Im new to the dev space, been learning Godot 3 and 4 since October. I've gotten knowledgeable enough to build a project, however i'm not entirely sure how to plan it out. The only first version of a game I ever played was AuraDev's game so I have an idea of what to work towards for a v.01 alpha but I would like to hear from people who have worked in an early product: What were the priorities beyond the bare bone mechanics?
What makes a good demo?
- Thread starter underreasonable
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- Jul 20, 2018
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Well for a first project I'd suggest doing a short story. You are going to be making a lot of mistakes while learning how to be a dev. Some that might prevent you from making a project completable. Though maybe you already did make a few projects you don't intend to share.
The most important thing for your .01 is making sure the players are hooked. I have seen some devs start off their game with a massive lore dump. Literally nobody but them cares. I have stopped playing a game really quickly just because I couldn't care less about the story in the first 5-10 minutes or so.
Some devs think that a lore dump is vitally important for players to understand their world. It is not. A couple of carefully crafted lines tells them everything they need to know. The rest they will learn later on when they are more invested in the story.
Your first 5-10 minutes (if that) need to convince the player why your game is the one they want to play. You should focus on that.
Before even getting to that point you need to entice people to actually download. Make sure your marketing materials are up to par. Your images are of decent quality and the English (translation) is good enough.
Since we are talking about adult games you probably want to show it's colours in the alpha version. If you have a story focussed game like Crimson High you might be alright with some nudity while if your game is sex focussed like Hail Dicktator you want at least one sex scene in there. It sets the expectations for the audience and what they might expect in future updates and filters out the people who are not a good fit for your game.
As for length there is a lot of debate about that. Don't think it really matters up to a point. I've seen short demos that hooked me and probably longer demo's where I noped out after a couple of minutes.
The most important thing for your .01 is making sure the players are hooked. I have seen some devs start off their game with a massive lore dump. Literally nobody but them cares. I have stopped playing a game really quickly just because I couldn't care less about the story in the first 5-10 minutes or so.
Some devs think that a lore dump is vitally important for players to understand their world. It is not. A couple of carefully crafted lines tells them everything they need to know. The rest they will learn later on when they are more invested in the story.
Your first 5-10 minutes (if that) need to convince the player why your game is the one they want to play. You should focus on that.
Before even getting to that point you need to entice people to actually download. Make sure your marketing materials are up to par. Your images are of decent quality and the English (translation) is good enough.
Since we are talking about adult games you probably want to show it's colours in the alpha version. If you have a story focussed game like Crimson High you might be alright with some nudity while if your game is sex focussed like Hail Dicktator you want at least one sex scene in there. It sets the expectations for the audience and what they might expect in future updates and filters out the people who are not a good fit for your game.
As for length there is a lot of debate about that. Don't think it really matters up to a point. I've seen short demos that hooked me and probably longer demo's where I noped out after a couple of minutes.
- Jun 10, 2017
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Hooked, perhaps not, because it's really difficult to do, but at least curious enough. And possibly also aware of the possible "bad surprises". For this, the first release should present the main characters, the universe and the main game mechanism. But I really mean a presentation, not a full essay about them.
Only the main keys are mandatory. Knowing if it's an universe like ours or not, if it's a Sci-Fi setting, if there's superpowers, and few things like that, that can make someone like, or dislike the story. And all this should be shown, not told or explained. Everything else will come in its time, when it will be relevant for the story.
Same for the characters, we don't need to know everything about them right from the starts. But since they will be an important factor in the game, we need to know that they exist, what they looks like, and have an overview of their personality. There's games that had a correct starts, then lost most of their support when players discovered that the bimbo everyone felt in love to, have an insufferable personality.
The best example of what to not do is probably Big Brother. Eric was introduced late in the story, and at first as a simple antagonist. Then he turned into a character in god mode that cuck the MC every time he can. When this was reversed it was too late, the game already lost most of its fan base.
If Eric was present right from the starts, as lover of the mother, it would have been different. NTR fans wouldn't have avoided the game, while those who don't like NTR wouldn't have played it. In the end, the game would perhaps have been completed instead of being abandoned.
TL;DR:
The first release should present the game, story and characters, and do it in the same way than it will be for the rest of the game. It's what players will expect, and it you starts by few narration walls, they'll assume that the rest of the game will be as heavy than this.
