Hi Everyone

[ad7venture]

Still I wonder what percent of those players counted as real players are just some people who load the game look a few seconds at its visuals and then try another one.

I think you are being just a bit prejudiced as there could be just as many that download an AGS game and play it for a few minutes.  I know I'm guilty of that.  There is a huge variety of quality in all areas of a game and a developer has to be somewhat advanced in most of those areas for the game to be enjoyable in my mind.  On the other hand, people may be less forgiving on Kongregate because so many play arcade games.  I like browser games and I think adventure games are well suited for them, but you don't see any engines for them around.  I'm currently playing around with FlashPunk and I am definitely considering doing an adventure game with it.  It's a lot more fun than Flash in my mind because it's strictly written for games and it's also completely free, which is nice.

[Igor Hardy]

Oh, I know that some people give up on a downloaded games too, but since Flash games often load up automatically, there's a greater chance a random game will pull in someone "just browsing through", but also a greater chance that this person won't be interested in a game they accidentally loaded up.

The greatest chance a player sticks through to the end is when they paid for the game.

[ad7venture]

The greatest chance a player sticks through to the end is when they paid for the game.

That, or an included hint system, good graphics, and an interesting story, throwing in some nice background music and sound effects doesn't hurt either.   

[Tumetsu]

Oh, I know that some people give up on a downloaded games too, but since Flash games often load up automatically, there's a greater chance a random game will pull in someone "just browsing through", but also a greater chance that this person won't be interested in a game they accidentally loaded up.

The greatest chance a player sticks through to the end is when they paid for the game.

Yes, but the more views you get the more plays you get Even though many of those viewers won't actually play game, it is still better to get those views than if players should first download it. And like ad7 said, many downloaded games are still left without playing. Browser games also tend to get more visibility through free portals etc. To me it seems like with Flash you can get wider audience since it is just so much easier for player to play them (and so come across many games). However, to me Flash doesn't seem as good commercial platform (except relatively small income from ads and FGL.com) and if you want make big game to sell, other tools may be better (or just use Air)

To me Flash would be nice platform for small artistic adventures, and can't think much of reasons why not use it except the inability to use right mouse button.

[StarLite]

Hi guys, Flash is something that I'm kicking myself that I didn't learn.

So far so good on the health front. I started exercising again today, this time I'm determined to keep at it. My weight is starting to head for the 190s and that's not good. I did all right today, it doesn't seem to take much to get back into exercising for me, which is good.

Of course my anxiety and stress levels hit the roof last month. My brother-in-law who I was very close to passed away. So of course first thing I start in on the chocolates and sweets which caused me to break out.

I can't believe this past 4 years, it was like bang, bang, bang. First my hubby's mother died, then the cat had to be put the sleep and now my hubby's brother. Like I said to hubby, it's just a matter of time before it's one of us. So goes life I guess

Well I managed to finish the inside of Hawk Manor, and I'm starting to second guess some of the scenes. I'm considering remaking the kitchen. At the moment I am working on the garage and shed. I've got the outside of the shed and garage finished. I've got most of the inside of the garage done. I just have to do a closeup of the lockers.

I'm all over the place these days, trying to finish my Halloween movie Battle Of The Bones, plus I'm working on another movie Desperate, which I have to get Heavy Early to finish the voice for that.

I'm thinking of getting into making CG comics later and making CG dollhouses. I'm considering using the game story Beyond The Newsroom for the comic. I wasn't happy with that story as a game anyway.  So much to do and not enough hours in the day especially when stupid things pop up to stop you for awhile.

Well I'm off, not sure what I'm going to do today. Maybe I'll get to work on one of my movies. Take care everyone and happy creating

[Igor Hardy]

Oh, I know that some people give up on a downloaded games too, but since Flash games often load up automatically, there's a greater chance a random game will pull in someone "just browsing through", but also a greater chance that this person won't be interested in a game they accidentally loaded up.

The greatest chance a player sticks through to the end is when they paid for the game.

Yes, but the more views you get the more plays you get Even though many of those viewers won't actually play game, it is still better to get those views than if players should first download it. And like ad7 said, many downloaded games are still left without playing. Browser games also tend to get more visibility through free portals etc. To me it seems like with Flash you can get wider audience since it is just so much easier for player to play them (and so come across many games). However, to me Flash doesn't seem as good commercial platform (except relatively small income from ads and FGL.com) and if you want make big game to sell, other tools may be better (or just use Air)

I found this interesting new article that provides some interesting data on the discussed topic of browser games audience and visibility (compared to download games):

http://wootfu.com/2012/02/download-vs-flash/

[ad7venture]

Flash gets the most plays but no one cares about the author  .  I just want the most people to play the game.  However, I am doing a Unity game, rather than Flash, because I like working in 3d.  I plan to put the game on Kongregate, but Unity games don't get as many plays as Flash games for whatever reason.  I think mainly because they kind of get buried by Kongregate.  It always takes me a long time to find out where they are.
For me, I'm mainly interested in a portal because I don't have to maintain a website and they get more traffic.  When you are doing free, indy games, you are not going to get a lot of publicity unless you do something that goes viral.

[Igor Hardy]

So what do the browser games' players give back in the case of an averagely popular title? How many longer comments per plays can you expect? Do people recommend your game to others and talk about it elsewhere?

[nigec]

When I was doing Flash games with Lassie my server used to get wiped out in a matter of days (bandwidth) all you have to do is post on a site like Gamershood and let the bloggers do the rest, BUT you don't get feed back unless there's a bug or if they are to thick to read the instructions, which always happend if the game had a verb disc lol, most casual flash gamers haven't evolved past left clicking and cry for help on nearly every puzzle on a adventure game
 the attention is flattering, but they are only playing it because its there and free, I'd rather have 10 people play my game and give feedback even if just to tell me its crap.
One of my games started a little war on the AGS forum, me and Eric planned a Flash version of 6 Day Assassin, but he got busy so I did it on my own, some kid found my version and started slagging the game and me off, what was really funny he was ranting about how bad the plot was.. it was identical to the original lol, I never felt welcome on the AGS forum but I was amazed by how many people backed me up and Eric had his say too

[ad7venture]

You're going to get comments from more average players, unfortunately, so it's "Oh, great game.", "It sucks." or "I like the little potato"  kind of thing.
You find out which puzzles can't get solved, and someone usually posts the answer right there for everyone to see, or sometimes a walkthrough, which they did for our game Handyman Wanted at one site.  They're not quite the level of constant adventure gamers.  I've read the comments at the Blue Cup and they are definitely better by an order of 10 or something.  The problem there is you have a closed community so there's kind of an inbreeding problem.  Still, they put out most of the best free point and click games.  The good ones that come out of other engines like Wintermute can sometimes be quite a bit better, though.  I'm not stuck on the low res most of them use, and they like hard puzzles because they play so many games like that.  I've heard them say games were too easy that I couldn't get through.  One guy said it wasn't any good unless you walked around for 3 or 4 hours looking for something you missed.  That's not very good advice in my mind depending on your target audience.  Whatever is needed should be easy to find, how you use it should be harder to do, but logical.  I've finally realized that games should have hot spots that don't do anything, but they shouldn't just say something stupid, describe it in two words, or whatever.  It should be something that adds background.  I see the same, what I consider design mistakes, being made a lot over there.  Once in a while they should say something funny, but I found myself cringing on the Sam & Max games because it became too much.  I almost have a fear of cartoonish games after that.

[Kickaha]

It'll be useful for me at least to have a list of sites to publicise one's game making efforts on.  But as I'm not making games for money some kind of reaction is rather nice to have rather than zillions of people zapping your bandwidth.