Free Game Saturday #6

And 7 and 8,. blame bad internet, or a new computer that wasn't quite working and freshly installed yet. Well it's freaking working now and it's a beast!

So, to celebrate, let's make a few more giveaways.

Just a few mind you.

If you want "in" on the chance to win, just leave a link to your Steamgifts profile as a comment below.

I can take up to 3-5 extra entries per game, so don't be late. Bookmark the blog and check back saturday at least ;)








Also some geekporn below of the new PC vs the old black one:

Got to love some a decent bit of clean cable management, right?

The unending terrifying drama that is Microsoft Windows 10

Windows 10...

What can I say...

I could say it's the biggest crap shoot since Vista, and many will agree with that statement,. but somehow that's what I'm currently using to type this post.

Microsoft has gotten a reputation of releasing 1 good version, 1 bad version alternating. So, Since 7 was good, and 8 sucked donkey balls, 9 should have been good,. But they skipped 9 and went straight to the next bloody awful version on the list.

Oh, oh accustations,. ! Drama! hate mongering!
Yes!,. suck it.

Oh I agree, Windows 10 looks good. It works a mile better than windows 8,. but there's just SO MUCH wrong with it. If you want to skip straight to the "how to I prevent my windows from updating" part then follow this link and save yourself the rant,. but if it's the rant you came here for, then sit back and enjoy the read.


At work. New laptop. Windows 10

Fresh install and all seems ok,. until I noticed some bits being weird.
Weird as in "huh shouldn't the clock pop-up when you click here?",. and on top of that the right mouse menu pop-up in the bottom no longer worked, neither did typing in the start menu, or search box. And when you click the start menu button it suddenly takes 2-3 seconds to show instead of "instantly". Also, edge crashes as soon as you start it.

Why are all these things related to each other? No fucking clue, but they are!
So I did a full reinstall, update, reinstall visual studio, everything. Several minutes later - SAME PROBLEM.

Google tells me that it's a well known issue that is widespread among the many users of the internet, and so far any "fix" I've tried either does nothing or make it worse. See this one,. don't do that,. really DO NOT do what they recommend there.

Meaning this:

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

Don't. Rather than FIX anything, it will ensure your calculator uninstalls, the windows store, various other items all become blank slates, and windows will henceforth be unable to patch, update, or reinstall those components. Meaning you'll have to do a full system reinstall. Yet again hoy!

 No time, no fix, and all the "suggestions" so far have done nothing to correct the issue.


Privacy and security

Hint: These things Microsoft does not care about.
In fact, they ruthlessly violate your privacy by default. Even going so far as to share your wifi password with ALL the people in your contact list by default. Abusing your bandwidth to send / stream / torrent more copies of windows and it's updates to random people in both your contact list and across the internet.

Yes, you can disable this - but unsuspecting users will not know how - even if you selected custom installation mode when installing windows 10, it will be ON by default. So many ridiculous options all on by default. That's the typical Microsoft mentality really. "we think you should do this, so we turn it on by default". What gives?


But it doesn't end there

I bought a new PC. Loose parts in fact.
I then put those together and figured it'd be easy to get everything in working order.
Ho boy was I wrong! I made that post 13 marth,. that's 5 weeks ago and 2 days.
Granted, the first 4 weeks were struggling to figure out why the thing wouldn't even show a boot screen and waiting for part replacements. Maybe the ram was bad, maybe the cpu was bad, maybe the motherboard was bad,. I think I've just about replaced every component once or twice before giving up and bringing the thing to a very friendly local store (yep that's advertising, and it's in dutch, but the guys deserve some credit for the help so far). They got it running,. or at least booting up.

So, then started my part.
I had a usb stick which was windows 10 bootable, 64 bit,. smooth sailing.
I do have to say Microsoft improved the installation experience by a lot since 3.1.1 *cough*,. but for the above mentioned privacy settings they blatantly violate,. the thing did install pretty quick. Sadly you don't get a screen that actually waits to give you a chance to remove the stick after rebooting, but whatever.

So it started.

Next I hooked up an external dvd reader/writer thingy and proceeded with installing the MSI video card drivers.

*dramatic pause for effect and a picture of the pretty pretty case*

The installer managed to run for 2 minutes before the whole system froze up.
That's right, froze. No more mouse, no keyboard, no progress bar movement on the installer.
Straight out of the box, a clean Windows 10 installation with no weird apps, no network, no virusses, no sketchy drivers, nothing. Clean as an unblooded virgin and white to boot.

