Advertising Outside of BYOND

ID:182611
 
Apr 5 2008, 9:27 am
Suppose I wanted to build a puzzle game. BYOND doesn't have very many people who are interested in Puzzle games, so this probably isn't the best place to acquire players. Does anyone know of good sites where I could advertise a puzzle game? Or an adventure game? Or a strategy game?

I figure once 415 is out, it'll be easier to create games for download. Just tell people that they must install the required files (BYOND 415) before the game will work. So basically it just needs to be listed somewhere for download in order for people to play it.

But I really don't know of too many good places to advertise things like this. I suppose I could try Home of the Underdogs and maybe some of the sites affiliated with it, but it would be nice if there were some other popular sites that I could submit it to.
Apr 5 2008, 9:51 am
Apr 5 2008, 10:23 am
Foomer wrote:
Just tell people that they must install the required files (BYOND 415) before the game will work. So basically it just needs to be listed somewhere for download in order for people to play it.

ID:626310
Rather than linking people to the installation files, it would be really awesome if we could just compile an all-in-one installation kit.
Apr 5 2008, 10:46 am
In response to SuperAntx
SuperAntx wrote:
Foomer wrote:
Just tell people that they must install the required files (BYOND 415) before the game will work. So basically it just needs to be listed somewhere for download in order for people to play it.

ID:626310
Rather than linking people to the installation files, it would be really awesome if we could just compile an all-in-one installation kit.

Installing BYOND as required files isn't really any different than installing DirectX for a C++ game. And I really don't care what the splash screen for DirectX looks like.

Including an all-in-one installation kit would bloat the file size and mean that every BYOND download would have to be much larger. I'm fine with just having people install the required files once.

But really, I didn't start this thread to discuss ways to improve BYOND's distribution system. I started it to discuss where to distribute BYOND games outside of BYOND.
Apr 5 2008, 11:52 am
Honestly, I'm convinced at this point that Flash is a far better platform for puzzle games than BYOND is. BYOND has the edge with novice developers (and probably always will), but for people who are producing quality, the high availability of the flash player and the ability to play in the browser window give Flash a huge advantage.

Kongregate, Wrigley's Candystand, Digg, StumbleUpon, Myspace, and Facebook are all great places for advertising flash games.
Apr 5 2008, 11:53 am
In response to Foomer
Foomer wrote:
Including an all-in-one installation kit would bloat the file size and mean that every BYOND download would have to be much larger.

No, that's now how it would work. There would be an option to compile the game like this, just like there's an option to include the source files.

It would just be a completely optional distribution package FOR the other sites. It would be much quicker and easier if non-BYONDers could just install and go rather than going through a bunch of hoops.
Apr 5 2008, 1:42 pm
In response to PirateHead
That's fine, I'm sure FLASH is great if you have it, but I don't. And why does everyone keep bringing up issues with BYOND? I'm not asking about issues with BYOND, I'm asking about other places to publish BYOND games.

But I'll agree hands down that FLASH is better for casual games that BYOND is. No need to download anything, except for having FLASH installed on your browser.

Aren't there any things that BYOND can do that FLASH can't? Besides being multi player?
Apr 5 2008, 2:36 pm
In response to Foomer
Foomer wrote:
That's fine, I'm sure FLASH is great if you have it, but I don't. And why does everyone keep bringing up issues with BYOND? I'm not asking about issues with BYOND, I'm asking about other places to publish BYOND games.

But I'll agree hands down that FLASH is better for casual games that BYOND is. No need to download anything, except for having FLASH installed on your browser.

Aren't there any things that BYOND can do that FLASH can't? Besides being multi player?

The ability to upload custom icons is one, the strong community aspect is another, for casual games its slim pickings. The truth is that byond isnt overly strong in casual game making except when it comes to making the games themselves, people with high creativity for casual games but low programming knowledge may be a potential growth area. It has high competition from the internet while other game formats have virtually none (anime guild, free anime games on the internet dont exist due to copyright infringment fears). There are other things though, its rare to see online games that are free that have savable content, also CowRp style games where you can build and really effect the game environment is a strong strong suit, byonds ability to change the environment on runtime due to its nature as an easy to make game suite is where some focus should probably be made. For all those making poker, pong, yahtzee, pacman etc will find that they bring in incredibly low numbers of players because byond does not handle that type of game well compared to flash equivalents and an otherwise saturated internet market.
Apr 5 2008, 2:43 pm (Edited on Apr 5 2008, 2:50 pm)
In response to Foomer
Foomer wrote:
That's fine, I'm sure FLASH is great if you have it, but I don't.

Flash is actually a pretty open standard now. There are decent free kits for building programs which run in Flash. OpenLaszlo, for example, lets you write apps in Java (which is Free now) which will run on either Flash or hybrid HTML/DOM/JavaScript.

And why does everyone keep bringing up issues with BYOND? I'm not asking about issues with BYOND, I'm asking about other places to publish BYOND games.

I think they keep being brought up because the drawbacks of BYOND tend to keep it from exploding as a medium. BYOND is a little bit similar to Valve's Steam, except that it doesn't have industry behind it and it restricts programs to only those using its engine, whereas Steam allows any sort of game to be connected to the Steam network.

But I'll agree hands down that FLASH is better for casual games that BYOND is. No need to download anything, except for having FLASH installed on your browser.

It's a golden standard on the web right now.

Aren't there any things that BYOND can do that FLASH can't? Besides being multi player?

Actually, Flash does multiplayer just fine. (Check out The Casual Collective, a site for free multi player flash games).

As far as things that BYOND can do which flash cannot? I'd say probably not. Flash has a very flexible system which allows for amazing expandability. And there are certainly things that Flash can do which BYOND cannot, such as streaming video, client-side processing, hardware-accelerated 2D graphics, scalable vector images, and so on.

Flash has the advantage in openness, ease of installation, ease of use, features, adoption, available of development toolkits, community and industry support, and so on. BYOND's primary advantage is in its newbie-developer friendliness.

Edit: also check out Gnash, the GNU project's implementation of Flash. In the future, Flash may not be controlled by Adobe anymore, just as control of HTML is being negotiated by multiple groups today.