Anime Tennis Babes Released
Community Forums/Showcase/Anime Tennis Babes Released
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Anime Tennis Babes has been released. It's been a lot of hard work, but the comments I've received both in public and private from both you guys and other testers have been very helpful, and helped me through the hard times ( such as not sleeping since Saturday. ) The final version of the demo is ready to download now from my website. The full final version is also available from the website, via ShareIt, for $19.99 ( which I think works out at around £10 Sterling and 17 Euros. ) Apologies to those people who wanted me to release it for free, but it's been six months of full time work ( alone ) and it's just not possible for me to go six months without at least trying to earn some money from it. The demo doesn't time out, so although you do miss out on a lot of extra features in the final, it won't just die on you completely. http://www.animetennisbabes.com Many thanks to all those who have been helping me test it and make it the best, fastest and most compatible I can possibly make it. I'm not completely done. I may well go back and add any features which are sufficiently popular, but I'm very happy with it the way it is for now. I've made the game I pictured in my mind when I first considered making the game, and I really can't ask for much more than that. Hope you enjoy the changes ( or the game if you didn't play an earlier version. ) |
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| Congrats on shipping! That's awesome! It's a lot harder than people think. :) |
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| Just played the demo... Excellent job! |
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| Well done! What's next? :) |
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| I just tried the new demo version. I have to say that I still find it incredibly irritating that you can't move and hit the ball at the same time. I was hoping you would have fixed this. One other thing - I've noticed that the opponents tend to run as far away from the net as they possibly can and play every shot from there. They should stay on the court at least! Nice website tho and a decent game too - except for the above. It kind of spoils it, for me. |
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| Thanks guys. What's next? :) Funny you should ask. I'm well into my next project. I've already licensed eight player models and I have four great songs. I'll be posting a very, very early demo soon as I want to get feedback on controls before I start working on anything else. It'll be a bit bland though. It's difficult to categorize, there are elements of shooter, platformer and some exploration/puzzle elements. Again, feedback will dictate whether I keep all elements or concentrate on one or two. I have to say that I still find it incredibly irritating that you can't move and hit the ball at the same time. I was hoping you would have fixed this. Oh I did. I implemented it three different ways. Unfortunately, I found it incredibly irritating when you COULD move and hit the ball at the same time. It wasn't the way I ever imagined the game playing, and I found it far more difficult to play like this. The game has been tested by well over a hundred people in total, and only three people mentioned running and hitting, all three of whom were people I felt were never likely to buy the game. All of the people I considered part of my target audience liked it that way. But ultimately I took the decision to pull the code back out again ( which took twice as long as implementing it ) because I couldn't market a game I personally didn't enjoy playing. If I didn't like it, how could I ask anyone else to? One other thing - I've noticed that the opponents tend to run as far away from the net as they possibly can and play every shot from there. They should stay on the court at least! Well I've yet to have a single person tell me the game is too easy, and I've had quite a few tell me the CPU AI is too perfect, so the CPU players must be doing something right. Women players tend to slug it out from the back of the court, and if the ball's going to bounce just inside the baseline, you're gonna need to be behind it to hit the ball, no? That's how they were doing it at the Australian Open last week anyway. |
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| good effort, nice gui and presentation but the actual gameplay is poor in my opinion. |
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| good effort, nice gui and presentation but the actual gameplay is poor in my opinion. Well I can't please all of the people all of the time, I suppose. Fortunately most people who have expressed an opinion have felt quite the opposite. It's only been finished a little over a week, and I've already been told it's going onto a shareware cd which sells 5,000 copies per issue, and it looks ( fingers crossed ) as though there will be retail versions in some countries too. Not bad considering I haven't really started marketing it yet. Sorry you didn't enjoy it, Sinu. Maybe you'll enjoy the next game. |
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| The game has retail quality ;-) |
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| most likely cos i've played virtua tennis 1 and 2 to death and love the feel of the game, i guess im comparing it to those high standards which really isn't fair. |
