Porter's World

Here are the Prince’s top picks of the month, these are the best of the best from May of 2010.

1.) Cursed Treasure: Don’t Touch My Gems! – This game will speak for itself within the first few minutes of playing. Beautiful graphics, extremely balanced gameplay, and that wonderful TD magic we all love.

2.) Talesworth Adventure: Episode 1 – The mechanic has been done before, but never this well. Talesworth Adventure Episode 1 takes exploration and puzzles to a whole new level.

3.) Wallace and Gromit: Sprocket Rocket – This game is the most unique and well put together physics games since Hannah In A Choppa. It features incredible graphics, unique gameplay mechanics, and a very solid build all around.

4.) Pixel Legions – Pixel Legions is an incredibly enjoyable and well presented strategy game that plays much like Phage Wars, but with a few added features.

5.) Traverse – Traverse is the newest game released by myself and Andrew of Epic Shadow entertainment. It uses mechanics you’ve seen over and over again, but adds a few layers of polish to make it shine like none other before it. Incredibly crafty level design makes for more challenge then the genre has ever presented before; see how much of it your brain can tackle.

If you haven’t checked out all of the above games, I strongly suggest you head over and give them a play, they’re all of excellent quality. Be sure to check back frequently to the greatest source of quality games on the net.

Compared to Consoles

Ever played an amazing flash game, I mean, a truly excellent game, that just happened to be built for flash player? I have, only a few times, but they exist. I came across yet another one of those games recently, Remnants of Skystone, and I realized something, something that really disappoints me and pushes me away from this industry at times. Flash games that are of insane quality, often get judged far more harshly, and on the same level you would expect from a console game.

What happens, is that the game has so much polish, and so much content packed into it, that it works it’s way into the players minds to be treated as a console game. The player becomes far more picky, far more judgmental, and completely loses any ability on how to compare this new, quality game, to the far less quality flash game they played a half hour beforehand. This results in players dropping a 3 or 4 vote (often times lower) on Newgrounds or Kongregate, when they just handed out a 4 or 5 to a game half as well put together or polished just moments before.

It’s almost a compliment to receive such harsh judgment, but at the same time, it can be a punch in the face. For instance, if you don’t grasp that your game is so great that it’s receiving the effects of this odd psychological anomaly, you’ll likely be very angered by the reviews and less-than-deserving scores. The real insult comes when you see one of those games that directly attacks the addictive and power hungry nature of players, with a higher score. It’s annoying both as an observational player, and as a developer to see this sort of thing happen; it’s just discouraging.

I know I’m not the almighty judge who gets to decide what is and isn’t a great game, but I’m going to lay down my personal and well thought out opinion on a few games, and give some examples of what I’m talking about.  Let’s take a look at the most recent victim of this behavior, Remnants of Skystone. The game’s quality is absolutely amazing for a flash game. As a game in general, it’s still impressive. It has it’s flaws, I won’t deny that, but as a flash game, it’s among the best that the flash platform has ever seen. Despite this, it’s current score as of writing this, is a 3.88 on Kongregate. Here’s what really gets me, I’ve seen dress-up games with a score almost as high as this game. This might be fine and all, if the character customization screen alone wasn’t one of the best dress-up games I’ve ever seen; that’s not even looking at the RPG elements, the exploration, the platforming, the art, the towns, the quests, the co-op play, the “float” customization (your personal room), and so on. My point, single elements of this game are better than most flash games out there, and as a package, it’s amazing; yet it’s judged on the level of a console game, and put below many lesser games by score as a result. Another great game that suffers the wrath of this effect, is Drift Runners 2. The game itself is one of LongAnimals best, is significantly better designed than the first game, yet has extremely low ratings and reviews compared to the first, and what what you’d expect to see from it. There’s a few minor faults such as oil spills not effecting the opponent cars, but such small flaws shouldn’t outweigh the quality build this game offers. Those games aside, I’m sure you’ve all encountered an amazing game with reviews dropping zero’s because of something tiny, while the rest of the game is excellent; be it your own game, or one you played.

