Learn your audience

[cbrwizard]

I still don't know who my players are. Where are they from? What do they like? Age?

Also, I don't know if people play a lot of turn-based strategy games on the web.

Neither do I know how are Reddit's Place clones are doing right now. What are they? Are there ANY games at all that are like Place, but with more strategic insight?

Are there any games like mine in development? Is market saturated with turn-based multiplayer web strategy games or on the contrary? Is November a good time for a launch?

I need to do that. Also, it would help to just read indie game developers forums to understand the needs of people.

• Who are the likely players?
• What are their motivations for playing?
• What are their objectives in the game?
• What does the game world look like?
• What are the mechanics by which the player interacts with the world to achieve those objectives?
• What makes the objectives, world and mechanics compelling to the player?
• What do I sell? (feeling)
• What feeling do I want players to experience?

• Read indie games forums just in general to get the market. Write down what you found.
  • IndieDB
  • TIGSource
  • GameDev.net
  • kongregate
  • itch.io
  • gamejolt
  • steam
  • gamedev.ru
  • dtf.ru
  • Reddit
• Do research on html5 gaming platforms where you can publish your game.
• Learn how programming streams will help get the audience; what is the best way to stream programming.
• Post in existing threads about Squardak a post that you want to speak more with your players. Ask them about the current game state, images or pixel art.
• Maybe post in indie games forums about whether are people going to be excited about Place but with images or Place but with strategy.
• Create posts about Squardak on indie games forums, asking about the current game state, images or pixel art.
• Ask players around on gaming communities about browser strategies with images.
• Find out how are HTML5 turn based strategy are doing. Write it down.
• Find out how are Place clones are doing. Write it down.
• Find out if there are Place clones but with images/strategy and how are they doing. What stats do they have, what did they do good or wrong. Write it down.
• Find any games/websites where people post images on a shared space. Analyze them.
• Find out about people who play Place clones or web turn based strategy games. Describe them, get into their communities.
• Write down answers for every question (a theory at least will do for now)

Write down all feedback. While waiting for that, fix the shared things (passwords for newcomers, make the game understandable), then switch to quickly hacking the defining feature which seems to be promising the most. That is the polished pixel art (which is zoom, a proper color picker, multiple squares redraw at once) or the images (which is images upload, images placement on squares, censorship with api).

The point is to stop writing polished code until there is proof that this code is needed, that the feature it covers is needed for players and makes the game more fun.

If there is a fuck up with servers because of virality of the game, it's less scary than if there was a fuck up with players' fun on perfectly running servers.

[cbrwizard]

I should write down anything which looks useful in this doc https://docs.google.com/document/d/14PBNBZrIenAd39_akx-1YQiD-u8imTTydGMTRDwE6iI/edit?usp=drive_web and reorganize later.
I need to do the following:

• Post in every interesting to you and not old post just to get into the community
• Find my possible players (html5 strategy games lovers; reddit's Place lovers; draw board lovers) and ask them: would they be interested in a Place clone but with a bit of strategy and maybe even with images?
• Find any info about related games and write down their info.

[cbrwizard]

Okay, what I think I should do so far:

First, implement some changes (in 1 week):

• Change the name, logo
• Remove capture chance
• Better indicate capturable squares
• Add a tutorial on start

While doing that:

• Post in a screenshots post in gamedev.ru (also in reddit and twitter)

Right after doing that:

• Post in tigsource feedback forum
• Start a devlog in tigsource, keep posting it every Friday (write on Thursday, publish on Friday).
• Start implementing images.

2-3 days after that:

• Post in indiedb feedback forum
• Post on a gamedev.ru appreciate forum

2-3 days after that:

• Post in gamedev.net indie showcase forum

2-3 days after that:

• Post in /r/indiedev

2-3 days after that:

• Post in /r/html5games

2-3 days after that:

• Post in /r/WebGames

2 weeks after starting a devlog in TIG, start one in reddit's /r/devblogs and compare the stats for a month. Keep doing a devlog in one place.

If the number of players is low - try moving the game to Gamejolt and start a devlog there as well. If the numbers are ok - continue on your own domain.

While doing that, start streaming on Twitch.

[cbrwizard]

Ok, this issue is too vague. I guess let's continue filling up the https://docs.google.com/document/d/14PBNBZrIenAd39_akx-1YQiD-u8imTTydGMTRDwE6iI/edit# document, but focus on other things for now.