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| Have to agree with GFK. Considering the cartoon nature of the graphics, the gameplay feels very stiff indeed, and I would have thought running + hitting would be a must. Also, I agree that the computer AI could be improved so they move around the court more. I think the in-game graphics are great and there's a lot of potential here, but I just think it could do with some more work. Also I would change the way you fade out the dancing character at the start of the game. At the moment because of a z-ordering + alpha issue her eyes suddenly pop out at one point, looking very odd indeed. You might want to try fading in a black sprite in front of her instead. |
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| Sybixsus dude: Man, I gave you a ton of feedback and was really looking forward to playing this. Unfortunately, it seems nothing I said has made it into the game. I was very disheartened to see that there's not even mouse control, let alone running and hitting the ball! It's actually irritating that I spent so much time writing those long long posts to you and you didn't change a thing so I could enjoy and possibly buy this game! Quite a slap in the face really. I gave you a lot of advice as someone who had the same issues as you. After I fixed up many many things, now our game is beginning to take off and make us some good money. I suppose some just need that personal first-hand experience. I let my brother play it, and he had about 2 volleys and couldn't wait to get out of the game. The gameplay seriously frustrated him. He also commented on the fact that when it asks if you want to quit you have to press Y or N and you don't use the mouse as you do with every other GUI element. He has bought several indie games but you lost him even before the end of one match. I have to just ask you this. You stated that only 3 or so people gave you constructive criticism/complaints on the control and about 100 gave you the go ahead? How many of those 100 went ahead and purchased the final version (not including friends and family)? You've got a decent quality polish, but you could improve the gameplay a ton! At least add the options for control style: 'Stop and Go' or 'Virtua Tennis Style' ... let the player choose at least. Nice website though. I hope for you that there are more people out there who like to control tennis as you do than I do. Personally, I think it plays like a choppy version of pong, it feels nothing like tennis does for me. |
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| Sybixsus dude: Man, I gave you a ton of feedback and was really looking forward to playing this. Unfortunately, it seems nothing I said has made it into the game. I was very disheartened to see that there's not even mouse control, let alone running and hitting the ball! It's actually irritating that I spent so much time writing those long long posts to you and you didn't change a thing so I could enjoy and possibly buy this game! Quite a slap in the face really. I gave you a lot of advice as someone who had the same issues as you. After I fixed up many many things, now our game is beginning to take off and make us some good money. I suppose some just need that personal first-hand experience. Sorry, I thought I included all the same text here as I did on Blitzcoder, but I must have only put it in the showcase entry. I implemented both mouse control and hit-and-run. They didn't take long. I implemented mouse control just the way you liked it in Tennis Critters ( I downloaded it at last to see what you meant. ) Unfortunately, I didn't like either. They made the game significantly less playable for me. They made the game unenjoyable and unpredictable for me. I can't release a game I don't enjoy playing. Do you see me saying I'm right about this? I don't think I'm right. I think I'm releasing the only game I can honestly release. I see comments from people I respect such as yourself, GFK, Simon, and one other from another forum about the game and I'd be a fool not to listen. I'd be a fool to think that there's anything other than a good chance you're right and I'm doing it the wrong way. But I'd be the biggest fool of all to release the game the way you want it if it makes me hate the game, wouldn't I? Isn't that the epitome of everything that's wrong in the games industry? Developers churning out the same old crap because that's how the last five games that sold well did it? I don't want to emulate the big boys, I won't compromise my integrity to make sales. If that makes me an idiot, so be it. How could I stand behind it when someone say, "mouse control sucks" or "the hit and run thing makes it hard to control the shot." Lie and tell them I like the controls the way they are? Another chunk of my integrity down the drain. Or should I tell them the truth and say "I hate the controls, but these experienced developers told me that was the way to do it"? I'm sorry if you all hoped for a different game. I'm sorry if you all hoped I was going to make another Virtua Tennis or Mario Tennis. A lot of people seemed to get the idea that I was doing that, right from the day I started it, but it was never my intention to clone someone else's game. There's nothing wrong with clones, I've written a few, but there's no creativity in them. If I wanted a job writing clones, I'd get a job with EA. Having said all that, what would you do if the vast majority of people were happy with the controls and a minority weren't? You may not like ( or indeed believe ) the fact