Overall, there really isn’t too much you can do about the issue, it’s just a bit of human psychology that’s out of our control. The best thing we can do is make sure that every little aggravating wrinkle in our game is removed before launch, because it’s those tiny things that will somehow change the votes of players, despite the amazing features the rest of the game has to offer. I guess we developers should just sit back, and accept the compliment, as backhanded as it may be.

Porter Vs Benologist

Greetings fellow members of the flash game industry. Word on the street is everything this blog has to offer isn’t all it’s cut out to be. Ben Lowry, AKA FlashGameLicense member Benologist, founder of SWFStats, has called me out on my lack of actual work. My perception of our numerous debates, simply put, is that he claims I’m all talk, and no action. Although I’ve created or co-created Stabika 1, Stabika 2, Stabika 3, Dominus Void, Gravibounce, Tower of Greed, Traverse (being released this week by Ninja Kiwi), and a few others that were contract work or not worth mentioning, there may be some truth to that statement. I in absolutely no way work “full time”. Creating flash games is indeed how I pay my rent (with very little help from revenue earned on this site), however I live a very affordable lifestyle which requires very little funds from me. I simply work enough to get by and enjoy a very social life; which is exactly what I’ve tried to accomplish. That being said, I in absolutely no way feel that my lack of releases disqualifies me from sharing (and knowledgeably so) anything on this blog.

So here’s what’s going down; Beno decided that it would be great to give me the rest of the month to come up with something sale worthy. I’m to do everything except for the art, which my partner Andrew will cover. If I’m to succeed in creating a game “sell-able” by April, he’s going to give me $100 USD. If I fail at doing so, he can continue to run his pompous mouth to me about how I never work and I’m all talk, and I’m not to consume any amount of alcohol for 2 weeks. Although I could easily win this bet on a technicality of creating something incredibly simple and “sell-able”, I’m actually going to knock something out of decent quality; at least by the standards of 2 weeks worth of game development.

Before you guys get the wrong idea about the relationship between Benologist and I, let me explain a bit about how this bet came to be. First off, Benologist is a business man. He makes games for money, and almost always no other reason. I almost always make games for fun, unless I’m in need of quick cash, in which case I’ll pull something together to get me some rent money for a few months. Having these different views creates a lot of tension between us during conversation, and very often results in a heated debate. These heated debates generally just die down, with either me or Benologist going back to work, or Benologist choosing a new target within the FGL chat room to badger. Either way, the relationship between the two of us isn’t exactly mortal enemies, sometimes it’s just fun to have a rival or pseudo enemy of sorts. That being said, he does talk a lot of crap about me, and he is an arrogant prick, egotistical, and an ass more often than not, and if I didn’t talk just a little bit of crap about him, this wouldn’t be nearly as fun, so let it begin; compliments to JJWallace for the wonderful art below,

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how the bet turns out, I love proving people wrong when a worthy opportunity arises. In addition, I don’t need that $100, and to prove this, I’ll be framing the check or $100 bill he sends and sharing it with you all as soon as it’s in my hands. Overall, I’ll take this opportunity to not only prove him wrong, but to grab some extra cash for myself. I’ve already got an idea of what I want to do, so it’s about time I stop writing this and get to work. Check back often, as I’ll be updating my progress every few days up until the final day on April 30th. If you’re taking sides, or just have something to say, be sure to do so; can’t ever get enough entertainment.

The Fight Against Time

Organization and planning are key to the success of any project. As far as planning goes, managing your time is a big one. Over the years, I’ve found that every single game, web, or programming task I’ve ever set out to do takes significantly longer to complete than my original assumption. Even with the knowledge I’ve gained that things will take longer, I still seem to exceed the time I give myself. Poor time  management may not sound like it’s going to kill you, and it won’t (at least it shouldn’t, I can’t promise anything), but it could end up costing you thousands of dollars, especially when it comes to selling your games.

