367 replies to this topic

[Nikc-Nack]

Jack Brockely(Broxter) has resigned. I will be resuming my original role as magazine manager and making the future issues.

[True Valhalla]

Took a look through issue #3 - looks good and the content seems OK. Nothing really grabbed my attention to warrant an in-depth read though

[BretHudson]

Took a look through issue #3 - looks good and the content seems OK. Nothing really grabbed my attention to warrant an in-depth read though

Not even the THREE page review of Koya Rift!? o:
What could we have done differently to have caught your attention? (That way, in Issue #4, we can fix that and get you reading the actual articles. )
-Bretboy129 ~ Bret Hudson

[theg721]

What could we have done differently to have caught your attention? (That way, in Issue #4, we can fix that and get you reading the actual articles. )

Your pitch is terrible. You've got to grab your audience man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bzxumY05vs

Seriously though, I'm about to check out Issue 3 and will edit this post with my thoughts.

EDIT: Had a quick flick through, and it was pretty good, but I lost interest with indie(radio); #3 pretty damn quickly.

Edited by theg721, 30 June 2011 - 10:26 AM.

[chance]

Not even the THREE page review of Koya Rift!? o:

It was interesting to read, but it wasn't a game review. It was a three-page account of you playing it, and how much you enjoyed it. You spent the first page describing menus and options. Then a page describing battles and monsters, monster types, etc.

In fact, nearly the entire "review" was about menus. Four screenshots of menu screens -- but not a single picture of an actual gameplay screen? C'mon... I kept waiting for some explanation of the story behind the game, or even the objective of the game. But it never came! lol...

Background Story
You're in a mercenary group that finds/sells planets for colonization. Your team finds a suitable planet -- called Koya. Unfortunately, your colonization mission is interrupted by an alien race (phantoms). To beat them, you must venture underground and destroy the crystals that generate the phantoms. The crystal source is called the Rift, hence the name Koya Rift.

Game Style
Platform Shooter with strategic elements. (You did mention this briefly)

Game Objective
You must destroy the underground crystals (which create the phantoms). When you kill them, it raises your rank and you earn money. The money can buy defenses, and also "drones" which serve as guards. This adds a strategy element to the game play.

Controls and Movement
etc...

Not saying you have to layout your review like this. But you really owe readers something about the game, background story, objective, gameplay, etc. Not just how much you enjoyed it.

.

Edited by chance, 30 June 2011 - 12:33 PM.

[True Valhalla]

Took a look through issue #3 - looks good and the content seems OK. Nothing really grabbed my attention to warrant an in-depth read though

Not even the THREE page review of Koya Rift!? o:
What could we have done differently to have caught your attention? (That way, in Issue #4, we can fix that and get you reading the actual articles. )
-Bretboy129 ~ Bret Hudson

Just something with a bit of depth in it...you know, like game design articles that actually gives you something to think about. Exploration of the more specialized areas of GM would capture my attention - an article on developing online games, for example, would have easily caught my attention. Even something on 3D or blend effects or encryption or external resource management - just something beyond the basics.

[BretHudson]

Just something with a bit of depth in it...you know, like game design articles that actually gives you something to think about. Exploration of the more specialized areas of GM would capture my attention - an article on developing online games, for example, would have easily caught my attention. Even something on 3D or blend effects or encryption or external resource management - just something beyond the basics.

There actually was encryption in the last article. It was part of the saving game to an external file tutorial. I'm going to bring this up to the team, we were thinking we'd keep the tutorials simple since there'd be a lot of newbies reading our magazine, but, as you have pointed out, there are also advanced users who would like some good tutorials.
-Bretboy129 ~ Bret Hudson

[iPacMan]

I enjoyed reading this magazine once again, although i couldn't listen to the radio without loosing interest after the first few minutes.

I will continue reading the magazine because i think its "handy". I would like to be able to reason in the future that i read it because its "awesome", and that will require the full exploitation of its potential as i previously stated by adding more interesting articles and content.

Good improvement though boys,

Kya

[BretHudson]

indie(Radio); Broadcast #4 has been uploaded! http://www.indiefunc.../broadcast4.php
-Bretboy129 ~ Bret Hudson

[BretHudson]

indie(Magazine); Issue 4 is now available. [url]http://www.indiefunc....com/issue4.php

[Desert Dog]

Spoiler

What was the editor thinking?

A train ride home
A pleasant read. Welcome to the casual games market.
You may want to have a read of this:
http://www.host-a.net/u/Desert%20Dog/casual.zip

What a casual portal publisher gave to me some time back.

the 'phone market is a bit of a different beast. Casual games suit it better, so your going to get more male players, at least, I'd assume.

Death&theFly

Who made the game?

Proun Looks very good.

Tweet thing
I was a bit meh about that, but actually, some of them made me laugh. Well, mostly the one by Dangerous_Dave.

I hate programs always updating. Unless I use it, like, GM.

Yeah, so it was a light read, but a nice read. Good work.

Now. I suppose I'll have to catch up with issue 3 some time.

