It's been about a month since my last post, and I don't want to let this thing collect too much dust, so in this post I'm just going to give a little update on what I've been up to.
Decoys is stagnating. I haven't been getting enough feedback to make changes. I'm not sure why. It could be any number reasons; maybe I haven't been looking in the right places, or not enough places, or maybe Decoys just isn't appealing, or I haven't made it sound appealing. I don't know. Apparently, the average click-through rate is 2-3%, which is about what I've been getting, so I shouldn't feel too bad. But still, I want more. I guess I'll just have to keep finding new places to hawk it.
I'm trying to find time to meet with an artist friend of mine who just graduated from high school. He's incredibly talented, and I want him to be part of this project. Our working hours pretty much keep us on opposite schedules, so we haven't had the chance to meet yet. Once we do, we can start creating a physical board. Hopefully that will attract more people - just being able to post pictures of a real board to accompany the rule-set would probably make it look more legitimate. If there's anything people like, it's pretty pictures!
Meanwhile, I played and finished Half-Life 1 for the first time ever just the other week. I just needed to see what all the fuss is about! I'm cooking up a little analysis of it to throw up here - I've never written a proper criticism before, at least not of a game, so it's sort of a slow process. Keep that in mind when it's finally finished!
I've also been playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which is very frustrating on Iron Man mode, where it saves after every decision. Changing the fact that you can't re-load your game from a previous state is supposed to fill each choice with that much more meaning - and it does! But when so much of the game is controlled by chance, it can make for a really exciting game where you're winning by the skin of your teeth, or frustrating games where even the most optimal moves result in failure. Cold, bloody, failure. It's keeping me from getting back in the game as often as I would when playing on easier difficulties.
Instead, I've been getting back into Soul Calibur 3, which happens every few Moon cycles... Every time I come back to this game, I gain a new-found respect for it. I know this happens because I have a different understanding of games and design every time I come back. I was a snotty teenager when I fell in love with it simply because it was fun. My friends thought it was fun too, so we played and played until Super Smash Bros. Melee came out. And then it was only me and a couple close friends who would play very competitivley every once in a while. Now, as I've been reading through Ian Schreiber's Game Balance Concepts, I am appreciating the simplicity of the game's systems. Maybe I'll write an analysis on this game too...
Well, that's more or less what I've been doing this past month. Wish me luck on getting more feedback! Now, I have to go work a day job...
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