I kept it sitting there for a few minutes in stunned silence, thinking I must have done SOMETHING wrong,. but, no. It had just frozen. Ctrl+Alt+Del didn't do anything so the 5 second power switch was the only thing I could think of.

I rebooted the system, tried again, and this time the video card drivers installed just fine.
It looked beautiful. (or at least better than the 640x480 that is the default resolution).

So, next was the DVD, motherboard drivers for network, sound etc.
It froze after 4 minutes.
The annoyance was clear this second time around it couldn't have just been a fluke,. I had read and was told stuff before about faulty SSD drives that might cause this issue and was getting worried at this point.
About an hour, much cursing, a glass of water, a toilet break and several e-mails to random people later I had managed to:
- Install the motherboard drivers
- Install Steam
- Install Chrome
- Install AirParrot2
- Restart the PC no less than once for each of the above, and 3 times while browsing google for possible reasons of the freezing.
I just gave up and booted the old (this, 8 year old, vista running Dell XPS) PC to look for possible reasons and just get some relax time again because frustration was,.. alive.

A day later and some suggestions from the aforementioned store I unhooked the SSD, swapped the SATA cables around and tweaked the boot sequence,. then installed Windows 10 on the 2 TB HD.

It went smooth, or so I thought.
I started with the motherboard drivers this time - just in case my sequence of events had been faulty the first time. Which went fine, as did the video card drivers. Hope was high and the sky seemed clear for... a big nope. About 10% into installing Chrome while updating steam it froze again.

Another reboot, let's try windows updates. Round 1 - went fine,. Round 2,. froze up at about 25% completion.
So, it wasn't the SSD's fault at least.

At this point I'm just,. ready to admit defeat, hardware isn't my thing - when this PC needs a replacement in another 6-8 years I'm going straight to the store.
For now, I'll see about delivering it to the experts again and have good faith they'll make more progress in getting it up and running than I've managed so far.

If all else fails I'll grab a copy of Windows 7 and we'll perform a clean install with that one. I'm fairly confident it'll work perfectly the first time around. Or I can just get a Mac I guess... >_>

Edit, bonus content: The shining
Microsoft upgraded users to win10 without their ok

The Tale of a Fraudulent Clusterfuck - Part 5

Previous chapters: part 1, part 2, part 3, Part 4


Part 5 - the morning after

After part 4 was published, several artists came to my defense, they created accounts on RPG-Codex and MMO-Champion to speak-up against James.


James claimed he would post a solid rebuttal, but never did. James has been doing his charade, delusional development for so long, instead of facing the truth, he decided to cancel GM and take down the entire site instead.

http://www.greedmonger.net - now gives you a 404 error.

Q: What half-truths and lies are there?
A: James has pointed-out issues about uLink. James did not dispute facts about part 1, part 2, part 3, and ignorant what his friends are doing.

James has stated he had a team to help him. I could not find their arts or code or music portfolio:
1. Steven Davis doing his usual business of scamming others, as he scammed a week after part IV was published:
at the unity 3D forum.

2. The person doing environment, Paul Hemmings does not have a portfolio. Either I don’t see it or a google search of “Paul Hemmings Portfolio” has 0 results. So you can imagine what kind of Unity environment work he is doing...

3. Aaron Victoria has 0 results for portfolio. He’s very busy in the same vein - asking for free work, claiming he is an artist…

4. Jason Appleton has 0 results for portfolio, a lousy person who uses ELance to hire developers to originally code and give it to James on a silver platter, website and treats others very badly as stated in part 3, and 4.

5. SlyJesse has 0 results for portfolio.
6. MagicRules has 0 results for portfolio.
7. Tyler has 0 results for portfolio.
8. Matt Eichler... no mention of GM on portfolio...
9. David Bennell…  0 portfolio.
10. Cindy ...can't find any info.
11. Patrick Tempond... 0 portfolio
12. Vincent Foster... no mention of any prior games.

13. Joel Hager, Lumpyguy, the artist with nothing on his portfolio.

Lumpyguy claims to do post-production audio. No musical tracks exists, nor is he credited in any album, track or discography. So you can imagine what kind of musician he is...