Good time management skills are definitely something you’re going to want in the flash game industry, especially if you’re new. As mentioned in my post, Being Your Own Boss, it’s incredibly hard to get started as a member of the self employed world; you better have some money saved, or excellent time management and game design skills. As someone new to the industry, you’ll find yourself looking for help more than you anticipated. Waiting for responses in forums, or looking online elsewhere for help can take a long time, a lot more than most people leave room for. In addition, you likely won’t have any contacts with sponsors, so the sales portion of the job will probably take significantly longer than someone with their foot in the door to the industry.

While on the topic of sales, let’s take a look at that bit about I mentioned about losing thousands of dollars. If you’re not working a second job, or sitting on a few thousand dollars of extra money, you may find yourself needing rent money, and soon. As great as this career path is, the time in which you’ll receive your money for a finished game is very unpredictable. Some sponsors will pay you as soon as the deal is confirmed, others will send it 30 days after they receive the final .swf. I’ve experienced the panicked emotions that arise when you’re counting the days until rent is due and frantically trying to finish a game and get it sold, it’s not a pleasant experience. The last thing you want to do is finish a game, or make a game because you need some cash; you should always be making games for fun, or it should at least be your primary concern (yes fun comes before paying rent). Sometimes games will get amazing bids within just a few days, as shown in this post on the SteamBirds earnings; other times you’ll want to give yourself a full month to find a good deal, sometimes two or three. That’s over 30 days of waiting just from the time you finish your game, and that doesn’t include waiting for payment.

Aside from giving yourself time for a proper bid to come through, you’ll also need time to accept, and be prepared for different types of deals. For instance, I’ve passed up performance based deals that would have earned me another $2,000 had I been able to afford having that money trickle in a bit slower (over the course of a few months). I was unfortunately not able to do so, and had to accept a more upfront payment at the time. If I had been prepared to accept payment at a later date, I could have had myself another couple grand, which would have been great.

It’s rather clear that there is money to be had (or lost) based on your time management skills, so it’s obvious that cracking down on those skills is essential for anyone looking to fully utilize their potential. I personally use Klok to keep track of my time management, it’s an excellent program and is incredibly easy to use; check out my review on that for more information. Hopefully with the above knowledge I can save a few of you a couple bucks, or perhaps a couple grand; feel free to buy me a drink or four if this advice saves you some cash one day.

Here are the Prince’s top picks of the month, these are the best of the best from March of 2010.

1.) Remnants of Skystone – Remnants of Skystone is an incredibly well-built, steampunk, action-oriented MMORPG. This game has the highest production value of any flash game I’ve ever seen. Incredible visuals, amazing structure, multiple character classes, vast maps to explore, flash really hasn’t seen anything to this degree yet. If you like RPG’s, action games, or MMORPG’s, definitely give Remnants of Skystone a play.

2.) Mushroom Madness 2 – Mushroom Madness is an incredibly polished and addictive action-oriented defense game. The game offers plenty of upgrades, unique enemies, multiple game modes, and a ton of charm. I loved the first one, and the second simply builds upon an already working formula.

3.) Robot Wants Kitty – I definitely have a soft spot for retro games, but I also have on for the Metroid series, this game reaches out to both my likings. Explore and work your way through a single open level, collect upgrades, and get yourself that kitty.

4.) Valthirian Arc – Valthirian Arc is a mini sized action-RPG with a lot of charm. It’s not too complex, it’s easy to play, and it has excellent audio and visuals. It is a bit lacking once you play it for a bit, but for a flash game, it’s just about right.

5.) Sushi Cat – Cats seem to be a theme this month, and Sushi cat is definitely a great addition. Everyone loves sushi (at least anyone awesome), and cats are basically amazing, combine the two, you get an awesome physics strategy game; who would have thought?

If you haven’t checked out all of the above games, I strongly suggest you head over and give them a play, they’re all of excellent quality. Be sure to check back frequently to the greatest source of quality games on the net.