that most people who commented liked the controls, but it happens to be true. The fact that three ( now four, since Simon hadn't commented before ) of them happen to be people I respect is supposed to make me turn around and ignore the others who liked the controls? That doesn't even fit with the commercial argument I don't necessarily want to follow anyway. You want my sales figures less than 24 hours after I made the ShareIt account active? I haven't posted the game anywhere but the coding forums yet. I haven't even posted on the forum I got the majority of my feedback from yet. I was waiting to get some feedback on the website before I did that. Make sure the downloads are coming through ok. I'm only judging by the tone of your reply, Ban, but it appears I've offended you by releasing the game that I wanted to make and that plays the way that gives me the greatest pleasure. If that's the case, I apologise. If you think I didn't listen to your feedback, you're wtong. Not only did I listen, I implemented everything you wanted, and everything GFK wanted. I chose to take them back out again ( which took considerably longer than it took implementing them in the first instance ) because they detracted from the game for me. I asked for feedback and I wanted it. I don't recall promising I would implement everything everyone wanted regardless of my own vision for the game. |
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| Man, I gave you a ton of feedback and was really looking forward to playing this. Unfortunately, it seems nothing I said has made it into the game. I was very disheartened to see that there's not even mouse control, let alone running and hitting the ball! It's actually irritating that I spent so much time writing those long long posts to you and you didn't change a thing so I could enjoy and possibly buy this game! Maybe im wrong but he may not have been able to get it working right with moving and hitting, it sounds alot easier than actually coding it. It affects everything from balance to timing. Yes/No? In my opinion, it should be in, tennis is a fast paced game, where movement is a major factor, having to hit the ball in a situation where you feel like a lump of coal is off putting. I still feel it's a very good effort and in the future any tennis games he does release will be even better, being from the experience he has from this release and public feedback. ps remember though Sybixsus, you say you only got bad feedback on the issue from a tiny number of testers, couldn't this be that the others just accepted it without realising while the others didn't. It's like when you code and play your own game/demos alot, then add a major improvement in your own eyes, but it still isn't really that good, it's just that you don't realise it cos you've played it so much and accepted it unknowingly ie you've played from it's early stage where it was real bad and when it did improve even if by little, you thought it was way better without realising it was still problematic. Hope that made sense :) |
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| @Sybixsus If I wanted a job writing clones, I'd get a job with EA LOL :-D how true! |
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| ps remember though Sybixsus, you say you only got bad feedback on the issue from a tiny number of testers, couldn't this be that the others just accepted it without realising while the others didn't. It's like when you code and play your own game/demos alot, then add a major improvement in your own eyes, but it still isn't really that good, it's just that you don't realise it cos you've played it so much and accepted it unknowingly ie you've played from it's early stage where it was real bad and when it did improve even if by little, you thought it was way better without realising it was still problematic. Hope that made sense :) There's always a risk of feedback being biased by experience, yes. When I saw early comments from Ban and GFK, i was pretty much of the opinion that everyone else would agree. It suddenly hit me than when people play a tennis game, they're going ot expect it to play like Virtua Tennis, Mario Tennis or Tennis Critters. It didn't work out that way though. You say "accepted it without realising", by which I presume you mean that they didn't tealise it could be better and just didn't say anything. Many of them have apparently been playing it ever since I released the beta demo ( maybe should have timed limited after all ;) ) so it doesn't seem they've had problems getting into it or playing it. I've had a few emails from people I haven't given it to saying the've played it, and most of the comments have been that it's very addictive, that it plays very well. I appreciate that it would be a common reaction to criticism to sit here and lie about what I've been told, but I can only tell you what people have actually said. The ONLY criticism which has turned up more than half a dozen times is that there's no nude mode. |
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| Nude mode? not from me :-D ! |
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| The ONLY criticism which has turned up more than half a dozen times is that there's no nude mode. Testimony to the sort of people who hang around here. Almost all of my testers (for Tennis Ace) asked for a nude mode as well!! So I'd say thats nothing to do with the game itself - just par for the course. :) |