Joel claims to be part of Boise Pulse Music, the largest music magazine:

Is an empty website...

The original artwork made 5 years ago is similar as what James GM artwork is now today. Nothing much has changed since.

Q: Why did James close down GreedMonger?
A: James could not open-source anything, since his code is less than 1% of the original products he brought and used.

A normal Unity project will have more than 50% as custom-coded, custom-assets. In GM, almost nothing.

James has created a new project, Project Reality, with all store-bought coding. He knows the truth about FPS (Frames-Per-second) issues and bloated terrain. Players will maul him once James makes his game available. 

James probably understands the issues about instanced sessions, mentioned in part 3 and 4, and his inability to pay for high-end expensive servers, which requires Jason Appleton to sponsor servers when more progress is made.

A competent MMO developer would be able to code a server which hosts hundreds of instanced sessions on one server, something for James Proctor to think about, since it is way beyond his skill-level, and all of the known MMO solutions for Unity, including Project Gorgon. Eric, the developer of Project Gorgon knows about this issue plaguing his MMO, since he left Carbine/Wildstar.

You can imagine the hypocrisy. James stating on his FB page that he is not associated with Jason and later, it is found Jason is the original investor.

Advice for James:
- Stop using and relying on store-bought assets. Learn to code your own things. It’s better James deletes everything and start from zero.
- Stop using Unity/Unreal/Cry. It will be good to learn C++ and low-level OpenGL, DirectX, TCP mailboxes, direct database access.
- Stop advertising yet another MMO, since all known MMO solutions for Unity/Unreal/Cry are full of BS and if the developer is not competent, he will buy this, that and turn into yet another GM trainwreck.
- Stop associating with scam-artists. James mentality is same as those scam-artists. Feigning stupidity and claiming to be innocent.
- Get a job. James the burger flipper, delivery guy or cashier can earn more money than James the MMO developer.

As mentioned in part 4, don’t feel sorry for James. If you give money to James, you enable him to call his work a success, without any thought of deliverables or game. James needs to pick-up his life and start from the very beginning - basic coding without asset-store items.

Q: Is Jason Appleton a clueless person?
Jason Appleton is very smart. His Billy Bolts project has beautiful artwork and an impressive website:

See: iTunes.

In a normal game-project, the owner hires artists who drew prior art, developers who made fully-completed, playable games, musicians who have hours of listenable music on their website.

Do not associate with the people involved with GM. They are known to borrow money, extort, post chat-logs against you (as in part II), vilify, entrap, bad-mouth (as in part IV), are n00b artists, n00b modellers, rookie coders who have no game-development experience. They are scammers who want lots of money in exchange for non-existent artwork, horrible models (or just buy something on Asset Store to give to you ;), terrible code and they have nothing art-worthy to show on their non-existent portfolios since 2012 when GM was Kickstarted.

These people don’t understand hardship - where others suffer loss, inconvenience artists who have to redo everything again to fix horrific mess, business owners ruined, constant slander and rumor-mongering from them.
  
A normal artist, would join a design company, a game-studio, work his way up the ladder. In four years’ time, they would be at intermediate level by now, or possibly having their name on the credits-list of several games, plenty of finished projects and lots of original art in their portfolio.

If James doesn’t listen, Karma will remind him. You can imagine how evil he is, to cause so many people to speak-up against him.

Free Game Saturday #5

If you want "in" on the chance to win this brilliant and lovely game, just leave a link to your Steamgifts profile as a comment below.

Also see the previous post.


More next week.

Free Game Saturday #4

If you want "in" on the chance to win the pixel style top-down game, just leave a link to your Steamgifts profile as a comment below.

Also see the previous post.


More next week.

Minced Meat Soup Recipe by Kashim

So my good Steam friend tstki asked me to be a guest on his blog and write *something*. He said, anything would be fine... I still didn't have a clue what to write about.. and then he said he liked cooking. Well, I love cooking, so I decided to share one of my favorite recipes, "Spicy Soup with Minced Meat".

