Rule & Expand: I don't like my game

Playing as a gamer your own game.

I didn’t play my first steam game with a gamer mindset. The result was that the first and only play tester of my demo, a guy from a subreddit, made a YouTube video playing my game and recording their impresion. I had to change a lot of think of my gameplay.

The point is that I knew the lack of fun in my gameplay, but my developer mindset only want to push ahead and release the game as faster as I can.

This is a mistake I don’t want to repeat.

PLAYING AS GAMER

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

I have the purpose of made alpha testing and progressives beta testing. I have a roadmap from finish the alpha to release a demo. The first and big “BUT” is that I must want to play the game I made.

How the heck do I expect to sell a game if I don't like playing it?

So this time I putted my gamer hat (or cap) and play my game. I don’t feel the game I had in my mind. It is boring. I made clicks here and there and I “conquest” new land, but I don’t have feelings.

So, the interactivity is ok, and the UI is ok, but the rules are bad, so I need to go back to the drawing board to rethink the rules.

BACK TO BASIC: How do I want the game feel?

I want to break the “power fantasy” that games like Risk spread.

The increasing difficulty of maintaining control over territories as we expand

The danger of dividing military power that can turn against you.

The need to keep the population's spirits up so they don't overthrow you

Death as the insurmountable obstacle to the "power fantasy"

ROADMAP: The future of my game

Photo by Sylwia Bartyzel on Unsplash

I will spend the next weeks remaking the game rules until I will get the feelings for my game.

My objetive will be to have a “limited feature alpha” with a feedback system and upload to itch.io and steam as playtest to every one. I will seek for tester in Reddit and YouTube

The feedback system will feed a private discord. I will allow only email subscribers to become a discord members with “playtester” role to interact with me and each other.

After all mayor issues will be solved the next stage is the demo, I will try to made a Next Steam Fest and I will emails YouTube creators to ask for cover.