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As a way to get people to talk about your game, have you considered going into the lets play part of this very forum and ask for volunteers who want to stream their playing of the game, potentially with you doing a director's commentary sidekick with them as they play and talk about the game?
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Sep 20, 2020 11:18
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Oh dear, if you have any more details on this I'd love to know! Goddamn your game is way too fun. I played through the 5 missions and the prequel mission and im having a blast. Please set up a steam thing so I can start shoveling money at you.
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Sep 21, 2020 16:35
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Good things to take care of shortly.
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Nevermind the bosses. Your core gameplay of going up solo against an increasingly absurdly sized enemy fleet is what sold me on your game. Now im already sold, but pictures of your bosses would be a great hook (as in the part that makes me unable to back off), but the point that pierces my skin and gets my attention? the normal ships. the normal fights. The "this day started out so well" kind of escalation where in a series of 6-7 pictures you show my fight going from a 1v1 fight against another destroyer to slowly increasing numbers and sizes and the ending up in my little destroyer staring into the sky which has been darkened by the wave of incoming fire (I loving love your fleetbattle map) while the periphery of the image just barely manages to catch those 50-100 torpedoes bearing down on me. Don't catch me with the extremes. Catch me with the basics and keep me captivated with the extremes. Any WTF moment you throw up as a hook is spoiled ingame. So sure the bosses can get people's attention, but if thats what they came for then the general enemies are just so much chaff to get past to get to the fun stuff. The ship designer thing had me bounce off at first, but i warmed up to it after playing the game some more (mind you, I couldn't actually get it to USE any of my designs in the old demo thing so that didn't help the feature much either). I also loved the "unlock entire tech tree for fun" button. Please don't remove that. Too Much Praise Didn't Read: Great game. Take my money.
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Sep 22, 2020 08:18
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BoneMonkey posted:Truuuu. Game is good. Im sorry to have to tell you this, but hes seeing other people on discord (namely me)
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Sep 25, 2020 08:43
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So im not a game developer, not a programmer of any sort, but I am very much a consumer of games. The first thing I think of when you tell me a game will be taking up a fuckton of space is: "one metric buttload of textures and audio, no mention of plotline, story or balancing yet. I wonder if they'll have time to make the plot this time once they are done rendering". Are you telling me that you are primarily running into people who don't think 99% of the development is visuals and audio? For the record, I am aware that my 99% number is pulled directly out of my rear end. I don't know poo poo about hardware, so to me a graphics card is a graphics card like any other, right up until the game is reduced to 1fps on good days or the magic smoke leaves the box of wonder.
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Nov 6, 2020 09:20
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thebardyspoon posted:I've been asked what sort of salary I'd be looking to get for this role I just had a second interview for and I'm not entirely sure how much I should say cause in my experience places vary pretty wildly in how they pay/value QA. It'd be QA lead/manager at a small place in the UK but not in London, if that helps. Looking at this game dev salary google doc I found it looks like somewhere around 30-35k would be reasonable. A friend of mine was in the same boat (different job, similar problem regarding pay) and I found him a bit of "joke" advice from these very same forums. When asked about his expected pay, he would answer in the most over the top voice he could manage: "well usually I don't get out of bed for anything less than 1 million per month". It's so ridiculously overkill that it is sure to provoke a laugh (and if it doesn't then you either dodged a bullet from a super humorless work environment or just got a massive pay raise) and it sends the ball back in their court. Surprisingly this actually worked out well for him in his own job search and he ended up getting an offer that was 500$ a month higher than he would otherwise have been offered. Experience may vary during contact with real life. Warranty void if actually attempted.
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Feb 2, 2021 09:08
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:
Legally I can see how it solves all the problems for a company and that is really all you absolutely have to do in society's eyes. But if you want to actually try to fix the issue and not cause what in this specific case ended up being a 4 hour session of light nausea, brain fog, eyeball pressure (last two only lasted for 20 minutes fortunately) and a visceral feeling of pain through my sight, then drop me a PM or add me on Discord as Serth hashtag one two two four and i'd love to help reduce the risk, to myself and others with more severe cases of epilepsy, of catching what amounts to a flashbang to the face in the middle of what should be a nice relaxing experience. Crediting or payment is not needed in case you do ask for my help. Just make sure to spoiler things and warn me before i look at things, cause the surprise factor is the difference between a 5 minute irritation and a need to lie down for up to 10 hours with strobe lights dancing behind my eyelids.
