discussion Played the game, and you already know its going to fail.

[Spangles]

Nothing kills my interest in a ongoing development of a game than seeing multiple choice paths but only 1 is finished/selectable. With the sea of abandonment projects, how can you tell if a game will be successful or not?

 

[chenzhou]

Yup. I get a short "proof of concept" game, but at least have the branches thought out and rendered. Certain parody games are on my "do not download" list because their proof of concept was literally "rip off the show's characters and have a shitty movement system" and no lewds.

 

[gestved]

bad models, or bad rendered scenes, like grainy, bad lightning, bad expressions

to be fair you wouldn't even play those.

 

[dreski]

Nothing kills my interest in a ongoing development of a game than seeing multiple choice paths but only 1 is finished/selectable. With the sea of abandonment projects, how can you tell if a game will be successful or not?

Definitely if the renders are bad but usually if the story follows the same exact story you see in like 70% of VNs, male MC with female in his life going through something they move in together.. etc pretty tiring honestly

 

[AlBetGam]

If I can tell right off the bat that the dev has a clear plan and process, intends to stick to it, and either has experience or is determined to gain it, there's a decent chance that game is going somewhere. The less of that is true, the more likely the game will be abandoned in a few updates, no matter how nice .01 looks.

 

[Loliholic]

how can you tell if a game will be successful or not?

By waiting for the completed tag.
Many good games died because devs lost interest or data, earned enough to give a fuck about their sponsors, drowned in real life problems or went to jail or graveyards.
If even the good ones die, how should one predict the medicore, common or bad ones?

 

[User_48178]

Extremely ambitious promises in the overview or dev notes. There's no way a single person developing a game for fun is going to produce something with hundreds of characters or never before seen mechanics. Those kinds of promises just scream "I'm doing this for money and scamming everyone dumb enough to fall for the hype."

 

[kikswit]

The worst is when a dev is reusing the same old tired models as everyone else, and not even doing anything new or interesting with them. Just grainy, blurry, worse versions of what other people have already done.

 

[punnknight]

or when a dev is trying to force kinks and fetches that clash causing confusion of who the game is really meant for

 

[Smrdgy]

You can't really be sure of anything. There are some absolutely appalling games that are still being developed and some absolutely awesome ones that were abandoned.
With that being said I do notice some red flags like:

• The author starts to "experiment" with game mechanics, it usually means they have no idea what to do next and are stalling for time.
• Suddenly the game needs a remaster before being done.
  • Now this might be justifiable if the dev started creating the game on some shitty laptop that couldn't do proper renders, but in most cases it just means the game will get milked for some time, then abandoned when the patrons jump ship.

 

[ripportier]

You can't really be sure of anything. There are some absolutely appalling games that are still being developed and some absolutely awesome ones that were abandoned.
With that being said I do notice some red flags like:

• The author starts to "experiment" with game mechanics, it usually means they have no idea what to do next and are stalling for time.
• Suddenly the game needs a remaster before being done.
  • Now this might be justifiable if the dev started creating the game on some shitty laptop that couldn't do proper renders, but in most cases it just means the game will get milked for some time, then abandoned when the patrons jump ship.

About the remaster thing - we see this far too often

 

[gikin113]

You can't really be sure of anything. There are some absolutely appalling games that are still being developed and some absolutely awesome ones that were abandoned.
With that being said I do notice some red flags like:

• The author starts to "experiment" with game mechanics, it usually means they have no idea what to do next and are stalling for time.
• Suddenly the game needs a remaster before being done.
  • Now this might be justifiable if the dev started creating the game on some shitty laptop that couldn't do proper renders, but in most cases it just means the game will get milked for some time, then abandoned when the patrons jump ship.

From what I've seen people talk about the topic, no one likes remasters of games still in development.
You would think devs know this.

In my opinion remasters should only be done after the game is done.
I could accept remastering during development if the normal updates keep coming out, only at a slightly reduced pace.

If the game is good and shows that it develops at a steady pace, people will keep up with it.

 

[WigglyWorld84]

Over ambitiousness is a huge red flag to me. Its in the same vein as what youre saying. Another example is too many characters from the start.

People need to start small and go from there.

 

[fker]

bad models, or bad rendered scenes, like grainy, bad lightning, bad expressions

to be fair you wouldn't even play those.

Totally agree with that. Some of then looks like unintended horror movies more than a game.

 

[vaelenor]

a start where nothing happens. Where it’s just a slow burn for the next 5 updates. Kills my interest fast

 

[thegroan]

In case of HS games, if the preview images/videos use the exact same animations and even same assets than the Honey Select 2 game (sometimes even the same ring-shaped dildo machine). For me indicates a copy/paste hack job and insta-kills my interest.

 

[perikolui]

I like long games with a lot of plot and a lot of development, I don't complain about this

 

[Crpapjda]

Aside from clearly lazy attempts of games, as soon as the plot get to convoluted, I already know its going to crash. They get to ambitious, and tangle themselves

Used to think that grindy games were doomed, but those get actually finished... maybe because they dont need to put actual content in the games

 

[Mr.Nobody]

Nothing kills my interest in a ongoing development of a game than seeing multiple choice paths but only 1 is finished/selectable. With the sea of abandonment projects, how can you tell if a game will be successful or not?

A great way to tell is if they focus on hype without any signs of actual progress

 

[User_111574]

I believe that if a game suddenly started being reworked from scratch, it's doomed.