Yeeeeip, Gravity gets my vote too.

Yeah gravity. The rest either missing the 'sci-fi' thing (dotplus, space fish), buggy (terra nova, space fish), or just not my type (terraformer). Pretty good contest btw, the competition's really thight.

Not trying to be a poor sport, haha, but I guess what bugs me a bit is the fact spacefish is beating my game despite a) being very basic, b) not working for a lot of people, and c) not really embracing the theme at all (just a fish game but now they are ROBOTIC and IN SPACE). Hopefully I can take the knowledge from this competition and apply it to future entries, though!

OMG a tie.

Now what?

I don't think Carius game strays from the sci-fi theme at all. It does no more than DotPLUS, for example. Or even gravity. Or even your game. You could make a Terraformer game that, instead of having spaceships, had animals watering/destroying trees. Or faeries. But you chose spaceships. Carius' fish could be a real animal, instead of a robot... or it could be an amoeba eating cells and getting larger... but it IS a robot. So?

You ARE being a poor sport (also almost accusing Carius of cheating in his game topic).

I'd like to listen to your own thoughts about your game.

I lost. One of my vote is from Anaryu himself and I didn't vote for anyone ​  So in case Nackster doesn't have a way to settle this in his mind already, I'd be happy to take the second place.

In my opinion, the scifi theme does not need to be applied through story only. If someone were to make a game that is not story heavy, then the theme have to be applied somewhere else, like graphic or the atmosphere. Or else this would mean we are forced to make a story heavy game.

Not to be against those comment who said my game isn't scifi though. It's open vote and thus they are entitle to their opinions. The aim of dotPlus is just like what Calunio said, to create a simple addictive and fun casual game, which is something I've been wanted to do for a long time. I also think that it'll be a good challenge for me as well since in the game it'll have to be pure gameplay that hook the player to keep on playing.  Seeing many people replied my topics with all their scores and levels already made me happy enough

I don't think Carius game strays from the sci-fi theme at all. It does no more than DotPLUS, for example. Or even gravity. Or even your game. You could make a Terraformer game that, instead of having spaceships, had animals watering/destroying trees. Or faeries. But you chose spaceships. Carius' fish could be a real animal, instead of a robot... or it could be an amoeba eating cells and getting larger... but it IS a robot. So?

Maybe you are right.

You ARE being a poor sport (also almost accusing Carius of cheating in his game topic).

I'm not trying to be a poor sport. I'm not saying I DESERVE MORE VOTES or MY GAME IS BETTER. I get what I get, and Carius gets what he gets, and the same for all the other entries. How is this being a poor sport? AND WHAT THE FUCK DOES THE OTHER THREAD HAVE TO DO WITH THIS? Seriously. Do you really just want me to come out and say I'm accusing Carius of cheating? I felt legitimately bad about it and I tried to apologize because that's not what I intended at all but I guess NOPE not going to get away from that.

I'd like to listen to your own thoughts about your game.

On the technical side my game was a mess. I'm surprised it ran. And in the future I'll spend more time in the planning stages to avoid complicating the addition of more features (which I would've liked to add). On the design side I thought it was kind of interesting, although rough around the edges especially in terms of the difficulty. A lot of players also didn't understand what they were supposed to do so a more comprehensive help file / tutorial is required in the future. I'm not sure what else you want to know? Or was this a fish to get me to say "My game is the best and it should win!!!" I don't think it should take first place, I like Hima's game. I'm not that concerned anyways, because the glory comes mostly from retards and I wasn't keeping any money anyways.

On the technical side my game was a mess. I'm surprised it ran. And in the future I'll spend more time in the planning stages to avoid complicating the addition of more features (which I would've liked to add). On the design side I thought it was kind of interesting, although rough around the edges especially in terms of the difficulty. A lot of players also didn't understand what they were supposed to do so a more comprehensive help file / tutorial is required in the future. I'm not sure what else you want to know? Or was this a fish to get me to say "My game is the best and it should win!!!" I don't think it should take first place, I like Hima's game. I'm not that concerned anyways, because the glory comes mostly from retards and I wasn't keeping any money anyways.

My question wasn't an insinuation or anything... I'm just curious because lots of people weren't crazy about your game, and you seem surprised about this. I'm just saying maybe you're seeing something in your game that we aren't.

I also don't understand why Anaryu's vote would be invalid.

My question wasn't an insinuation or anything... I'm just curious because lots of people weren't crazy about your game, and you seem surprised about this. I'm just saying maybe you're seeing something in your game that we aren't.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding then, but it definitely came off that way considering it was preceded by that little jab about accusing Carius of "almost" cheating which was completely irrelevant and a dick move imo.

