I miss the Dantom del Byondo and that crazy Halloween contest we had however many years back. I think the Halloween contest had the hidden picture clues and the fake user who befriended everyone. I think there was even an easter egg game one Easter a few years ago.
It's just a bit nostalgic, but I feel the community is dying. The same names pop up but I rarely see anyone new. It's easier now to leave BYOND (in my opinion) than it ever was before - though I'm not sure why BYOND has this effect on its users. Anyways, I think another site-wide event would be a creative and fun way to get the community excited about the site again.
Just my little thoughts as I browse the same goddamn blogs and throw my life away.
ID:119292
 Sep 30 2011, 8:59 am
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Sep 30 2011, 9:03 am
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Megablaze
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Damn I thought you were starting up a contest based on the title, not more complaining that fills blogs.
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Hm. Good point. Unfortunately, I'm not damn near creative enough to spark up any kind of contest like this.
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BAM Contest:
Theme: Sparks, anything related to sparks, robots with sparks shooting out, a spark that goes on an adventure, anything. Timelimit: 10 days. | |
You have the wrong idea. I'm not talking about a development contest.
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Ooooh, well, do a Game War contest, pick a few different games, announce the contest, and basicly over a day or something, you'd try to get as many people as possible playing these different games, the game that has the most players over the course of one day would win.
[Edit:] You could also group some of the games together to have teams, since player bases for some games are naturally high. | |
I'm not convinced. A contest would be neat but it wouldn't have a lasting impact. I think BYOND just needs more good games that appeal to developers (Casual Quest is the only one I can think of).
People blog about their projects all the time and I try to be interested but I'm usually not. I imagine other people feel the same way too. If there was a game that developers enjoyed playing it would bring developers together and have a more lasting impact. If it was simple, somewhat casual, singleplayer and multiplayer support, and with a lot of potential for customization, I can imagine people getting very interested in it and creating their own additions to it (think Morrowind, Half Life, etc. - games that are good but also have huge modding potential). It'd be kind of like ripping, except you'd be starting out with a good game. I suspect that part of the problem is that BYOND has a lot of developers who like really complex games. The only game they'd be interested in is the kind of game that is so complex that nobody can ever finish making it. The games that are finished just don't interest most DM developers. | |
Well, the reason why they don't interest developers is because they also don't interest players.
NESTalgia tried to grab players, and it did, but I haven't heard any updates from Silk in quite a while now. He has tried to remove it from BYOND as best as he possibly could, so it's not even an inspiration for our developers. Decadence and Casual Quest are the best examples I can think of that do a good job, but even then, they don't have steady flows of players. CQ has picked up a bit in getting a decent amount of players coming along, and Decadance remains pretty flat even though I regard it as the second best game on BYOND. I honestly think it's just being 2d. It's not as inspiring. Perhaps game development is dying. I'm not entirely sure, and though I know something should be done, I don't know where to begin. | |
Small/casual games that would be basically open source wouldn't have enough interest in them to create multiple versions, since it'll mostly be the same thing. Limiting the possible customization of the game would be even less appealing to developers. And games that would be specifically built to allow a lot of customization, take a lot of time, and are usually complex. I do think it would be nice to get a game like that, but to get someone to make it is an entirely different issue.
I don't really know if contests are the best way to go, but I think it could work. We would first be getting the attention of people by making players want to invite people outside of BYOND to join in something like a game war. And with increasing interest, developers would be more interested in releasing and working on better games. Either way, I doubt it would hurt things to do something like this. | |
CauTi0N wrote:
Well, the reason why they don't interest developers is because they also don't interest players. My point was that games that interest developers would do a lot to build up BYOND's developer community. Players don't matter. If Decadence had 100 players in it right now the developer community would still be as sad and disconnected as it is now. I honestly think it's just being 2d. It's not as inspiring. Perhaps game development is dying. I'm not entirely sure, and though I know something should be done, I don't know where to begin. That's probably part of it. 3D creations are more interesting. I can play Minecraft and have fun constructing and digging in 3D, then I try to make a 2D map for a BYOND game and it's a struggle to make it not completely boring. I agree that 3D is often more interesting, but I don't think that 2D will ever die. With the number of 2D games that have been made and are still being made, I think it's safe to say that the possibilities are endless. Most BYOND developers don't care about game development or design, they just care about the development of their own game. Each developer has their dream project that they work on (the "BYOND" acronym turned out to be spot on). This is bad for the community because very few people actually discuss game design. The community should be rich with game design discussion, but because people are working on their dream games they don't want to discuss things. They believe their dream game to be perfect, so while it would be beneficial as a whole to have game design discussions (if we're not busy making games that we'll ever release, the next best thing would be to discuss what we would make and release) it's not something that happens often. People are in love with their own game concepts and enjoy pretending to work on these games. If they had to actually make these games they'd either realize they're not capable of doing it or that the game's not nearly as fun as they imagined it. The first step is either: 1. Bring new game developers to BYOND. 2. Somehow convince BYOND developers to be motivated by completing games. I'm not sure if most BYOND users can be "rehabilitated". Many seem determined to work on projects with no intention of ever finishing them. Lack of programming skill is also a factor. By the time the average developer has made a rough engine for their game, their code is messy enough that it's already getting difficult to work with. Eventually it becomes too difficult to work with, the developer can't easily make the changes they'd like to, and they give up. This is why I enjoy developing and using the Sidescroller library - it guarantees that the engine is stable, clean, and easy to use (I turn everything into an advertisement, but this does apply here, sort of). Ebonshadow's Pixel Movement is over 9 years old and Xooxer's Platformer is over 3 years old, but neither led to any good games (I don't think they even led to any bad games). | |
Forum_account wrote:
Ebonshadow's Pixel Movement is over 9 years old and Xooxer's Platformer is over 3 years old, but neither led to any good games (I don't think they even led to any bad games). Lol. I think there is a serious issue with player base though. A lot of well made games aren't even played, Decadence and Ultimatum are the best examples. I think it's possible to inspire developers by simply have people interested in these types of games. NEStalgia had to go through a lot of advertising to get it's player base, and not a lot of developers are able to advertise on that scale. | |
You don't need to have a popular BYOND game to know that an indie game can be popular. If people aren't inspired by Minecraft's success, they won't be inspired by NEStalgia's success.
Having more people playing games wouldn't impact BYOND's developer community. If more people were playing Ultimatum that would only interest me if I wanted to make a game that was like Ultimatum. What would benefit the community is if developers had discussions about how to design games like Ultimatum, but you could have these discussions whether people are playing the game or not. | |
Why don't people revive it than? =D
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This title was such a cocktease.
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