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Mar 5, 2021 18:52
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Oh that's nice to know. All I've known about attempts to mitigate epilepsy episodes in previous games have been: will fix poo poo that gets mainstream attention, will make disclaimer slightly bigger. Besides, sometimes the effects are still there even years after an online game releases. There was a river in Everquest 2 that completely hosed with the heads of several of my friends even though they didn't have epilepsy or similar issues normally. (It was not fun for me, I had to point the camera in another direction and put myself on follow if we had to go anywhere near that thing.) There was also a Maelstrom/Tornado thing in one of the expansion zones that messed with my head, slowly but steadily sapping away my brain power until I needed help remembering how breathing worked. That thing was annoying as it was visible across the entire zone and it had a mesmerizing effect on me. Guild wars 2 had a couple of zone events in one of their swamps where the visual distortions made by a few specific bosses caused me to have strobe lights going off behind my eyelids for the next several hours. It was even worse if I tried to have my eyes open or do anything other than lie on my back with my eyes firmly shut. Black Desert Online and Final Fantasy 14 could both suckerpunch me by firing off about 10 player ability graphical effects on top of each other simultaneously. Many many games have had me forced to cover my eyes and ask a roommate to tell me when the cutscene or fancy event animation is over because the immersion was attempted by making all kinds of bullshit flashing of the lights with the camera warping around. Borderlands 2 had me in tears of visual pain during the intro to their Torque campaign dlc, (they do some colorful signal disturbance as Torque and Tanis fight for control of the transmission and it just makes my eyes bleed). So the tools might be there and the most deadly effects are (hopefully) screened out, but sometimes its the little things that just cause a small subset of people mild to severe discomfort and if I can help mitigate that by offering up my time and doing some testings in a setting where I am ready for the fuckery? That would mean a lot to me. Seriously all of those things I've mentioned have been more or less fine once I know about them and can use coping strategies or workarounds (including turning off the screen until i hear the cutscene is over). Its when it comes as a surprise that it just fucks up my entire day. SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Mar 5, 2021 |
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Mar 5, 2021 21:49
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Gromit posted:I would expect epilepsy or similar sensitivities to be so variable across the spectrum that it would be impossible to test each case effectively, but I am FAR from knowledgeable on this subject. Is it really the case that one person can test the effects, or will you just end up with a game that is fine for one but not others? I would hate to get a false sense of security about it. Yeah....that's the problem really. I can only tell you what causes me issues. My epilepsy is very mild (haven't had a full blow seizure in 20 years thank gently caress) and it is mostly stress induced. But some visual inputs can and will completely gently caress with my day in various ways. Its kinda like driving a car down the road you've driven for years and years, and when you get to the stop light you look up to to see if it is red, yellow or green. Instead you get a strobelight and bullhorn while someone puts pressure on your right eye with the blunt end of a pencil. The mindfuck from having that sprung on you leaves you completely unable to gather a train of thought, sometimes this keeps up for hours. I know others that suffer from color triggered epilepsy can get blindspots from seeing certain color contrast combinations. those blindspots (like staring at the sun for a few seconds) can last for WEEKS.
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Mar 5, 2021 22:08
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Gromit posted:I would expect epilepsy or similar sensitivities to be so variable across the spectrum that it would be impossible to test each case effectively, but I am FAR from knowledgeable on this subject. Is it really the case that one person can test the effects, or will you just end up with a game that is fine for one but not others? I would hate to get a false sense of security about it. I can give you a rundown of the feedback I gave to TooMuchAbstraction in the case of that animation. Hopefully it will of some use to you. The initial burst is in my head divided into three sections. The bubble expanding upwards, the lighting intensity in the center and the forks moving out along the surface. The three parts in themselves are fine although the central lighting is quite intense. When you combine the light with my eyes focusing on the bubble expansion and then throw in the forking lights it becomes an overload. Effect is much less annoying when it is in a vacuum interestingly enough ( i would have expected the reverse of that). So its an issue of the setting being dark and the the effect catching my attention with the bubble, throwing me off balance with the lighting burst and then overloading me with the forks (my attention tries to divert itself too all branches simultaneously, which gives me a fun wannabe migrane when the lightburst goes into peripheral observation from many angles at the same time. The longer you give me to adjust to the animation (IE slowing it down) and the less contrast you put in compared the background, the less it will bother me
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Mar 5, 2021 22:16
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I remembered another example of how my specific issues can cause odd visual impairments: When Diablo 3 came out it was....well many words have been said about Diablo 3, so nevermind the gameplay and story and all that. What I remember the game for was the weird visual effects it had. I played a monk so I didn't even have all that much bling going on during combat. However if I was fighting 4+ enemies I would consistently loose the ability to see my mouse courser. There was simply too much bling going on that melted into one large clusterfuck. When I was fighting 10+ enemies I would no longer be able to see my character and would mentally have lost track of his position even though the camera obviously centers on him. Intellectually I knew exactly where he should be. In reality I could no longer distinguish his features from the mess of colors and explosions going on. He was in no way obscured or blocked it just seemed to me like someone had taken the lid off a lot of paint cans and mixed them all together. None of my friends had any such issue so I chalked it up to being a side effect of epilepsy and in the end I just played something else instead. But when you combine this experience with the others I mentioned, I am starting to see a pattern. Lighting contrasts work fine. Multiple arcs of intense activity works fine. Suddenly altered patterns in an animation works fine. Two of these combined is taxing but doable. Three of these combined is confusing, tiring and stressful but doable. Three of these combined without warning or expectation of this being a possibility will cause an instant repulsion of input between my eyes and my brain and will leave several physical signs of stress (pressure in the eyeballs, nausea, complete loss of higher brain functions, loss of life critical brain functions like remembering how to draw breath (note I'm not saying forgetting to breathe, I'm saying forgetting HOW to breathe. It loving suuuuucks). If you slow down the animation, reduce the intensity of the light or color contrasts, stagger the various effects in the animation instead of simultaneously triggering them, then you reduce the workload and thus risk on my broken brain immensely. If you get good at it, you will be doing it in ways that noone else will even notice, not even the people with epilepsy themselves. In the end I know that the onus is on me to not play games that I simply can't handle. Of course it is and of course it should be. Development work is a matter of allocating limited resources to meet a make or break deadline and honestly it is up to me to be the adult and look at the splash screen warning about things that might kill me and take it seriously. You should not be forced to risk the economic future of your company and your career because I ignore the warning signs put up in advance. But if you want to and have the option to take the time to run anything you feel could be an issue past me, I would be honored to help you with feedback.