- Aug 28, 2021
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I hope OP will forgive me for asking in his thread .
How much graphics have to be "finalized" for a demo? I don't talk about renders but assets and UI. Is the atmosphere enough? For example, a dark setting with realistics characters, have to be realistic on 0.1, or lowpoly in game models and few words of presentation ("Those are not final, only tech demo, etc") could do the trick?
How much graphics have to be "finalized" for a demo? I don't talk about renders but assets and UI. Is the atmosphere enough? For example, a dark setting with realistics characters, have to be realistic on 0.1, or lowpoly in game models and few words of presentation ("Those are not final, only tech demo, etc") could do the trick?
- Jun 10, 2017
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I'm tempted to say 100%.
It's not a proof of concept, but the final test version. It will tell you if everything effectively works fine with all computer configuration. And this can only be done it everything is finalized.
Thank you for the great advice, I already caught myself doing lore dumps. I think it's a bad habit that came from seeing it in too many RPGM games. I've been trying to cut down the word count to as few words as possible, I know people are just skip text in these games.
For now I work on incorporating:
-eliminate lore dumps, show stuff
-flesh out character (maybe do those character sheets rpers do for practice/eliminate potential for out of character)
-plan out first 5-10 minutes of content to showcase potential/things to come
-quality promotional material (this I had not even considered)
Also for the dude who asked about graphics and UIs there's tons of free and cheap(if you get paid in USD) resources. The cost of entry barrier isnt terrible if youre not good at art yourself.
For now I work on incorporating:
-eliminate lore dumps, show stuff
-flesh out character (maybe do those character sheets rpers do for practice/eliminate potential for out of character)
-plan out first 5-10 minutes of content to showcase potential/things to come
-quality promotional material (this I had not even considered)
Also for the dude who asked about graphics and UIs there's tons of free and cheap(if you get paid in USD) resources. The cost of entry barrier isnt terrible if youre not good at art yourself.
- Jul 20, 2018
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Well it comes back to showing the game off. Having a good UI makes the game look nicer and gives players confidence. Having said that I currently just use the default Ren'Py UI. It is functional for what I want to do. At some point I might want to do something better but it is not my top priority.
This is the character sheet I use for my characters. Not all fields will be filled per say I'd say the shortest description for me is about 1 A4 (mostly early characters) to 2 A4 right now (with lots of whitespace though). This is not gospel but works for the game I envision. Probably overkill for a lot of games. But it might serve as inspiration for fields you think are important.
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Here are two character sheets that I made for my game. One early one I wrote a long time ago and then one I wrote relatively recently. (though that one is on the long side of things). It is only for my own reading so it is full of spelling and grammatical errors.
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For the lore dump just ask yourself what info is crucial for the story to be understandable
A very good example of this is the Lord of the Rings. It has an insane amount of Lore that prerequisite the main story, literally several books full of it. But in the movies only the lore of the rings is briefly told, since its crucial to know what the rings are. Nothing ells is needed to understand the story, and if some extra information is needed (like past alliances etc.) It just comes up naturally in a conversation.
In most cases you can get away with not giving any information beforehand at all. Its often more interesting to discover the world and what is happening/has happened in it together with the MC, than giving all of it a big lap of text at the beginning.
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Note: I take a VN as example, but this apply to whatever kind of game you want to make. It's just that it's easier to illustrate with a story, and easier to explain when you can illustrate.
By example, they need to know that in this universe females lead everything, because it would imply femDom and they perhaps don't like this. But why is the world working that way, is it permanent, are all males effectively submissive and all females effectively dome, is there a resistance, a way to not submit, and all this will be the questions that will make them continue to play. Of course, at one time all the questions will have had their answer, but they will have played half of your game at this time, or perhaps even more, and therefore already be really interested. Plus there's one question that will pop up during all their journey with your story: How does it end ?
Take the Lord of the Ring by example.
You can starts by saying that: "In a world where the land races are in a long and silent war against the cave races, you'll be the hero. One of the most innocent creature that exist, always underestimate but faithful to death, who inherited from his uncle of the long lost magic ring that once led the world near to his destruction. To get rid of it, in the heart of light worse enemy land, you'll party with Aragorn who, behind his rogue appearance, is a king, Boromir, who behind his nice personality, hide a twisted personality pron to treason, [...]"
