The Steam forums are bumming me out. :(

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Stefan8000
Posts: 64
Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2013 3:20 am

Re: The Steam forums are bumming me out. :(

Post by Stefan8000 »

matt, i took an outtime because i dont wanted to spoil the game for me. so i left a half year of the development. now, i finished the game and it was great. i still have two branches left.

about the steam forum, it is always that there is more bad critics then postitiv things. but the best thing you can do, is answer as many questions as possible. i will go there and try to push the positive things a little bit.

about the reviews, that is weird. maybe, the bad reviews got more thumbs up then the positives. maybe you should just ask your backers to thumb up the positives.

my only concern about the game is the price thing. in europe, it is a little bit expensive. maybe you should think about giving something with the game, like the soundrack or your other game on steam. or a huge discount for owners of nn for the other game like 95% of the price. i think, it is not good, to lower the price right now, because that is frustrating to former buyers, but adding anything would be a good way. just my opinion.

another thing is, you could do some more sticky threads in the forum, like "discuss the story" or so (look the forum of lifeless planet). it keeps people discussing the game and they think about it.

anyways, you made the game, i wanted and i am happy, that i backed your project.

keep your head up.
stefan
Grabthehoopka
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Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 12:16 pm

Re: The Steam forums are bumming me out. :(

Post by Grabthehoopka »

My guess is they have some kind of algorithm or something to present the top rated positive and negative reviews in the name of fairness? Sometimes it seems like certain things steam does is decided by casting chicken bones; I really couldn't tell you.
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matt
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Re: The Steam forums are bumming me out. :(

Post by matt »

A lot of games don't have negative reviews showing even though I'm sure they exist. Perhaps they have fans that just downvote negative reviews? I guess you're right. Maybe it is just casting chicken bones...
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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AironNeil
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Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 10:55 am

Re: The Steam forums are bumming me out. :(

Post by AironNeil »

I think the "most helpful" category puts up the reviews that have gotten the most ratings/comments withing a curtain time frame, because I looked at it just barely and all of the reviews were positive ones.

But yeah, "too short, too expensive" is a common complaint for the game, but I wonder how well it'll sell during a sale?
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matt
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Re: The Steam forums are bumming me out. :(

Post by matt »

You might be right. Or maybe they randomly rotate them. Who knows! I think the game will do pretty well on sale. I was looking at our Retro/Grade stats, and our average purchase price is $2.40. That means that the bulk of our units were sold on a discount. I think A LOT of gamers wait for sales before they buy games because they know every game will be on sale at some point.

To some extent, the complaint that a game is "too expensive" is a weird statement to make because the price is always changing. If you are cost conscious, you can get it for pennies from the Humble Bundle (assuming we can get into one). I understand that some people don't feel like it's worth $13.49, but I almost feel like they should rate the game on its merits - whether they enjoyed it or not and then assign a value to what it's worth.

I also would argue that the quality of entertainment is more important than the actual playtime (as do most game developers), but a lot of gamers don't see it that way. I don't know if there is anything we can do about that, but I feel like I haven't tried to hide the game's length or trick people or anything. Oh well!
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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RightClickSaveAs
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Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 4:22 pm

Re: The Steam forums are bumming me out. :(

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, which I played through this weekend, is about 4-5 hours long for most players (although it took me closer to 6-7 and would have been longer if I hadn't looked up one of the puzzles out of frustration) and people are also complaining about that length. You just can't satisfy everyone, and I'm glad you didn't try.

That game had a few problems, and one of them was how it obviously pads out the length in a few ways. I would have been happier if the game had been shorter actually, but it makes you backtrack very long distances if you don't manage to complete everything by the time you reach the end, and it has a sort of maze puzzle with an incredibly frustrating random enemy encounter (this is the one I looked up, it almost killed the entire experience for me).

It also shipped with a lot of bugs. Most were patched by the time I played it, and the game does a lot of technologically impressive things in a semi-open world, so I give them a lot of slack, but most of the discussion board posts are dealing with technical issues.

It does a lot of cool things, but I feel this is an example of a game with a fantastic presentation and some really unique ideas that still felt the need to include some old fashioned puzzle mechanics that hurt it way more than it helped.
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matt
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Re: The Steam forums are bumming me out. :(

Post by matt »

Hmmmm... I preordered the game but haven't had a chance to play it. I have zero patience for puzzles, so I might find the game frustrating. :( Maybe I'll wait until there is a good walkthrough/game guide to play... :-/ I also HATE backtracking. Maybe that's why Neverending Nightmares is mostly linear? hahaha
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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RightClickSaveAs
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Re: The Steam forums are bumming me out. :(

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

Other than that one, the puzzles weren't too bad though, and you can look them up pretty easily. The backtracking's really only an issue if you miss sections as you're playing, but that can be easy to do since the game is kind of a big, open space, and it won't tell you if you've missed anything until the end.

This game also tries to go for a minimalist interface and doesn't hold your hand much, but it fumbles the execution a little. First, it only saves at checkpoints, but they're far apart. They patched in an indicator to let you know when the saves were happening, because apparently it was even MORE confusing before, hah. Also, things like the checkpoints you need to hit and one certain action you need to take to move across the river aren't made clear at all, if you use a minimal interface you need to find other ways to let the player know about important things like that, and they dropped the ball there.

I'd recommend it, it's just it makes a lot of little mistakes and one big one (the maze-puzzle).
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matt
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Re: The Steam forums are bumming me out. :(

Post by matt »

Seems like one that I'll probably want to play with a walkthrough from start to finish. :)
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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RightClickSaveAs
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Re: The Steam forums are bumming me out. :(

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

A walkthrough would be a good idea, as long as it doesn't spoil the specifics too much. There's one thing that happens near the beginning that is incredibly bizarre and trippy, when I first found it I thought I had accidentally stumbled on an easter egg or something, but nope it's just part of the game. So ideally try to find one that just tells you where to go without going into TOO much detail!
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