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| But also realize that you aren't trying to sell the game to yourself. If someone suggests something, odds are, they won't be alone in wanting it. If it's possible to add an option for mouse control, why not add it? Give people the choice to play like they want to. It costs you almost nothing in development time and it has the potential to increase your sales market (more people are happy, more positive word of mouth, etc). For example, the puzzle game in my sig has an option to play against a timer. I don't find that option fun or enjoyable, but other people do. *shrug* |
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| But also realize that you aren't trying to sell the game to yourself. If someone suggests something, odds are, they won't be alone in wanting it. If it's possible to add an option for mouse control, why not add it? Give people the choice to play like they want to. It costs you almost nothing in development time and it has the potential to increase your sales market (more people are happy, more positive word of mouth, etc). A fair point, and in some respects I would agree. I've already done this to an extent with things like the tutorial mode. The key factor for me in a decision like this is that it can only add to the game, so why not add it indeed? But if it's actually rather unwieldy and unpleasant, I feel there is a valid reason for not adding it. Adding such a feature detracts from the whole and taints the entire product. Particularly with mouse control, since it's the primary input device for a PC, so it tends to be the one you try first. If just a few people like it better and buy because there's mouse control, that's a win and it was worth doing. But if just a few don't like it and ditch the game without trying it with another controller, that's a lose. Shareware buyers can afford to be fickle. They find one thing they don't like, they didn't pay anything for it, so they ditch it and try something else. I don't want those kind of weak points. And to reiterate, Ban is the only, single person who asked for mouse control. No one else mentioned it, or even took an interest when I suggested I would try adding it. |
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| Well, to be fair, nobody else got to try it out. IMO, it's rare that an option, that defaults to OFF, would stop someone from buying a game. If they turn it on and don't like it, they just turn it off again. It's not really tainting the product (as you put it) because the default game experience doesn't include that option. But, hey, it's your game and I'm just spouting my opinion here. Do as you wish. :) |
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| what type of mouse control, keys to move and mouse buttons to swing/hit, that sounds an excellent way and should be in. ps i don't know if that's in the demo, cos i only went straight to a match and played about 20+ full matches without touching anything else that was in. Anyway, as a single man production(if it is or a two man) it's still a nice product. I'll probably make a sports game one day, as it's my favourite genre and games like this make me want to make one even more, which is a complement by the way :) |
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| Well, to be fair, nobody else got to try it out. Eh? I posted the download here and asked people to try it. I can't force people to download it if they're not interested. Around 10 people from this site downloaded it and gave me feedback, around 20-30 from Blitzcoder and at least fifty from an MSN community I belong to. IMO, it's rare that an option, that defaults to OFF, would stop someone from buying a game. Well I don't know about you, but before I ever play a newly installed game, I go into controls and set what I want. So default controls really don't mean much. If mouse is what they select first, there's a chance they'll judge it on that. what type of mouse control, keys to move and mouse buttons to swing/hit, that sounds an excellent way and should be in. No, that's not what Ban wanted. He wanted both moving and hitting to be mouse controlled, as it is with Tennis Critters. I hated it in Tennis Critters but I implemented it anyway. I hated it in ATB too. |
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| thats a terrible way to control a game of this nature, you should have left it out. You gotta be wierd to play a tennis game in that, unless of course you stll think your playing pong, in which case why not just play pong and forgot about advances in gameplay. |
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| Eh? I posted the download here and asked people to try it. I can't force people to download it if they're not interested. Around 10 people from this site downloaded it and gave me feedback, around 20-30 from Blitzcoder and at least fifty from an MSN community I belong to. Oh, my bad then. I thought you just tried it yourself and decided that it sucked unilaterally. Well I don't know about you, but before I ever play a newly installed game, I go into controls and set what I want. So default controls really don't mean much. If mouse is what they select first, there's a chance they'll judge it on that. Not if they specifically have to select it. Then they know that they can make another choice because they made the choice in the first place. |
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| i always use default controls because i think the developer has had this game and had it tested so much that they have chosen the best control method, i will then use it for a many number of games and if i din't get used to it then i will change it. |
