Gamieon

0 comments by Gamieon on May 1st, 2012

I'm what you'd call a 95/5 developer: 95% of my time is spent on coding or developing content, and the last 5% is spent on things like organizing press kits and making announcements. It's a poor balance for someone trying to release a beta of their game to get feedback (especially working alone); but surely even such developers who have played video games through most of their lifetimes must know the fundamentals of a good beta release even if they've never done an organized one before, right?

 
Step 1: Create a centralized place for people to sign up for the beta.
- I created a thread on a message forum with instructions on how to sign up for the beta. Then I discovered after saving it that the thread name was so long, it got cut off with ellipsis (...) characters.
- I tried renaming thread, but it wouldn't rename because I had previously locked it. So I unlocked it, and then renamed it. Despite this, the old name stayed on the page.
- I tried to delete the thread entirely and create a new one. 
- I go back to the forum level; the old thread is now "deleted" but still visible to everyone.
- I e-mailed the site administrators asking them to purge the deleted thread. They said the deleted thread is the same name as the new thread. Sure enough, I go back and look...and the names are identical.
- To this day, the deleted thread is still visible to everyone...and last I checked, is back under the old name.

Step 2: Make an announcement on Indie news sites.
- I posted a news announcement for submission on a Thursday. It got approved for the front page a short time later, but never showed up on the front page on Friday. Friday evening I got an e-mail that it was not approved for the front page.
- I e-mailed the editors; never did get a reply back. I'm not going to mess with it further; there's plenty of more places to get feedback from.

 
Step 3: Post the announcement on social networking sites.
- Posted on social networking (Reddit/Twitter/Facebook). In a two day period, I only got one response. I guess I'm a pretty anti-social guy.

Step 4: Post the announcement on various Indie forums.
- Went to the first game development forum on my list. I posted a link to the installer (I had given up on the whole sign-up process) that included uppercase letters, and I didn't double-check it because I was in a hurry...you probably know where this is going. 
- Discovered a short while later through a helpful individual that the link pasted in WYSIWYG editor was broken; it had no uppercase letters. I'm assuming I mangled it on my side.
- Since the existing installer was linked to other places, I uploaded an all-lowercase clone of it to my website. Sure I could have modified my post...but look at step 1 of this blog and see my faith in modifying posts destroyed.
- Discovered a short while later through the same helpful individual that I uploaded the wrong file. Fixed.

Step 5: Take Lemons and Make Lemonade.
It's been five days since I actually had the beta ready, and I still don't have any feedback yet. My 99/5 attitude on game development and not double-checking my work before submitting it is clearly to blame for it. I need to stop working on my other game entirely and spend a lot more hours than I had planned looking for every place that would take in a beta test announcement; including your comments if you got any. I hope you got a few laughs out of this, because now I'm recruiting you to be a beta tester! After all, who wouldn't want to beta test a game with these screenshots?

If you'd like to try out the beta, you can download the self-installer from Gamieon.com

After you play, I would really appreciate feedback on things like:

• Game play (do we need more skill shots, or more chaos?)
• Level distribution (do you prefer the extra levels to be in the campaign or standalone?)
• Visual effects
• Bugs and crash reports

You can just message me, e-mail me at support AT gamieon DOT com, or post in the forums at Indiedb.com 

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And my projects!