticism directed at your project or even at you as a person.

Not only is it impossible to please everyone, but many people will hate you even for no reason, and this will contaminate their opinion about your projects. Some even go so far as to enjoy irritating other people online, and will spare no effort to get under your skin. Aside from clarifying any relevant misunderstanding, prefer engaging with your fanbase to paying attention to unconstructive feedback, personal attacks, etc.

-- Don't use a confusing versioning method.

Even if you don't want to use

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, establish a format where anyone can understand whether it's a major update or minor fixes, whether it's a finished game receiving new content, etc. Avoid including terminology like alpha/beta/"1.0 demo" if you have no idea what these things mean in a software development cycle.