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| Eh? I posted the download here and asked people to try it. I can't force people to download it if they're not interested. Around 10 people from this site downloaded it and gave me feedback, around 20-30 from Blitzcoder and at least fifty from an MSN community I belong to. Oh, my bad then. I thought you just tried it yourself and decided that it sucked unilaterally. Did you ever post it with the mouse control? I think that's what EpicBoy was referring to. I'll get back to you got to go eat. |
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| Oh sorry, I misunderstood your comment, EpicBoy. No, I never uploaded a version with mouse control. I asked around a lot about when I was still deciding whether or not to add it in, and no one was interested. Their reaction wsa similar to Sinu's, "Oh god no, I wouldn't use that." No, the point I was making was that implementing something because people ask for it is one thing. Implementing something that one person out of a hundred asks for and no one else wants even when I talk it up ( I was genuinely keen on the idea, it sounded great in theory. ) is not a particularly worthwhile venture. Still.. If it didn't hurt anything, I would have added it anyway. Hell it actually took me several hours of coding to remove it. It would have been LESS trouble to leave it there than to remove it. I just didn't want to have a whole control system in the game that I thoroughly didn't like. I'm sorry, but my name is going to be on it, and I need to be able to stand up and say "I like everything about this game". Otherwise I'm no better than the Industry Developers that drove me to making my own games. |
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| Sybixsus: I respect good honorable reasons not to do something in a game. For instance, I didn't do a single player True-Vol for Idigicon though they offered to fund the project. The reason being because it was intended to be all multiplayer with players naming/trading weapons, communicating, etc. Single player would have lost the essentials of the gameplay and money wasn't worth that to me. I don't see how offering as many control options as possible can hurt your good name. The reason I suggested the mouse control was because Tennis Critters had a similar issue to your game in that it was hard to run and hit the ball. I beleive the problem in their game using the keyboard for me was just the reverse. It had that loose slightly uncontrollable feeling because your character kept running by the ball. The mouse control fixed that for me in that particular game so I suggested that maybe you could add that as well. I honestly didn't think the mouse would be good but it worked for me in Tennis Critters and got it a step closer to Virtua Tennis for me in terms of intuitiveness. I'm not really insulted or anything but it just seems like I could have saved myself an hour or so and not told you anything. The way I felt then and the way I still feel is that you have a good nearly complete game. The funny thing with a good game that's nearly complete is that the more complete you make it the harder it gets to reach that point where it's just awesome. Many will tell you it's the last 1% of the game's development that counts the most. I think that's true and with your game I can see the difference between many many people buying and enjoying it vs. a few people enjoying it and possibly no one buying it because they won't dedicate the time as I witnessed with my brother. Hopefully, you made back ups of all the changes you implemented. If so I think you could strike a good balance between what you've got now and something which will appeal to more people. I would have liked to test some of the things you were experiementing with to help you tune it more. Even if you take money out of the equation the point of making games is to let as many people as possible (hopefully all) experience something fun and enjoyable. Through user options you could have done this. I added mouse control to Aerial Antics at one person's request. I also changed the default keyboard controls which I felt were much more intuitive then what they are now, because my partner had issues and then others said they did too. I used to make games thinking the way I wanted it was the way it should be. My games got better when I realized that other people's opinions really count and there is honor and respect in allowing their opinions to influence your original vision. You are still creating the whole game think of other people as merely an extension of yourself and compile the ideas in such a way that both can live in harmony. Allow other players expecting a tennis game to play a certain way to play that way (using options) with some hot anime chicks ;) |