Still Alive

That’s right, Epic Shadow is indeed still alive. We’ve been extremely busy with moving our office, doing contract work, and selling our latest game Traverse, but things are finally settling down and we’re ready to get back to some serious work. Traverse is currently being finished up, we just have to finish branding, and add a few last minute details. In other news, we’ve also registered ourselves as XNA developers, so you can expect to see some magic happening on Xbox Live; a port of Tower of Greed being just a taste of that. We’ve also sold a few Non-Exclusive licenses lately; it’s amazing how a game a year old can still bring a hefty amount of cash, gotta love it. Anyway, head over to Alt + Tab for the full update on what we’ve been up to; we are indeed still alive.

Speaking of still alive, who’s looking forward to Portal 2?

Persistence

Microtransactions have been a pretty hot topic of discussion in the world of games, especially flash games. Services such as MochiCoins and GamerSafe are making their way into more and more games every day. These services definitely accomplish their tasks, and people are using them for sure, but something is still missing. Aren’t the earnings just not exactly where you think they’d be? I think something is missing, and that something is persistence. We all know that microtransactions work, and work well. MMO’s such as MapleStory, Trickster Online, Combat Arms, and more, all thrive from the earnings generated through microtransactions. Well, if it works, and flash games now have services such as GamerSafe and MochCoins, all should be well right? Not as well as you would think actually, because most flash games lack what the above MMO’s don’t, that word again, persistence.

When an MMO is created and released to the world, it sticks around, usually for a very long time. When a flash game is created and released into the wild, it doesn’t exactly get the longest life out there. Sure it could get front paged, maybe grab some badges on Kongregate, but it won’t be a hit for long, at least not your average, or even above average game. It’s exactly this that makes the effort of putting microtransactions in flash games almost a waste of time. Don’t get me wrong, there are exceptions, and it does offer additional revenue, sometimes rather significant revenue, but with a bit more planning, perhaps some persistence, those numbers could be significantly increased.

So there you have, I’ve mentioned persistence three times now, elaboration would probably be a good idea at this point. As I mentioned, flash games have a much shorter life than other games, at least a much shorter life containing a significant amount of players. This cripples any selling of goods within the game because there simply aren’t that many people around to pay anymore. However, if your game was to offer some persistence, this could be fixed, and earnings could be substantially better. If you were to add weekly updates to your game, such as new levels, bonus maps, new quests, just anything to get players to keep the game in mind and coming back, you would see a huge difference. If the game continues to change, it will continue to grab peoples attention, and that will have them coming back over and over again; granted your game is good enough to keep their interest in the first place, and people can find it.

Fantastic Contraption

That brings us to our next issue, how do players find a game that’s old, even if it has persistence? Sure many players may bookmark the game, remember it’s name, and so on, but many will forget about it as soon as it’s buried in the depths of sites across the net. There are many options on how to go about this, some a bit risky, others less effective. One option is to self sponsor the game and release it into the wild, while having many links lead back to a site dedicated specifically to the game. This could include character class guides, rankings, weapon guides, so on, there’s plenty of things that would draw players in. Once a player has clicked one of these links, they will likely remember the game has it’s own website and play it there, or go there when they can no longer find it on their portal of choice. If your project is a bit bigger, and likely to be more successful, you can take a different approach. You could simply host the game on a single site (generating a lot of traffic to that site in addition), and spread the word to bring people in. This could be done by hosting a development blog, doing press releases, getting some of the bigger review sites to look into your game before, and post completion, advertising with ad networks, so on. This may be a bit harder to start up, but your players will always know where to go to find your game, and you won’t risk getting your game buried around the net. In addition, you’ll see a nice boost in ad revenue from all of your fans playing the game on your site, rather than all around the net.