Ingredients:
For 4 persons

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 500 g minced meat, half pork half beef (I used lean ground beef, not a fan of pork)
• salt and pepper
• 1 onion, chopped (I used 2 shallots instead)
• 1 celery stalk, in slices
• 1 red or green bell pepper, without seeds, in pieces
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 400 g canned diced tomatoes
• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• 4.5 dl chicken or beef stock
• 1/8 tsp ground coriander (I used about 1/2 tsp)
• 1/8 tsp ground cumin (I used about 1/2 tsp)
• 1/4 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp chilipowder, or to taste
• chopped fresh coriander or parsley, to garnish
• sour cream

Heat the oil on middle heat in a large pan. Add the minced meat, add salt and pepper, and fry the minced meat. Turn down the heat and add the onions, celery, bell pepper, and garlic.

Put the lid on the pan and let everything stew for about 5 minutes, until the onion is soft. Stir once in a while.

Add the diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and stock. After, add the coriander, cumin, oregano, and chili powder. Stir well.

Raise the heat until everything is just about to boil, put the fire on low, put the lid on the pan and let the soup cook slowly for 30-40 minutes until all vegetables are very soft. Taste the soup and season it if necessary with salt and pepper. Add more chili powder if you like spicy.

Ladle the soup into preheated bowls and sprinkle the fresh coriander or parsley over it. Add the sour cream on the side, or scoop a spoonful into each bowl.

Eet smakelijk!

Gaming rig - version 3

It's been a while since the lastest computer related post, with one from 2007 in fact, and this painfully obviously need for an upgrade / replacement back in the way of WoW and raids.

My current PC is apparrently already about 7-8 years old, which is almost ancient over in the lands of PC hardware. To give you an overview, I'm currently running:
- CPU: Intel i7 920 @ 2.67 GHz
- Windows Vista 64 bit from 2007 - Even google chrome is giving me warnings about support for the OS being discontinued soon, and
- 6 GB Ram
- 500 GB Harddisk, which is pretty stuffed to the limit.
- 2 TB external.
- 600W - PSU from 2014 which is already a replacement from the original due to the old one failing to boot the PC any longer. In theory I can upcycle this one into the new PC, which was somewhat the idea back when i bought it


Old PSU @ 360W or so:

New PSU @ 600W, a good bit more than my current pc needs, but that just means it'll run more quiet.

Now, you might go to your local computer store, media market or whatever and just buy an off-the-shelf system,. but to be fair that's what I've been doing forever. Every time some issue or other pops up later and while the system seems fast at first, it just bogs down, and the video performance degrades or just isn't quite "amazing" anymore.

Let's put together a "do it yourself" PC for a change. All loose components ordered from the local store, and online shops, then put together into a super frankenstein of a system. The end result should be better, faster and above all a fucklot cheaper than any HP, Dell or Asus you grab online.

So, the first step becomes:


How much can I recycle?

Generally when you want to upgrade your PC the peripherals can be left alone. Those are the bits n pieces any home owner can (and usually will) replace once every few years, with some exceptions.

Unless you have an old Commodore that still uses PS2 and simply different plugs than your new PC would, you can leave these alone and simply upgrade them when you feel they no longer perform as good as you like:
- PC Speakers - In my case a Logitech X-something 5.1 surround set. It still works, so why bother replacing it?
- Keyboard - I got a G15 keyboard sitting here, that although dirty and dusty still shows the expected letters on the screen when I press them on the board.
- Mouse - I'm itching to get a Proteus Core sometime in the future because the scroll wheel is starting to act up on my current G500, but for now it'll do.

- Monitor - As peripherals go, this is usually one of the more expensive bits. If you're going to be gaming in high-res then you'll obviously want that video card to be able to display everything perfectly right? And do you stick to a single monitor, or go dual, or even more screens? In which case you'll need fixtures or legs for those things. For myself, the UHD with HDMI Dell monitor that I've got is still alive - and as long as it is, it'll save me an extra 200-300 euro price tag.
- Mousepad and printer if you have/use one. Webcam, microphone, cable management systems, extention cords. Heck, even your desk and chair might be considered part of your gaming setup.


What is your budget?

An important question obviously, since this will determine the hardware you can put together. Do you want to go modern but cheap, or all out?
Since we'll mostly be looking at the PC itself and skipping out on upgrading peripherals we'll go for a budget of 1500,- euros. Now, you don't HAVE to use the entire budget, but you should definitely not go over it. Otherwise, what's the point of having a budget in the first place after all?

When setting your budget ask yourself:
- How long do you intend to use the PC? Two years or five years before upgrading again?
- What performance do I hope to get out of it?
- Which components could I upgrade in the future to squeeze out an extra year or two?
- What are the important parts? Sound? Video? Storage?