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| I've added everything that was suggested at the time I released the beta demo except for these two things. It's hardly accurate to suggest that I didn't listen to other people's opinions. I just happened not to share the opinions of four testers. If mouse control was simply another control method, perhaps it would cause less harm. But mouse control is much more than that. You no longer directly control the player, you control the pointer and the player then runs roward the pointer, wherever it may be. If this the control method people choose, they can easily get the impression that the game is played without you having any direct control over the play regardless of control. It's my judgement that a fair number of people who tried mouse control first would ditch the game without trying another control method. On balance, I believe that including mouse support, even as an option, would lose more customers than it would gain. I've made it clear that I'm considering releasing a 1.5 version adding anything which is widely requested when the game has been out for a while ( which at the moment looks like being a nude patch :( ) and that's still the case. If mouse control crops up as something that people want, I'll reconsider adding it. To be honest, I don't expect it to. If it's a popular request, however, it's worth adding. |
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| Off topic, but I just tried a game called "Alien Shooter" that I downloaded from Game Tunnel (I think). Very cool game, visceral, running around shooting demons with various guns. However, I probably won't buy the game because of how the demo was done ... it timed me. It gave me about 5 minutes of gameplay then announced my time was over and shot me back to the menu. BAD IDEA. Give me a complete level or two to run through. Let me explore. Let me experience the game at my own pace. Hell, when the game ended I had JUST found the minigun. But I didn't get to use for more than a few seconds because the stupid game timer was up. "How To Do A Bad Demo 101" |
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| Alien Shooter has won awards, so I've read. It certainly looks great. I haven't tried it yet though. I 100% agree with you about the limitations of a shareware product though. ( I was kidding about time limitting the demo ) I don't care how difficult it is for whatever games I make in the future, I always think time limits are a bad idea, even if a lot of shareware professionals swear by them. I understand that time-limitting a demo gives someone the impetus.. like "NOW, it's time to purchase", but it only works if they love the game, and who's to say how long that'll take? Do I want to stop someone buying my game a year after they download the demo? Nope. Shareware is stick and carrot. Here's what you get if you buy. Here's some things you can't do until you buy. But kill it stone dead? Not me. Never. |
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| Well, it doesn't stop dead it just throws you back to the main menu. You can start playing again, but you're back at the start. A far better idea would be to let you finish the first level and throw up a nag screen to buy the rest of the game. That lets the player finish on their terms instead of you taking the game away from them. Success over failure, and that sort of thing. |
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| Alien Shooter is awesome! I haven't bought it because I'm in the middle of making something similar to it (was already a work in progress before I ever heard of it) ;) Need to spend time coding/marketing instead of playing/spending money ATM. Dexterity says that time limiting is actually one of the better selling factors. In fact they say time limiting in addition to feature limitation works very well. I got annoyed when I played the Alien Shooter demo though with the time limiting. I wanted to explore the level a bit more ... oh well. Not sure how well they're selling but it's a good gameplay style. I was a little disappointed someone had already used nearly the exact same style I wanted but it only helped me visualize what I wanted for our next project more. Needless to say there will be many enhancments to warrant the existance of a similar playing game ;) |
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| @All Please stop picking on Sybixsus He actually managed to finish a very nice polished game, and of course he is proud of the result, regardless of community comments. I'd say only 5% on these forums actually complete an entire game so give the guy some credit. A tennis game is pretty damned tough to create. my 2 cents worth |
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| Hey, I'm not picking on him ;) I have finished a few games and got picked on (if that's what you want to call it) quite a bit myself. Now that I understand very well why I got picked on I was just trying to pass along a little help. Actually, it's kinda funny. The people that did criticize the game are people who HAVE finished games and have a bit of experience ... EpicBoy, GFK, Simon, and myself. Sybixsus, you've got a good thing going with this game's premise. I think you'll end up changing things around a bit and you'll do well, but maybe not. Perhaps we don't have a clue, it'll sell like crazy, and people will just eat it up as is. Good luck whatever happens! |
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| Please note that I SAID Alien Shooter was cool. I simply said that I found the method of time limitation to be dumb. |
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| Actually, Sybixsus, you've got a fully 3D board there, right? ... ever thought of doing neat camera angles for winning shots? You could follow the ball with the camera and things like that. Could be cool... |
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| I know ;) I agreed with you too about the time limit, just had to say it was awesome again hehe! |
