{"id":403,"date":"2018-07-17T16:00:45","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T16:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/?page_id=403"},"modified":"2018-07-17T16:10:21","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T16:10:21","slug":"postmortem-slide-racing","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/postmortem-slide-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"Postmortem: Slide Racing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Things Not To Do In Your Hopefully-Commercially-Viable Flash Game<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

NB:<\/b>?This was written a week after the release of the game in 2009. Slide Racing<\/a><\/strong> proved to be a great slow burner, and updated stats are at the bottom of the article. This piece was written for fun – take it with a pinch of salt.<\/p>\n

I recently got my first sale of a Flash game, and here in bullet point format I present my lessons learnt and what I did wrong.<\/p>\n

1.<\/b>?Do not tease players by including an Upgrade Shop that does not stock car parts.<\/p>\n

2.<\/b>?Story is boring. Even with murder(s) and suspense and near-constant innuendo. Players hate you for making them click through it.<\/p>\n

3.<\/b>?If you find it enjoyably challenging, it is too difficult for players.<\/p>\n

4.<\/b>?Speaking of challenge, make the difficulty setting automatically set to rise if people are successful. This gives bad players the chance to fail repeatedly to make it easier.<\/p>\n

5.<\/b>?Do not draw characters all on one layer. This stops all possibility of even slight animation. (A breathing animation works wonders!)<\/p>\n

6.<\/b>?Do not draw characters in an unusual style. Even if it works, players will hate it.<\/p>\n

7.<\/b>?Do not draw in vector, however good you think you are.<\/p>\n

8.<\/b>?Hold the player’s hand.<\/p>\n

9.<\/b>?Using Keeley Hazell as a reference for a character was largely appreciated. Possibly try with Kelly Brook next game. Or Lindsay Lohan from when she wasn’t so weird.<\/p>\n

10.<\/b>?Do not include an ‘Instructions’ button. The people who need them most are least likely to read them. Integrate them into the first thirty seconds.<\/p>\n

11.<\/b>?If your music is well executed, complex, and interesting, people will find it distracting. Ambience and neo-nothing works better.<\/p>\n

12.<\/b>?Keep naming NPCs ‘Adolf H’. The number of people offended is small enough to not create a negative reaction, and large enough to make other commenters feel united in badmouthing the occasional politically correct activist.<\/p>\n

13.<\/b>?Do not submit it on a day when every submission in Newground’s top 5 is unusually high scoring. It crushes all hopes you had of getting featured.<\/p>\n

14.<\/b>?Achievements… Actually worked well. Cool.<\/p>\n

My favourite feedback across the net on Slide Racing:<\/b><\/p>\n

1.<\/b>?”wtfthe music sux on it and the dad dies this game sux”<\/p>\n

2.<\/b>?”wow guys this game makes me hot”<\/p>\n

3.<\/b>?”i like the game, but why is there a story?”<\/p>\n

4.<\/b>?”best game ever.”<\/p>\n

5.<\/b>?”one of the worst games ever created.”<\/p>\n

6.<\/b>?”i am shaw michael”<\/p>\n

7.<\/b>?”the story is stupid and doesn’t fit with the game so this is sucks”<\/p>\n

8.<\/b>?”i’m suprised i thought it would be horrible but i sorta don’t mind it”<\/p>\n

Stats:<\/b><\/p>\n