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Mar 6, 2021 09:06
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Not going to lie, if this last series of posts has taught me anything it's that my perception of what might be problematic content is completely off, if that video linked earlier is anything to go by. That wouldn't even be on my radar for potentially being an epilepsy problem let alone something I would ask someone about to double check. Well, if in doubt, send me a PM and a link and I'll be happy to double check things for you. I have years of experience with having epilepsy and I am fortunate enough to only get the seizures if I am really really stressed. Since I live on disability in Soviet Sweden, stress isn't really an issue these days, so I get the light (only up to half a day's worth of potential issues) reaction without being in actual mortal danger. Better I suffer from some potential nausea and discomfort than some less fortunate soul gets a life changing reaction to a random animation.
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Mar 6, 2021 23:00
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Oh I thought of another example of seemingly minor things doing nasty stuff to people with epilepsy (and bear in mind here that Epilepsy is not a disease. Its an umbrella term describing several issues that cause similar symptoms, so what fucks me up might be perfectly fine for someone with much more severe cases of epilepsy). When you load up Red Dead Redemption 2 there is a couple of unskippable cutscenes showing you the various studios that worked on the game. One of them has a little video of a shotgun being loaded and fired. The flash occuring when the gun fires forces me to look away. I can't look at it without getting a mental whiplash across the eyes.
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Mar 7, 2021 10:20
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:
for how long? quote:
Define metrics. clicks per week, amount of eyeballs popped, returning views on your site, retweets, astronauts hunted, trains derailed? quote:
Is the number they suggest here going to include any short replies they need to/could make to reactions to their larger tweet postings? If not will there be a limit to those or will they add a cost of those per tweet? quote:
Which external communities? twitter, reddit, 4chan, foxnews commercials, discord channels where they supply a moderator, gigantic chainletters? quote:
Who foots the bills for these giveaways, and contest prizes? Are they physical prices? If yes who has final responsibility for quality and cost of production and shipping?
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Mar 16, 2021 20:15
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Big K of Justice posted:
Not ominous at all. noooo.
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Aug 29, 2021 18:47
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I don't mind being a volunteer playtester if you need it. My usual fee is 1 (one) pizza from the local pizzeria if you make more than 1 million $ on it per year. I specialize in epilepsy consulting and making absolutely batshit approaches to mission completion attempts.
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Nov 15, 2021 20:50
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At that point, you need to get your legal liabilities sorted out before doing contracts. Either the LLC you set up owns the game, or you yourself own the game. This will be reflected in your half of any contract and if you don't take this part seriously and do it properly from the start, then future you will have a lot of not-nice things to say about present you.
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Feb 7, 2022 13:07
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Exciting news! One of the Waves of Steel testers just posted an image, that strikes me as the Rosetta Stone of explaining graphical epilepsy triggers. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3987999&pagenumber=2 If you do graphical work for digital anything development, I really really recommend checking out the post I linked. Holy poo poo is that image just perfect.
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Mar 10, 2022 08:24
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:If it's one thing I'm pretty happy about is that no matter how much I gently caress some code up, it's not going to kill anyone. I'd go nuts working in a field like medical or aeronautics or something of that nature. As an epileptic who regularly gets hosed up by random webpages and video games;  Edit: I have such sights to show you: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3987999&pagenumber=1#post520079258 SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Apr 19, 2022 |
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Apr 19, 2022 17:15
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Writing down an outline can also help defend against "feature creep". Pick your scope, limit the features to something you think you can get done in a time frame that fits your funds, equipment, time and attention span. Write it down then stick with that outline and pencil down new feature ideas in a different file or notebook.
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May 17, 2022 18:19
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Don't pay too much attention to that insane list of demands the corporations put up for advanced titles such as: Apprentice janitor, third class. Assistant bag holder. Coffee cup handler, second class. Dust collection inspector, probationary part time. Those requirements are born of HR attempts to reduce their own workload by simply filtering out 95% of all the applications. Their requirements are very often demanding 5 years of experience with a coding language that has existed for 2-4 years. No one can fill out those requirements (and even if they did, the entry level positions would NOT be what they were applying for). Send in your applications to as many companies as you can find that you think you'd do well in/be willing to work for in exchange for money/would be able to use as a springboard to a company you actually want to work for.
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Jun 9, 2022 17:47
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