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| Hey there again Sybixsus... my partner (Evak) just told me he also gave you a little constructive criticism on the control of the game there. We are both big Virtua Tennis fans and maybe that's part of the problem, but that game is pretty much the recognized standard of how to do a good tennis game. Considering you could probably buy Virtua Tennis for $19.99 (numerous platforms it's on) who will choose to buy your game? We both agree you've got the potential to do very well with it (cool premise a whole game filled with anime Anna Kournikova's), just do yourself a favor and fix the control even if it doesn't involve mouse support. The stop and go style is just very unintuitive in the post Virtua Tennis days. Got to stop replying to this thread... don't really know why I'm so stuck on this but whatever ... do what you think's right. I'm out. |
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| Considering you could probably buy Virtua Tennis for $19.99 (numerous platforms it's on) who will choose to buy your game? People who already own Virtua Tennis and fancy something different? People who didn't/don't like Virtua Tennis? People who've never heard of Virtua Tennis? Your point argues to me that my game should NOT be anything like Virtua Tennis, since I can't possibly compete with that game in terms of graphics or sound, not on a zero budget. If I'm not offering a different gameplay experience from that game, there wouldn't be a reason to buy my game. You're assuming that everyone agrees with you that Virtua Tennis is the only way to do tennis games, and clearly that's not the case, considering the vast amounts of money that Tennis Critters has made. Tennis Critters plays absolutely nothing like Virtua Tennis or Mario Tennis. It ploughs it's own furrow. Personally I loathe the Tennis Critters control system, but evidently lots of people appreciated that fact that they did things their own way. |
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| just do yourself a favor and fix the control even if it doesn't involve mouse support. Just noticed this. Again with the assumption that you're right simply because you don't like it how it is. I realise I'm going against the grain by doing it differently to how other games do it. I realise that some people will be put off, at least initially, by the fact that I think there's a better way of playing tennis. There are many facets to the controls, particularly the amount of control you get over your shots which you simply lose if you can run and hit at the same time. It's not simply a case of adding something, it's a case of removing a large chunk of what makes the gameplay different ( and better IMO ) than Virtua Tennis. Fortunately I'm not the only person who sees it. In the review of ATB on PsychicParrot.com, he says : Tennis geeks will be kept busy working on technique as you steer, dive and devise more dastardly ways to put your opponent 'out'. So evidently some people see the advantage my control mechanism gives to controlling the ball. He also says : There is something very 'right' about the gameplay of ATB So evidently not everyone thinks the "gameplay is poor." Feel free to pop over and scour the review for negative points, but in the interest of fairness, I'll tell you, he says that the animation is poor ( he's right, but I'm a poor animator and no one was interested in earning some money when I offered, so it is what it is. ) He also questions the gimmickry ( fair point ) and the lack of voices for the girls ( they were in originally, but trimmed out to keep the download size manageable. ) Ultimately, only time will tell if you're right or not, but I won't regret the decision if you are. I don't believe in releasing games which are gameplay clones of another game, even if it's a console game like VT or MT, I believe in offering something different because I think it's better. If people agree, they'll buy it. If they don't, they won't. As for your comments and questions about sales, as I said, the game hasn't been announced anywhere but four coder forums, mainly for website feedback and download tests. And it was only activated less than 48 hours ago, so the sales figures are understandadly pretty low. If I could maintain the number of sales per day over a sustained period, I'd be pretty happy though. Of course, that won't happen, I expected a flurry of purchases when it was first released as a few people have been waiting for it since they played the beta. So yeah, the sales per day will probably drop pretty quick after a few days, and hopefully it'll start to rise again after a few weeks when it gets listed on a few download sites. I'm not expecting to make a fortune from it, it's the first real game I've ever completed ( ignoring a few puzzle games I never released ) and I'll be happy with whatever I can earn from it. If the sales drop to only 1 sale per day or something, it won't be the end of the world. I didn't say anything earlier, because I wanted to ensure I wasn't stepping on anyone's toes, but the game will be sitting in retail stores throughout the entire Nordic region in a couple of months thanks to Hansie and United Coders. I'd say I was going off topic, but I think that ship sailed a long time ago, so I may as well comment that Hans has been very good to work with. He's replied promptly to all my emails, he's been very forthcoming and open with answering all my questions and I'm looking forward to working with him. I highly recommend Hans and United Coders to anyone looking for a new market. Hopefully I can make him ( and me ) some good money in those retail stores. So who would buy it? Well I guess you could say United Coders have bought it, considering the amount of money they're going to be investing in it and the other nine games that will make up their initial lineup. It's being distributed on a shareware cd with a circulation of around 5,000 in a month or two, and the guyw who put that out had nothing but good things to say about the game. It's not a bad start considering I haven't actually announced it or listed it anywhere yet and that it's only been finished a couple of weeks ( released two days. ) More than that, only time will tell. |