So, you have thought of a budget? What category does it fall into?
- 500-999: Budget gaming PC, good for older games. Should last you 3 or so years.
- 1000-1500: Average gaming PC, good for most modern games but won't run 4K+ on high FPS.
- 1501-2500: Beast mode, double or triple video card, water cooling, the works.

I've settled for a budget of about 1500 myself. I want to use the PC for games, have a decent bit of storage, but don't care to run the most modern games on max FPS but stil be "oculus ready" just in case. Aside fan noise, heat, power usage the PC's location in your home will matter. Also, mine's in the living room so a few quiet fans would be nice.


What do you need for a functional system?

If you've never put together a PC, then this is obviously going to be the tricky bit, as well as a large part why most people will just prefer to walk into a store and ask the clerk to point them at a good system.
Most stores will try to sell you fairly average systems, use big words and make you feel insecure so you'll just agree with whatever they way. If you decide you don't want to invest the extra time to put together the system you want, with Grade-A components, and feel fine buying a closed box of surprises with mixed grade components then by all means go and do that. From my experience any store bought PC is going to show issues in less than 2 years.

You'll especially want to avoid low budget cases and supermarket deals when it comes to buying a computer. Support is zero, and the quality even worse. Don't do it. Get a Dell if anything, at least you'll get some support if stuff breaks down.

The basics:
- Case. How your PC will look from the outside, how much will fit. You could custom build it from LEGO which is awesome, but I'd still recommend using plain steel.
- Motherboard. Comes with onboard sound and network functions nowadays which are more than adequate for most users.
- CPU. Most will come with a stock cooler, but for a tiny amount you can get a generally much bigger & less noisy fan. Make sure it's not too heavy though, or you'll break your motherboard.
- Power Supply.  Because your system need juice to run!
- Hard disk(s). For storage obviously.
- Video card (yes it's optional, but HIGHLY recommended)
- Extra memory - Ram
- DVD player, and / or card reader. (Optional)
- Operating System. While not a physical component it "is" sort of important.

You can gather bits n pieces from NewEgg, Tweakers.net, Tom's Hardware and even Amazon if you're in the USA. I'll use Tweakers.net since it's well, local, for me.

So far I've got the following setup planned:

I can cannibalize the PSU from my current PC, so that'll cut the price down by about 70,- and I can scrape another 115,- off the price by getting a OEM Windows key from Kinguin instead of using a closed box retailer.

So the total on that would end up at around: € 1050,16 (note: excluding shipping)
Plenty of space to still add that mouse replacement, and well within the set budget. Still room for an additional video card if desired,. or upgrading the hard disks.

More later. I may tweak the setup a bit more and proceed to ordering, then I'll have some images to post about the build.

Free Game Saturday #3

If you want "in" on the chance to win 1-3 of the below games, just leave a link to your Steamgifts profile as a comment below.

Also see the previous post.


Some more from a recent Humble Weekly bundle, or indiegala bundle.
At least one has cards, all have a positive review rating, and don't look too bad.





Three games on the third week.
Don't get any ideas about the next week though.

More next week,. I still got a backlog that's, just big really.

Free Game Saturday #2

6 entries on the last one so that was 1/6 chance to win - thats almost 17% win chance!

If you want "in" on the chance to win, just leave a link to your Steamgifts profile as a comment below.

Also see the previous post.

Nuclear dawn was part of a recent Humble Weekly bundle.
It's got cards, a positive review rating, and doesn't look too bad. All n all it should be a decent game to get for free, right?

Free Game Saturday (Steam)

So I've been using Humble Bundle a while, and Steam Gifts,. so 1+1=10 and some of you will wonder how that maths out.

So, I'd like to give away some games and perhaps you'd like to receive some games? I figure you would. I've still got "Life Is Strange™ - Episode 1", "The Last Remnand" and "Murdered: Soul Suspect" sitting around, so we'll see when those go up for grabs. Keep an eye on the blog at any rate in case you want to stand a decent chance.


What are the requirements? (There are always some, right?)
Well, firstly you'll need an account on Steam Gifts, since they handle the random distribution of the key. That'll save me the "omg unfair" calls and random generators that aren't really random.

Secondly,. you'll need to be level 1, which means having given away a few games at some point in the past. Realistically that means having bought a Humble bundle or Indiegala pack once. Peanuts really.