[Nikc-Nack]

About the error you pointed out.

This morning at 11:30 I had to leave, the magazine was incompleted at the time, all that needed done was table of contents. Bret opened in PowerPoint, which made everything lose their alpha values, making that extremely hard to read. I'm very sorry and I'll be fixing it tonight along with a few other things

[RedOctober]

The news section for issue #4 was written and presented horribly.

All the reviews for both issues #3 and #4 failed to get my attention.

I did enjoy the "A train ride home..." article. It was a good read.

[BretHudson]

A train ride home
A pleasant read. Welcome to the casual games market.
You may want to have a read of this:
http://www.host-a.net/u/Desert%20Dog/casual.zip

I'll read that when I have the chance, sounds interesting.

Death&theFly

Who made the game?

Did we seriously forget to put that in there? o_o Well, it's by DeathandtheFly. Yeah, his game and username are the same.

Tweet thing
I was a bit meh about that, but actually, some of them made me laugh. Well, mostly the one by Dangerous_Dave.

It was something we were testing out this week. It's suppose to be funny, and just something to read. We're going to make it two pages next time and probably have more tweets from the YoYo Games team, because they put a lot of new GameMaker features in their tweets.

Yeah, so it was a light read, but a nice read. Good work.

Thanks!

Now. I suppose I'll have to catch up with issue 3 some time.

Haha, sounds good!

The news section for issue #4 was written and presented horribly.

We were just trying out something new, we won't be using the layout again for the next issue.

All the reviews for both issues #3 and #4 failed to get my attention.

Were they not visually appealing or was it the content? Or both?

I did enjoy the "A train ride home..." article. It was a good read.

I was actually a little afraid people wouldn't like that article, because it's a little out there, but I'm glad we kept it in the magazine. It seems a lot of people enjoyed it.

[True Valhalla]

Well, somehow I'm back for issue #4...I don't know if it's just because I went through issue #3 too quickly or something, but this one seemed "worse" to me. Let's start on why:

-The look was far too inconsistent and just not as appealing.
-The news section was horribly written.
-Whenever I see you calling your own magazine "awesome" or "great" I cringe.
-That code for drawing an American flag - a waste of page space IMO. No semi-colons or spacing? lol...
-Several typos and sentence structure is a bit jolted (BUT not too bad).

And remember, this is solely constructive. The moment you take offence to constructive criticism is the moment I stop reading.

In general it just didn't hit that level of professionalism I keep hoping for with GM magazines.

What I liked:

-The Twitter section. Well presented.
-The games you reviewed seemed decent. Unfortunately none appealed to my personal tastes so I didn't read the reviews (that's not your fault).
-The attempt of a "deeper" article (the train one). Unfortunately I saw the author name and decided not to read it (also not your fault).

And just some little additions that I think could help you improve:

-Next to the editorial, instead of "Has a sister", how about you change that to what that contributor has been doing in the past week. ie. "Trawled the depths of Twitter", for whoever found tweets for the Twitter section. You could be somewhat humorous here perhaps.
-Consider shorted code segments...no one wants to scroll through 3 pages of code for an IDE they don't even use.
-Find someone that is actually somewhat advanced (see: uses semi-colons) at programming to write the programming segments.
-Use graphics and color more consistently.

OK, that's all for this week. Hopefully this post is of assistance, and you produce a better result next time.

[Desert Dog]

We're going to make it two pages next time and probably have more tweets from the YoYo Games team, because they put a lot of new GameMaker features in their tweets.

Noooo, one page is enough!

I was actually a little afraid people wouldn't like that article, because it's a little out there, but I'm glad we kept it in the magazine. It seems a lot of people enjoyed it.

It was pretty random, but I think what I liked about it was the kinda.. 'dev' aspect of it, if you know what I mean. A lot of the magazine is either just about gaming (reviews, and that) or coding. I play many, many games, and if the code doesn't appeal, then that's not really that interesting for me.

It'd be nice to see a 'day on the game' type article from a game developer on the team, maybe.

[True Valhalla]

Keep the Twitter page as a single page...anymore and it would ruin it. Twitter represents short, quick content - keep it that way!

[chance]

-The attempt of a "deeper" article (the train one). Unfortunately I saw the author name and decided not to read it (also not your fault).

lol... Actually, I guessed the author's name after reading a few sentences. It was comically bad writing (sorry Nate). But the author managed to communicate his point, so the article was readable.

My only real complaint was the Death and the Fly review. Seriously, how can you review a game, without telling readers ANYTHING about the game? This was SO bad, I almost kicked my dog.

No info about genre. No details about storyline. No info about game play. No info about objective. Nothing! You gave us NO IDEA what this game is about.

You should fire the guy who wrote this. For the sake of my poor dog.

.

Edited by chance, 05 July 2011 - 12:28 PM.

[theweirdn8]

@chance, what was wrong with it exactly, I need more feedback, so I can improve.

[chance]

@chance, what was wrong with it exactly, I need more feedback, so I can improve.

OK, I'll re-write a few of the most egregious sentences and PM them to you.