But then, what left to the story ? By presenting the universe and the main characters, you removed most of the twists and most of the interest. The players who come for the story would finish the introduction and think something along the line of, "all right, I know everything now, no needs to read the book".
But wrote as it was, the thought will be, "wait, the fate of the world rest on this frail creature shoulders ?", "What ? This peasant is a king ?!!!" and other "oh my fucking god ! Why Boromir, why have you done this ?". And each time you've this kind of thought, you want to continue, because who know what other surprises hide behind the next pages.
Of course, you'll probably not write the Lord of the Ring kind of story, but it's the spirit you should follow.
The only time where you really should cut off the word count is when it's narration. Show, don't tell ; a short scene will always be more impactful than a narration. It's why RPG Maker games are more verbose, because the engine don't really permit to show. But with Godot you can do it.
As said by GNVE and me, the most important point is to interest the player, and this whatever what can interest them (story or lewd). And it's not something that can be done in 5-10 minutes.
There's more than 13,000 games available, around 5,000 are works in progress, and globally there's ten new games started every week. Your first release need to have enough impact on the players for them to want to come back, even if it's just out of curiosity. And for this to happen, you have to give them enough content for them to remember that they tried your game.
Of course, it's more works. But since it's the first release, you have all the time you need. There's no pressure from the players asking for an update, since they still don't know that your game exist. Take benefit of this.
You'll have all the game to tell us that the sister dream to be a princess, that the best friend is the most wanted thief in town, and things like that. In the first release, show us that the sister can become a Love Interest, and that the best friend will always help MC in case of need. Simply because it's what matter at first.
1) From the player point of view, the default Ren'PY UI make your game even more generic. If even before you click on "starts" it totally looks like most Ren'Py games, they'll already believe that it will be yet one more generic Ren'Py games, this before they even read the first words.
2) From the creator point of view, it looks more impersonal. If you live in a house under reconstruction, you'll feel less the need to clean all the crumbs, even in the already finished rooms. It's the same for your game, if there's still some finishing touches to do, especially in the main interfaces, you'll feel less like it's your game, and will tend to think that "this scene is good enough, I'll probably come back on it later" ; but you'll never come back on it.
The players who play for the story (around half of them) will be led by their curiosity ; they play because they want to know. Therefore, if you tell them everything right from the starts, what is the interest for them ?
By example, they need to know that in this universe females lead everything, because it would imply femDom and they perhaps don't like this. But why is the world working that way, is it permanent, are all males effectively submissive and all females effectively dome, is there a resistance, a way to not submit, and all this will be the questions that will make them continue to play. Of course, at one time all the questions will have had their answer, but they will have played half of your game at this time, or perhaps even more, and therefore already be really interested. Plus there's one question that will pop up during all their journey with your story: How does it end ?
Take the Lord of the Ring by example.
You can starts by saying that: "In a world where the land races are in a long and silent war against the cave races, you'll be the hero. One of the most innocent creature that exist, always underestimate but faithful to death, who inherited from his uncle of the long lost magic ring that once led the world near to his destruction. To get rid of it, in the heart of light worse enemy land, you'll party with Aragorn who, behind his rogue appearance, is a king, Boromir, who behind his nice personality, hide a twisted personality pron to treason, [...]"
But then, what left to the story ? By presenting the universe and the main characters, you removed most of the twists and most of the interest. The players who come for the story would finish the introduction and think something along the line of, "all right, I know everything now, no needs to read the book".
But wrote as it was, the thought will be, "wait, the fate of the world rest on this frail creature shoulders ?", "What ? This peasant is a king ?!!!" and other "oh my fucking god ! Why Boromir, why have you done this ?". And each time you've this kind of thought, you want to continue, because who know what other surprises hide behind the next pages.
Of course, you'll probably not write the Lord of the Ring kind of story, but it's the spirit you should follow.
But there's another half who would find it too short. Keep it as reasonable as you feel it, without trying to please the players, because you'll never achieve this.
The only time where you really should cut off the word count is when it's narration. Show, don't tell ; a short scene will always be more impactful than a narration. It's why RPG Maker games are more verbose, because the engine don't really permit to show. But with Godot you can do it.