And finally, you'll need to leave a link to your SteamGifts profile below in the comments, so I can add you to my whitelist. I'd appreciate being added to your whitelist in return, if I'm cleaning up my whitelist later I'll keep the ones on there that added me as well. Fair is fair right?

I can't guarantee doing this "every single week",. but if I do, it'll be on the weekends - so tell your friends, and check back often. ;)

Once you're added you can enter the giveaway through this link:

Open to the first 5 people to leave their link. First come first served. The giveaway lasts 1 week starting "right now".

Tutorial or not

When you're making a game you should think about "how do you ensure your users understand how to play". Some developers solve this by giving you a 100 page manual (that nobody reads). Or an annoying and long winded tutorial that you have to play though every single time you restart the game / a new save.

Yeah, players can be a tough crowd to please. But we're not retarded. If you got an intuitive design, eventually it'll be figured out how and what to do - still, a smooth game will get much higher ratings than something that sends you all over town and still leaves you wondering what just happened.

Surprisingly games like _flappy bird_ somehow do ok from time to time - but make no mistake, not "all" of them do. And even when they do - most players lose interest in them pretty quickly.

So, what are good game design rules to stick by?


1: IF you add a tutorial, make it skippable so people don't have to sit through it on a replay of your game. Or integrate into the game in such a brilliant mind blowing way that you get a standing ovation on youtube. Much like this. No seriously, WATCH this video!



2: Be unique. By now there's a few dozen RPG-Maker games on Steam, and several hundred "in the wild" that didn't bother going commercial or were just not good enough. Aside that I'm sure you've heard people say "yet another moba" once or twice. The same goes for pretty much "yet another anything" if you're making a game, and feeling inspired by something or other you should probably ask yourself first: Why would someone play my game, if they could be playing the game I was inspired by instead?

While it's not bad to be inspired, it IS bad if you copy ideas "a lot". Unless you do it intentionally and to excess (like world of warcraft has done), or as a parody game like for example UnEpic. Just be careful not to end up in the "yet another generic RpgMaker" pile.

3: Be interesting. Captivate the attention of your player from the first second, and I guarantee you they'll keep playing until the end. It'd suck to have them quit halfway through and leave a bad review right? Reviews are a good way to measure the average player experience, but don't focus on them too much - you still want to spend time making the game you would enjoy playing yourself. After all, nobody will be spending as much time play(testing) the game as you. Adding some references that people may be able to recognize (such as characters from other games in disguise), or easter eggs in places where most players would not think to look for them.

4: Replayability. Good games are fun playing once. GREAT games are fun playing more than once. (and shitty games you stop playing before you reach the midway point of "may as well keep going now") A game with an interesting enough story, cool gameplay and giving the player some choice over his fate in the game or even other characters in the game will get you through fine enough. But, if you ensure (also see #6) the player needs to make some choices along the way, add achievements that can only be unlocked after a second replay (free metagame yo), or higher difficulties then you create some additional replayability which should increase the lifespan of your game on a player's computer. Don't be a drudge though,. nobody likes having to do a "kill the final boss 100 times" achievement.

5: Be unique. It's important, so I'm listing it twice! Inspiration is fine, but make sure your game is unique. Take another example of a game with a pretty unique concept: Hero and Daughter. While not an A+ rank title, the concept of "not leveling" in a RPG game is pretty unique and is going to get people to notice your game. Being noticed means having people write about it (like I am doing right now), and thus you get free advertising. See? Being unique is important.

6: Don't be linear. Unless your story is REALLY good, most players will notice and get annoyed when being treated like a rat in a maze. "Go north" is all good, but it there's no other way to go then the statement becomes a bit redundant.
A perfect example of linear is Final Fantasy 13. The linear gameplay of this one is one of the most complained about features of the game. It looks pretty, it plays smooth enough,. but it's linear as heck, so very few people will bother playing it more than once.

If you can complete a game in different ways and get "alternate endings" or add some side quest areas that are completely optional then you're golden.

7: Don't overcomplicate things. It goes well with point #1, if you make your game more complicated, you will need a bigger tutorial. If you keep the game easy to learn, fun to play, rewarding, and don't treat the player like a 7 year old but not like a scientist either (Take the mechwarrior online HUD for example), then you should be fine. Watch the video at #1 if you haven't already. If a player feels the game is confusing or ruthlessly difficult without having a good reason for it (that's another flappy bird reference sadly), they will feel stupid and quickly lose interest in continuing.