So we’ve determined what works best and what doesn’t, let’s take a look at a few games. Guardian Rock was a pretty successful sliding tile puzzle game. It uses MochiCoins, offers a few free goodies to users, and allows you to buy additional level packs. Although this game did well, it never made it to the top games section of many sites, if any. This unfortunately leaves this game rather low in views at this point (in comparison to what persistence could have offered), leading to low revenue from MochiCoins sales. Had this game had a bit of persistence for fans, the earnings would have been greatly increased. Fantastic Contraption is an incredibly successful game that made amazing earnings off of selling the full version of the game. It’s perhaps the most successful microtransactions flash game to date, in fact, I’m rather sure it is. As you’ll see, this game has what Guardian Rock doesn’t, a persistent place to play the game, a site dedicated entirely to it. Lastly, my newest example, Remnants of Skystone. Remnants of Skystone is an incredibly well built flash-based MMORPG. The game hits the nail on the head when trying to pull players into their world, as well as their microtransactions setup. The game is free to play, but offers a ton of additional features to those who join the Nidarian Guard, AKA the subscribed users list. Certain NPC’s sell things to Guard members only, menus remind you to join the guard for bonuses (without being annoying), and certain additional game features scream at you (figuratively) to join so that you can use them. The game is constantly getting new updates, and in-game links lead you to the game’s site; this is exactly the kind of persistence that will make a microtransactions game thrive. I keep in mind that Remnants of Skystone is basically a full blown MMORPG. I’m not saying that every flash game with microtransactions needs to be an MMORPG, but somewhere between what Fantastic Contraption and Remnants of Skystone does would be a perfect balance.

Become a Member

Persistence in microtransactions games isn’t exactly a genius thought, but nobody seems to be taking the idea in. Perhaps the majority of flash game developers have no experience with PHP and Databases, and because of that leave the idea behind completely, who knows. Regardless of the reasoning, it’s basically common sense to see that persistence will make all the difference in the world. This doesn’t mean you can take a sub-par project and add persistence to make amazing earnings via microtransactions, the game obviously has to be good in order to get a dime out of anyone (or perhaps addicting, but that’s a topic for another day). Either way, you definitely won’t be seeing a game with microtransactions and a lack of persistence out of me, hopefully more and more developers will follow.

Here are the Prince’s top picks of the month, these are the best of the best from January of 2010.

1.) Alice is Dead: Chapter 2 – The incredibly popular point and click adventure delivers its second chapter with even more sketchy fairy-tale goodness.

2.) Battalion: Vengeance – The Battalion series brings itself to a closing with this final chapter; fans of the series won’t be disappointed.

3.) Transcripted – Transcripted is one of the more unique games to come out as of late. It’s fantastic art style and suiting ambiance track create a fantastic atmosphere worth checking out on its own. That aside, it offers a fantastic mix of both puzzle and action elements, definitely a must play for anyone interested in either genre.

4.) Civilizations Wars – Civilizations Wars is a very charming tactical strategy game with a lot of new additions to an already working concept. Fans of Nano War will be pleased with it’s fantastic visuals and enhanced gameplay through the ability to use spells.

5.) Helicops – Helicops is an entertaining action game with very nice pseudo 3D visuals. Tons of upgrades, various enemy types, and fast paced gameplay make this a must play.

If you haven’t checked out all of the above games, I strongly suggest you head over and give them a play, they’re all of excellent quality. Be sure to check back frequently to the greatest source of quality games on the net.

The Power Is Yours

“The Power Is Yours!” is not only an awesome catch phrase of Captain Planet’s, it’s also a concept developers really need to understand. The most commonly asked questions by beginners in the flash game industry is, “How much should I sell my game for?”. While some people can help you estimate a price for your game, you should never let a sponsor do so, unless you are very close and have previous work experience with them. There’s a big issue in the game industry right now, game developers aren’t getting the right amount of respect for their hard work. There’s a hierarchy being shown to people that isn’t correct. Publishers and sponsors aren’t at the top of the food chain, developers need to stop acting like that’s the reality.