I'm not part of the majority on this, but I think that ideally the first release should be "two updates long" (with an average update length).
As said by GNVE and me, the most important point is to interest the player, and this whatever what can interest them (story or lewd). And it's not something that can be done in 5-10 minutes.
There's more than 13,000 games available, around 5,000 are works in progress, and globally there's ten new games started every week. Your first release need to have enough impact on the players for them to want to come back, even if it's just out of curiosity. And for this to happen, you have to give them enough content for them to remember that they tried your game.
Of course, it's more works. But since it's the first release, you have all the time you need. There's no pressure from the players asking for an update, since they still don't know that your game exist. Take benefit of this.
As long as there's not a significant drop in the global quality after this, yes. Don't hesitate to really polish the first scenes, to seek for the most impactful, or at least the most relevant, approach for them.
You'll have all the game to tell us that the sister dream to be a princess, that the best friend is the most wanted thief in town, and things like that. In the first release, show us that the sister can become a Love Interest, and that the best friend will always help MC in case of need. Simply because it's what matter at first.
You should change this and quickly. Even if it's just a temporary layout, having your own design for the UI will have a double positive impact.
1) From the player point of view, the default Ren'PY UI make your game even more generic. If even before you click on "starts" it totally looks like most Ren'Py games, they'll already believe that it will be yet one more generic Ren'Py games, this before they even read the first words.
2) From the creator point of view, it looks more impersonal. If you live in a house under reconstruction, you'll feel less the need to clean all the crumbs, even in the already finished rooms. It's the same for your game, if there's still some finishing touches to do, especially in the main interfaces, you'll feel less like it's your game, and will tend to think that "this scene is good enough, I'll probably come back on it later" ; but you'll never come back on it.
that's not what happened though. about the only thing correct in this is that Eric could cuck the MC. This didn't happen especially late in the story and didn't make the game lose most of its fan base. where do you see this loss in the graph?
That big dip in the beginning of 2018 is when the game was banned on Patreon. Eric was cucking the MC way before that.
- Jun 10, 2017
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*sigh*...
I didn't said that it happened "especially late", but that it happened "later". Especially since "especially late" mean nothing for a game that lasted only one year. From memory, Eric was introduced in the 0.2 where it only had his blackmail attempt scene. And it's in a following update that he started to cuck Max.
Plus, losing the fan base support do not necessarily convert in a decreasing support. We are adult, and at this time discussions were still relatively polite and respectful. Players were highly unhappy with this change, and made it know, expecting that DarkSilver will change his mind ; what he partly did, but too late and in a way that can, and was, missed by many players.
Now that people have had 5 years to try everything, Eric presence appear softer and relatively avoidable, but it wasn't the case when the game was still in progress.
Patreon rule change happened in late October 2017, while the dip happened at the starts of the second trimester of 2018, as consequence of the game being abandoned. The two being not related ; two updates (from memory, but one sure) being released after the rules changed.
how about checking what you actually wrote before saying you didn't say it
so, many people complained and because of these loudmouths you claim that the game lost most of its fan base while the objective data show that the supporters shot into the sky. sounds like your presenting alternative facts
I didn't say the dip happened when the rule changed. you're essentially saying what I said.
sometimes it's better to just admit you made a mistake than compounding that mistake
- Sep 4, 2017
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I second this but for another reason.
The competition is so rude nowadays that publishing a very first half-assed demo can be very detrimental.
You won't catch any attention if your game is not above the rest, and this start by showing a very polished first release.
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"Eric was introduced late in the story, and at first as a simple antagonist."
So, yeah, I never said that he was introduced "especially late", just not in the first release... But one point for your participation.
"That big dip in the beginning of 2018 is when the game was banned on Patreon."
Except that the game was never banned.
DarkSilver decision to abandon it was his and only his. Unlike Mr.Dots, DarkCookie, Lewdlab, and so many others, who had to fight, and negotiate for the first one, with Patreon to have their account restored, his page was never put under review. He just used the rule change, four months after it happened, to justify a decision that everyone, at least those who followed the game at this time, seen coming since months. He always changed his mind following the high tiers patrons and, while using incest to advertise his game, he never wanted to put it into the story. One of the best summary regarding the mess that this game was is probably this post ; note that it include what I said regarding Eric not coming right from the starts, and being initially here explicitly to cuck Max and preventing him to have the girls.