8: Involve the player. Don't just tell a story, make the player a part of the game (Also see video at #1 again. You see, I've referenced it three times now, it must be good!). If the player feels involved and responsible for the world he's entered, he (or she) will take different choices, and keep playing more actively than if it was a passive story to watch. Anyone can rent a book or movie and watch it, but a video/computer game is meant to be interactive. So involve the player in the story, and make him responsible for the outcome. (Half-life does this pretty well, even though it's somewhat linear.)

9: Know your target crowd. If your game caters to 5 year olds, 10 year olds, young adults, or older adults, you'll be able to insert different themes and jokes into the game.

You may be able to insert lines that are just so absolutely terribly BAD, that they become funny. I recall there was a doctor in the GM version of pokemon that said "I love balls",. obviously he was referring to pokeballs, and most kids will understand that and think nothing more of it. But we adults will know different.

And then there's the question of "how much flesh" can you show. Sex sells there's no question about that, but how much is too much? Look for Kabod Online or even Tera or Blade and Soul,. you will know it's too much. This tends to attract players around 15-17 years old more than mature players it seems, and it's a popular thing among korea/japan, with generally terrible gameplay and the boobs are just there to distract you from that fact.

To put it short, some skin is fine, but don't let it distract from the most important thing, which is: Having a good game that is worth playing. If people want to see breasts, heck the internet is full of them - they won't buy your game to see those,. they will buy your game to play the game.

10: Have a goal. Whether winning the game means you resqued the princess, saved the world, defeated the evil villain, or just lived to fight another day. Make it clear to the player (at some point early in the game) "why" they are playing the game. And that obviously shouldn't just be "to fuel your bank account",. noble though that goal may be to us, the player won't have much of a message on that.

Note that the goal may change while playing the game (and is another way to keep the player interested). Without giving you spoilers, Final Fantasy 6 did this brilliantly, it's non linear, involves you in the story, adds some mistique, alternative endings, the works.

11: Be realistic. If you are a 1 man team, you won't be able to create a 40 hours of playtime game on your own in a single afternoon. If you WANT to make a big game, you need MORE people. Are you capable of working in a team? Do you have experience? Time available? Even a small game can create a lot of interest, but two heads can generally accomplish more together than two would on their own. There's a lot of benefit to having a team dynamic. For RPGMaker you could try the Recruitment Forum.

12: Everyone is a critic. No matter how good your game may end up being, there are ALWAYS people who hate it or have "suggestions" to make it better. You can safely ignore them if there's only a few. But if you're getting more negative feedback than positive, something is wrong. Fix it.

Tiny delphi things that improve performance

It's always a good idea to go back over old (2-5 year) code and re-apply things you've learned, or just didn't bother with at the time.

And similarily I've gone back and started adding some improvements to Dragon Tavern Logger, a small personal project which you can download for free. If you just want to play the game you can use the same tool, or just use your browser to visit the link and create a character, or two, or three,. heck you can make up to 20 if you felt like it.

The latest version of the tool currently available is v 1.0.9, which was released about two years back. The game was paused, devs mostly abandoned it, but the community lives on still. And it's a pretty laid back casual game you can play in between whatever else you may be doing.

Version 1.1.0 that's "in the works" and has a few fixes and speed improvements already commited to the bitbucket link above will show some significantly improved loading and refresh speeds.

For the nitty gritty coders among you readers, the following improvements were done:
- BeginUpdate / EndUpdate was added to all listviews. Especially the analyze dialog will benefit from this as the number of drawing updates will be cut to just once per update instead of once per item per update.
- TWebBrowser's "outerHTML" was being copied from the web browser several times per parsing, now just once. This doubled the speed of said parsing. It was just ~20 ms before, but now it's down to ~10ms.
- The OnDocumentComplete event is fired multiple times per page. I added some code that ensured it was only handled once, instead of checked each event. This ensured the amount of checks for the inventory loading (cube) went down from about 3-4 times to just 1 check, and the same for exploring. This was the most significant improvement after the begin/end update.

There's quite a few ideas that could still be implemented. Such as using TChromium, Threads, ShortStrings and more. But, one thing at a time.