I'm just trying to understand why "lots of people weren't crazy about [my] game." Everyone I talked to seemed to like it, but then I got completely demolished in this competition. I'm just surprised that Carius has so many more votes than me when his game didn't even work for a lot of people. This isn't an attack on Carius, though. He just happened to make the game. Unless my game is just THAT BAD, but I don't really see that many negative comments with the exception of a few "It wasn't really for me." ones. I'm trying to understand why this is so that I can improve any further games (assuming I stay at GW because I really don't feel like I fit in here but I've just been here so long).

EDIT: I also got very few comments in the thread I made for the contest entry (I'm pretty sure there is like 1 post that is actually relevant to the quality of the game). So I'm just completely in the dark as to why I did so poorly and it's important that I understand this!

Since you're comparing your game to Carius', let me just say I'm not a big fan of Space Fish either. But his game is clearly better than yours in two aspects: graphics and difficulty.

Someone said something in the topic of your game that, in my opinion, clearly explicitates what's wrong with your game:

(...) it didnt' feel like i was accomplishing anything. (...) it felt a lot like there was no ending to the game, like there was no progression

That's the main difference between your game and Carius', in my opinion. In Carius you get points, and with not that much of a skill, you see your fish getting bigger, so you know you're going somewhere. In Terraformer, I had to play more than a couple of times to even notice that bar was filling. I guess you reach your goal when that bar fills up? Is that even possible? I honestly played your game many times to make sure I was taking it seriously, but I still left with goldenration's impression that I wasn't accomplishing anything. It was just not fun.

Plus, graphics are bad. Not stylized or unique, just bad.

I think you should be happy that you got two votes. Means two people thought your game was better than all the others. It is something.

Since you're comparing your game to Carius', let me just say I'm not a big fan of Space Fish either. But his game is clearly better than yours in two aspects: graphics and difficulty.

Someone said something in the topic of your game that, in my opinion, clearly explicitates what's wrong with your game:

That's the main difference between your game and Carius', in my opinion. In Carius you get points, and with not that much of a skill, you see your fish getting bigger, so you know you're going somewhere. In Terraformer, I had to play more than a couple of times to even notice that bar was filling. I guess you reach your goal when that bar fills up? Is that even possible? I honestly played your game many times to make sure I was taking it seriously, but I still left with goldenration's impression that I wasn't accomplishing anything. It was just not fun.

Plus, graphics are bad. Not stylized or unique, just bad.

I think you should be happy that you got two votes. Means two people thought your game was better than all the others. It is something.

That is a problem that I sort of expected and I really wasn't a fan of my scoring system. It is of course possible to fill the bar up (it can actually be done very quickly), but I guess I overshot the difficult (although I kind of knew that too). I will have to consider this in the future if I want to make a game that is actually entertaining and not so boring then.

I'm aware the graphics are bad. I'm really really bad at making them so it was difficult to do by myself.

Thank you for the post. I will seriously consider what you said.

Can we like hold contests where the prize isn't money? I mean it seems everyone is getting hyped up because of it...I mean I don't care as long as I am motivated to make a game or release soemthing for once.

If you can think of a prize that doesn't involve money, I am up for creating a competition.

Can we like hold contests where the prize isn't money? I mean it seems everyone is getting hyped up because of it...I mean I don't care as long as I am motivated to make a game or release soemthing for once.

You also have to consider that look how many entries there were in this case. Where a significant amount of money was put forward by Nackster. Sure you can have a 'contest' but it would probably only include you.

So wait what the fuck is up with this, I mean maybe it's just me but don't the majority of us make games for fun? Some seek to improve their skills, while others like attention and while other people like to do it because they have an idea. I mean isn't it fun enough that you got people who are also competing... I don't get it when money gets involved sure you could use the money but in the end it's not really worth all the trouble at least not to me.

How about a series of 2-week competitions and the winner gets a place on the front page. People would be willing to try and go for that. Plus you can have guest competiton makers so its not just one dude doing a lot of work making the competitons

I see what your on about SW,  but there are a lot of people that need a good incentive (which money is) to actually get off there arse and do something.

How about a series of 2-week competitions and the winner gets a place on the front page. People would be willing to try and go for that. Plus you can have guest competiton makers so its not just one dude doing a lot of work making the competitons

I see what your on about SW,  but there are a lot of people that need a good incentive (which money is) to actually get off there arse and do something.

I also know what you mean but yes I would be up for that, My game on front page would look very nice actually...

EDIT: To be honest I think it was just the theme, I mean if it was a contest which had to have some humour in it, probably more people would join in.

Exactly. I'll PM Carius or someone and see if I can get there support.

Well... Nackster's contest was by his own initiative, and I actually like it just the way it is. I'm just not a big fan of the voting system. But I like the theme thing, the two months-thing, and I definitely like the money prize thing... which is why I'm really excited about the next contest (which means I'll have to abandon may main project for two months).

I think they money thing might have scared away some people, because they thought the entries would be too good to compete.

People are lazy by nature. A contest that does not involve a serious prize wouldn't be taken as seriously... especially if it is periodical. And two weeks isn't enough to make a decent game... and I don't see the point of making contests to stimulate non-decent games.