The question is: Will you do it ?
you said late, I replied not especially late. you said you didn't say late, I showed you did. now you come with some moronic take that you didn't say especially late. No, you said late and I said not especially late. a 3 year old can understand you are talking nonsense
you are trying to save some face by digging into a completely irrelevant point. my point with mentioning the dip was only to explain to people looking at the grap that the big dip had nothing to do with eric and "losing most of the fan base".
which is the whole point here, that your initial mentioning of eric which was this:
yeah sure don't do what dark silver did because then your support on patreon can shoot to the stars making you rich. the best example of what not to do?? anyone can see you were wrong, you're just making a fool of yourself by digging your hole deeper.
people giving you money is clearly part of your fan base yet the support kept skyrocketing despite your claims of losing most of the fan base. how do you lose most of your fan base without it showing even a small dimple in the patron support and how did you reach this conclusion to begin with? you have nothing to support what you're saying except a lot of people complaining... yeah people against ntr do that. so what. fuck them and laugh all the way to the bank.
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- Jun 10, 2017
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I misunderstood what a demo was in this context.
A 0.1 "release" , for me, sound as something to show because you don't what to be the only one to know your project exist
On my "roadmap", 0.1 is the main loop work without flaw, basic UI too, some writing have been done ; I have put tutorial on 0.2 and intro at 0.17 (I increase by 0.01 for each step, even with, for now, only 45 steps/tasks already planned)
A 0.1 "release" , for me, sound as something to show because you don't what to be the only one to know your project exist
On my "roadmap", 0.1 is the main loop work without flaw, basic UI too, some writing have been done ; I have put tutorial on 0.2 and intro at 0.17 (I increase by 0.01 for each step, even with, for now, only 45 steps/tasks already planned)
- Jul 4, 2017
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Here's some good advice I saw somewhere on this board for developers who are trying to make a "patreon successful" game:
So that you can build momentum with fans, before you make the first release, make sure you have enough material pre-prepared to let you do another two update releases in the first 2 months. It doesn't have to be 100% completed material for chapter 2, chapter 3... but also it is enough that you don't have to start over again from "nothing" the day after you release chapter 1. By "material", I mean story / dialogue is written (but perhaps not polished), artwork is 80% complete etc...
This has several benefits:
- It gives confidence to players that you are serious and will keep going, and will not abandon the game. This directly leads to more fans/followers/patrons
- It reduces your stress about pushing hard for the next updates release. Typically, it probably took several months (at least!) to get to your first release. How can you expect to make enough new content in only 1 month for second release?
- The more you work on the project, the better your skills become (writing, art content, programming). You can use this increased skill to improve the first impressions of your game (promotional material, loading screen, main menu, opening scene) just before release.
There is of course a downside: you will need to work for another few months at least before you can put out your first release. And the big risk of doing lots of work with no feedback is... you made something that has bad aspects, yet you cannot see it yourself. One possible solution to this is to do a "dev thread", or find some trustworthy playtesters who are NOT already your friends - this is important for unbiased feedback.
So that you can build momentum with fans, before you make the first release, make sure you have enough material pre-prepared to let you do another two update releases in the first 2 months. It doesn't have to be 100% completed material for chapter 2, chapter 3... but also it is enough that you don't have to start over again from "nothing" the day after you release chapter 1. By "material", I mean story / dialogue is written (but perhaps not polished), artwork is 80% complete etc...
This has several benefits:
- It gives confidence to players that you are serious and will keep going, and will not abandon the game. This directly leads to more fans/followers/patrons
- It reduces your stress about pushing hard for the next updates release. Typically, it probably took several months (at least!) to get to your first release. How can you expect to make enough new content in only 1 month for second release?
- The more you work on the project, the better your skills become (writing, art content, programming). You can use this increased skill to improve the first impressions of your game (promotional material, loading screen, main menu, opening scene) just before release.
There is of course a downside: you will need to work for another few months at least before you can put out your first release. And the big risk of doing lots of work with no feedback is... you made something that has bad aspects, yet you cannot see it yourself. One possible solution to this is to do a "dev thread", or find some trustworthy playtesters who are NOT already your friends - this is important for unbiased feedback.