itch.io

I love this game! Good job!

Categorizing projects based on worth, is censorship.

I said categorize projects on what they are. How is that censorship?

If you can think of some clear and concrete standards to support your suggestion, though, I would be interested in hearing them.

The goal would be to separate content in a better way. Make a Meme game? Post it in the meme/joke section. Your first unity rolla-ball tutorial project? Post it in a showoff section. You want to make the thousandth among us clone with no twist or unique take? Don't post it in the new multiplayer games. Post it in your personal projects or show off section. You actually made a quality original game? Go ahead and post it in the category that describes your game the most and enjoy being in the fresh new games with other quality original games. That's what I mean by curating.

Does it have to be on par with Shovel Knight, or is an ugly platformer with one level and no music OK?

The ugly plat-former with no sound should be in your personal projects or a showoff section. Not with shovel knight or with other polished games. (By other polished games, I don't mean only well known ones)

My point is, prototypes should be with prototypes, fully polished games should be with fully polished games, memes should be with memes, low quality or beginner projects should be with beginner projects. Is that any clearer?

If I make a meme game , this game should not be tagged with anything other than meme. It shouldn't be with polished action games or polished multiplayer games or serious game prototypes.

So you want Itch.io to become just another Steam.

No.

That's not my point at all. All I'm saying is that troll projects, memes, low effort rip-offs should be in their own categories. Games that use Intellectual Property that they do not own either in-game or in their title as click-bait shouldn't be tolerated as well.

Neat Concept! Very cute art style.

I like the idea of learning languages by exploring.

I did find the Trees blocking the way kind of annoying since the movement speed is kind of slow. I had trouble speaking to the crow in the tree, and the crows in the lake.

Ideas:

Maybe add a progression indicator? Ex: You learned 78% of the crow language.

Make the racoon speak? If the raccoon is looking for it's child, make him ask the crows. (Maybe not every time but per area).

Make objectives unveil themselves as you learn languages:  Ex: a crow tells you to tell the bear blocking the way to wake up. This tells you to learn the bear language to progress to the next area. It makes the next objective unveil itself by using your main mechanic!

(These are just ideas. Doesn't mean they fit with your game.)

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Good job! I'll keep an eye on the project!

Maybe Tag exclusion would help for experienced users. I still think separate sections for games based on what they really are would help. Strict moderation would also help. 

If some anonymous curator took something I had worked hard on and threw it in the trash pile where no one will ever see it, I would be pissed.

That's my whole point. You said "worked hard on". My point is some of the stuff posted on here are literally someone posting a YouTube tutorial they followed for an hour. Sometimes it's only PONG or another classic well known game they do not own, sometimes it's not even a game ffs. Some people use Intellectual Property they don't own and post it on here. Some people completely rip-off an existing game and post it on here. This pushes quality content downwards in the fresh sections and reduces their visibility. 

I sure did. Is using IP you do not own against your rules too?

My point here was to give feedback. Users posting a link to download and install a Game Client of a game they do not own is shit-posting. Ex: Someone posted the Overwatch installer. The post was on the popular games page. It doesn't belong there. It takes up space and makes actual quality content less visible.

Hi,

My name is Mathieu and I have been using Itch for a little more than two weeks now and I have some thoughts on the platform that I would like to share. First, I think It is a great way to share indie games online. Games have great visibility and creators receive valuable feedback. A lot of quality games are highlighted and shown on the front page.  There is no other place like it. Unfortunately, I do think there is a problem with how games are shown on the platform.

I have tried quite a lot of different games in the past week. I picked games from the popular pages, popular tags and recently added ones. Some of them were quality games, games that you can clearly see that a certain level of effort was put into them. There were also other games which were memes, total rip-offs, jokes, and shit-posting. Now, maybe these games also belong on the platform, but they should be separated from the quality content. (By quality, I do not mean games that I think are fun. I mean QUALITY) I understand that a lot of quality titles never get the attention they deserve because of bad presentation or low effort publishing, but after digging deeper I think some delightful titles are simply unseen because they are hidden below tons and tons of low effort ones. Now this is always going to happen, games will be ignored, but I really think changing the way games are displayed on the platform would benefit serious hard-working developers. Adding memes, shameless clones and shit-posting to their own categories would give some hard-working developers a chance to get valuable feedback on their projects or even get revenue. It would also cleanup the top, recent or the popular pages from poorly made ''Games".

I get that separating quality content from the low effort “games” might not be a viable solution or might not be a solution at all. I do not know how your business runs. Therefore, I think that implementing strict moderation would improve the clutter situation on the platform. I really think that the platform could be a lot better by focusing on original quality content and ditching the anyone can post anything they want however they want approach. Is allowing users to post pong for the thousandth time good for the platform? Is allowing shameless clones of big games like Fall Guys or allowing users to use Sponge Bob, Star Wars, or other established IP's any good? Is that what Itch is about? Cause maybe I do not get it. If I am wrong, please let me know.

I wish you a very pleasant evening,

Mat

Thank you for playing!