http://store.steampowered.com/app/249550/NEStalgia/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/467910/EPCH/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/545720/ Nother_an_indie_soulslike/
When the website gets its next face lift, I recommend including something like 'Check out these games made with the BYOND software' and including a Steam logo, as well as information on deployment (HTML5/Steam, a guide on how to upload your game to Steam).
Right now it's an awkward 'learn through word of mouth that you can do that and then contact the developer directly' soft of deal, which is kind of unprofessional. NEStalgia has been on Steam for almost three years, and it's not been used as a means of making the website/product more appealing. Successful games are a great way to show off the engine as flagships products, and promote an air of authenticity with the software. You want to point to the good games that have done well off-site and go 'you can do this!' to potential newbie developers, rather than letting them get lost in the fangames/associating that with the software, and not bothering to mess with the language.
Videos are also good. There's a bunch of SS13 reviews out there, the NEStalgia trailer/LPs, YutPut's various trailers (such as the Grail one he posted recently), even Severed World's which displays the BYOND software.
ID:2265545
 Jul 3 2017, 10:08 pm (Edited on Jul 3 2017, 10:13 pm)
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Jul 18 2017, 5:13 am
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King zelda
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I second this. I like the idea of having BYOND games on steam advertising BYOND to revive the player-base.
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I'd have to agree too, its all around a positive idea, especially for the health and future of the engine.
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I agree as well, but they've already stated proper marketing and/or branding isn't important for BYOND's future.
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Dubious Game Studios wrote:
I agree as well, but they've already stated proper marketing and/or branding isn't important for BYOND's future. Sarcasm, I hope. | |
Ginseng wrote:
Dubious Game Studios wrote: Kind of, they aren't going to do it though. That's for sure. They say BYOND's engine is vastly more important than anything else due to the lack of people working on the site (since they don't get help). | |
They don't get help because Lummox refuses to accept any kind of help. There are plenty of talented people around here, and he refuses any kind of help every time.
I've lost faith in the engine after the web client work. The community is dying, and talented developers are moving on with their lives and investing in more modern technology. With Vylocity on the rise, I don't expect BYOND to last unless Lummox is willing to accept change and learn to ask for help. | |
BYOND is not attracting new developers either. The website, forum technology, etc all needs a face-lift. A major face-lift.
BYOND is funded by the community, it kinda sucks that the community doesn't have as much choice in where development goes. Oh, well. | |
BYOND is funded by the community, it kinda sucks that the community doesn't have as much choice in where development goes. Oh, well. | |
Dubious Game Studios wrote:
BYOND is funded by the community, it kinda sucks that the community doesn't have as much choice in where development goes. Oh, well. That's the thing, nobody will ever agree on any given direction. There is room for improvement everywhere. It would be cool if BYONDs benefactors could vote on development. | |
Lavenblade wrote:
Dubious Game Studios wrote: I believe that's the point of Lummox setting up a Patreon account, he just hasn't been able to do it yet. | |
Nadrew wrote:
Lavenblade wrote: I don't know where the lag is? I could set one up in a day. | |
Probably wants to be sure he does it right with a good set of benefits, as you should when dealing with money.
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Well I hope so. I hope you aren't telling us that three months from now as well because that excuse can be used no matter how long it takes. Just keep in mind how short human lives are.
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Nadrew wrote:
Lavenblade wrote: This would be really cool. There would have to be time for bug fixes and general improvements, but at least this way the community(Those who contribute) can vote in development in x, y, or z area within reason. There is so much room for improvement across the board. Lummox can't do it alone in a reasonable amount of time. He needs extra hands. | |
The problem with extra hands is that it would take these people so long to actually learn what's doing what that it would almost entirely defeat the purpose. Not to mention the work it would take just to get things organized in a way that would make that possible.