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| Hmmm... You may be right in that a lot of people will like the game controls/gameplay. You may also be wrong. Personally, the control system alone destroyed my interest in only a few short minutes (I don't think I even played a whole game), but you're right - thats just my opinion. Maybe the opinion of others too - who knows? The thing you have to watch out for with Shareware, is that a purchase-to-download ratio of only 1% would be considered very good - that is, one purchase per hundred downloads of a demo version. So being included on a shareware CD with 5,000 circulation would indicate you'd get 50 sales at best, and thats for a good game. You just have to remember that the shareware market is flooded with tens of millions of games - you really have to stand out to get anywhere with it. All that said, I do wish you every success with it. Personally I didn't get on with the game, but I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate me telling you different just for "back-slapping's" sake? A bit off-topic, and aimed more at PsychicParrot really - I noticed on your reviews site that every game you've reviewed so far seems to have been given an award?! Sort of takes the 'shine' off it if everything's got one. Maybe do away with anything less than a 'gold award'? |
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| The thing you have to watch out for with Shareware, is that a purchase-to-download ratio of only 1% would be considered very good - that is, one purchase per hundred downloads of a demo version. So being included on a shareware CD with 5,000 circulation would indicate you'd get 50 sales at best, and thats for a good game. Considering how long it's been finished, I'd be quite happy with £500 of sales just from one cd. I was using it more as an indication that people who do this for a living like the game as it is. The inference from this thread has been that everyone disagrees with me and I'm stupidly sticking to my own guns. ( Not from you, but the thread more generally. ) I was simply indicating that without any effort from me, it's being liked by people who make their living from this. Personally I didn't get on with the game, but I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate me telling you different just for "back-slapping's" sake? Indeed I wouldn't. If I hadn't wanted opinions I wouldn't have asked for them, or indeed posted it here at all, since I doubt many Blitz games actually get many sales from within the community. I haven't noticed you complaining about your wasted time because I listened, implemented and chose to remove your suggested changes. Nor have I seen you say anything to suggest that I should totally change the control system of a game which has already been accepted with a publisher just because you personally don't like it. So no, I'd say your response was exactly what I like to see. Honest and fair. |
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| i've just tried the tennis critters game and must say it is alot more enjoyable for me, i think im gonna actually buy it. Must be the whole theme of it. |
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| Sinu: Agreed! ATB could do very well based on the theme alone I think, but with network play and all the smooth controls of TC at the moment there's no real comparison in my mind of which one I'd buy. I'm actually thinking of buying Tennis Critters as well. I actually went back and kept trying to play ATB just to make myself get good at it. Didn't work :( Because of the stop and go nature and because of the harsh timing I have a hard time playing strategically, I rarely get to place a shot how I want to. Maybe if I hooked a gamepad up to it it'd be better but with the keys it's a mess for me. One other tiny thing that you would be wise to change. I like using W,A,S,D for movement. Now for anyone who likes this method of playing it's fine for them to redo the keys. The problem with ATB is that you must define the keys for player 2 (uses WASD by default) before you can re-define player 1's. What really stinks is that you'll probably end up trying to swap them so you have to configure the keys 3 times! You should make it so if player 1 has Up cursor for up and player 2 has W, but you want it to be the other way that when I choose to define keys for player 1 the keys just switch. As it is right now you cannot press W for player 1 and have W assigned to move up until you redefine player 2's keys. |
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| or put in auto assign, if player 1 selects w and player 2 has it, swap them around, so player 2 gets up and w is assigned to player 1. These kind of options are very important on pc due to the number of control methods, and is something i've began to research alot into for my game. |
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