The first thing we all need to recognize, is that the flash game industry is new, very new. Yes flash games have been around a while, but it wasn’t until the last few years that it’s actually been recognized as a real industry. The young age of the industry is where the complications are coming from; wealth and greed are taking place, as they will in all industries. Those with money want more money, those supplying the fundamentals of that money aren’t getting their fair cut. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t a fierce battle going on between developers and sponsors, not in the slightest really, but changes do need to be made, and current progress is proof of this concept.

I don’t know the exact dates of growth in the industry, I can however explain some huge growths in general that have happened over the last few years. There was once a time when people made flash games entirely for fun, there were no ads, and even no sponsorships. As we all know, sponsorships did indeed rise, and that was the beginning of where we are today. Everyone also knows of Mochi Ads, they’ve been around awhile now, and are a big name in the flash game industry. They weren’t always around though, or widely accepted for that matter. Once Mochi came around, there was an adaptation of allowing ads that didn’t happen over night. Users hated them, games and movies were voted down on portals such as Newgrounds, and so on, they simply weren’t welcomed. These days, you’ll find Mochi Ads all over the place, as well as other companies such as CPMStar; not only that, but these ads are actually widely accepted and not nearly as frowned upon as they once were. Ads aside, there was also a huge leap forward in the industry when performance deals were introduced. Performance deals allowed developers to get a significantly greater portion of the earnings on a game, compared to the usual upfront lump sum that basic sponsorships call for. For instance, if a game is in a performance deal and becomes the next hit game on the internet, the developer is going to see a lot of money, where as in a normal sponsorship deal, the original payment is about all they’re going to get, aside from a bit of ad revenue. In addition, there’s also the current battle (as of writing this) for microtransactions. For those unaware, microtransactions refer to the sale of in game items for real cash, a popular marketing model in free to play MMO’s that’s slowly making it’s way into the industry. It’s only a matter of time until this model is entirely accepted in the industry, but it’s up to us developers (or you the future developer) to fight the good fight. For more information on the fight on microtransactions, hear what Chris Hughes and a few other big names in the industry have to say over at the Way Too Casual Podcast (Skip ahead to 33:30 to get straight into microtransactions). With the above knowledge, we know that in the last few years we’ve gone from nothing, to sponsorships, to allowing ads, and now we’re getting into microtransactions. What does this mean for you specifically as a developer? A lot.

You may be a grade A developer, you may be someone new in the industry, or you may be somebody reading up on material thinking you want to join in, regardless of your status, we all hold equal power for the progression of this industry. For every developer that forgets that they are in control of their work, and not those looking to buy it, struggle is added to the change in this industry. Each and every developer needs to be educated on what is right and what is wrong, what options we do and don’t have, and what options we don’t, but should have. I’ll stress again that there isn’t exactly a war going on between sponsors and developers, but there is tension; as the Way Too Casual Podcast stated, the word “Microtransactions” definitely stings the ears of some, and that’s something that needs to change. If you’re a new developer, learn your rights, and practice them. If you’re an experienced developer, avoid selling your game for anything less than what you deserve, no matter what the circumstances; it may give you some extra cash quicker, but it slows down not only you, but the entire industry in the long run.

Epic Shadow Office

“After over a year of working together, Andrew and myself are finally united. Andrew has just moved form Illinois to Vermont to officially get things going for Epic Shadow Entertainment. We’ve just finished setting up our first official office in the basement of my house, and will be moving up as we grow. We’ve been through a lot in the last year, had some ups and downs, even a false move at one point, but it’s finally here, and it’s awesome.”

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That’s the word on the street at least, which is pretty accurate seeing as Andrew is just a few feet from me right now. The move has definitely been a huge change in our lives, both in and out of our career related activities. Andrew has upgraded his living environment, I have a significantly better work area, we’ve both been setting goals for the near future that are sure to expand both of our lives in great ways, it’s been good. If you’d like to see some pictures and read a bit more about the move, check out the post over at Alt Tab, our development blog.