Then there's the issues of trust and reliability. Would be great if people could just dive in and help, but that's not really how things work. The best thing people can do for getting their changes made is fleshing out their suggestions as far as possible. With things like web stuff that includes providing concept designs and good, solid, methods of implementation, that way Lummox only really has to ponder on the technical side of things and not the design side of things. | |
Lavenblade wrote:
BYOND is funded by the community, it kinda sucks that the community doesn't have as much choice in where development goes. Oh, well. That's an unfair thing to say, because it's sort of like saying "a business is funded by its customers"... well, yeah, duh. Even if things were unfruitful with the webclient, my personal experience with Lummox was that he was willing to listen to what I had to say, and is open to taking requests from developers--and a lot of what we've seen in the updates have been things in high demand. The software has come a long way since Lummox took charge. I have no issues with the direction... I'm just providing criticism on the lack of documentation with the standalone & Steam stuff, in that nobody really knows anything about it until they learn via word of mouth. Which is bad because BYOND wants to be saying 'look at these games on Steam. You can do that too!' | |
Nadrew wrote:
The problem with extra hands is that it would take these people so long to actually learn what's doing what that it would almost entirely defeat the purpose. Not to mention the work it would take just to get things organized in a way that would make that possible. I've had a lot of my suggestions implemented because I extensively write them out in a way that makes sense to both the developer and the end user. Some of my feature requests have contained whole paragraphs that have been copied and pasted directly into the reference. I write feature requests with two audiences in mind: The developers, to whom I'm appraising what I believe to be the existing challenges and benefits to implementation, and the users, to whom I'm describing how I picture the thing I'm thinking about will work for them. Lum's a stand up 10/10 dude. Have faith, younglings. Smash that like button, subscribe, and hit up those donations. When the time is right, he'll choose his apprentice. And when the time is right, that apprentice will rise up and strike him down. | |
Writing A New One wrote:
Lavenblade wrote: BYOND has come a long ways since Lummox took over, I agree. However, the bottom line is the community is dying out, and BYOND has made no effort to work on branding, marketing, and presentation. Why is this important? This is important because Lummox will not work for free. BYOND is literally losing it's funding month by month and is on a decline. Severed Worlds moving off BYOND along with LOF just further proves my point. BYOND is not a stable platform for serious game development, and serious game developers is what BYOND needs to survive. Can we even pay to remove ads yet? The engine still doesn't offer a compile to exe option. The website shows minimal information and isn't selling itself. How many years has gone into the web client? How many people are actually using it? Sure, it could be a great leap forward if the performance was on par, but even then nobody is using it. BYOND. Is. Dying. Nothing is being done to correct this. When that fund-o-meter drops to a certain value, the time investment vs return will be too low to justify working on BYOND. The ship is sinking. Change is required unless Lummox is okay working for free as a hobby. Lummox promising some form of maintenance mode? Welp, that's basically the end considering the platform isn't stable. Wish this wasn't the case. =( | |
What I disliked with your posts was how you were blaming it on Lummox, as if he doesn't know what he's doing, by "refusing all help" and "not giving the community a choice where the development" goes. That's just not true. He's a capable guy that's working with what he has.
With that said, I don't disagree with a lot of what you're saying--this is a sinking ship because so much has changed in the past 15 years, with hundreds, maybe thousands of modern engines to compete with. Many of which offer a better work flow than DM and are just as easy to use. In my opinion, and I say this as someone with zero experience in this kind of thing so it's probably no worth much, would be for Lummox to work on a remake full-time. The exact same structure and syntax as BYOND so games can port over, but correcting a lot of the mistakes that were made & improvements on performance, deployment of games(a working webclient), etc. Maybe 1% of the community or less actually pay attention to the forums or the developer posts. If the engine goes into maintenance mode, the funds won't suddenly dry up. Most games don't even use BYOND's latest features. This is a long-term project that might take a few years to release, based on what we've seen with something like Vylocity, but it's honestly the only way to salvage the software and prevent a continued steady decline IMO. I don't know if this idea is feasible or not. The alternative is continuing to work with an engine that's fundamentally unappealing to the average developer, that's sluggish and outdated. The choice between a slow death or using the available resources to invest in a new project with great potential. | |