itch.io

Welcome in!

Strong narrative and creative puzzles? We have those! :D

https://krunchyfriedgames.itch.io/five-day-detective

Just checked and the downloads are working fine on my laptop (Windows 10). What device/ operating system are you using for this? I've noticed you've made this comment on other games too.

Woo- thanks!

Cheers- that really helps us!

Thanks :) Good luck with part 2!

Good topic! First game: Witches and Bandits and Swords (Oh My)- 2017. It was developed from a choose-your-own-adventure ebook I wrote for Kindle:

Latest Game: Five Day Detective, a point a click adventure. Kept the same core team of Coder Mike and I, but have now commissioned artists and translators.

Alas, I have no smartphone!

This looks like it could be very cool but after the first dialogue scene, the game got stuck on a loading screen for me.

Esto parece que podría ser muy bueno, pero después de la primera escena de diálogo, el juego se quedó atascado en una pantalla de carga para mí.

Puedo hablar español usando DeepL translation- ¿es eso lo suficientemente cerca? XD

Saludos desde Inglaterra de todos modos. Me alegro de ver a alguien de Cuba aquí.

Thanks for playing!

I really enjoyed playing- it looks fantastic and controls really well, so great work!

A few things that could do with improving:

First time round, I fell off the map and kept falling. It would be good to have the escape button as a way to return to the menu.

My controller didn't work (it's a Logitech which counts as an Xbox controller),

Would be good if I could reduce the graphics settings (apologies if you can and I just missed this).

If the game is played on keys or controller, I think you should be able to navigate the menu this way too (and if you release the game on Steam, this is something they're quite strict about).

This is obviously a very ambitious game, so I definitely appreciate all effort, but maybe needs some polish and playtesting :)

Would be happy for any feedback on our point and click style adventure, Five Day Detective :)

Available for download and browser.

Thanks for your video- enjoyed that. Good to see your technique developing!

It's an interesting idea. I think it works with Rented Nightmare because it kind of complements the atmosphere without being all about the streamer, but it might depend on the game.

If you fancy trying it with our new adventure Five Day Detective, I won't complain XD

Well, you're a lot richer than us! And that's a lot of colours too. We don't get nearly so many different referral sites.

So, two years have passed- not quite a weekly update, but nm.

And we've just released a fourth game- a point and click style adventure called Five Day Detective. Go play it, it's good XD
Anyway, our stats are now:

Views 103k

Downloads 10.1k

Browser Plays: 22.4k

Revenue $23.99 (we can afford an extra coffee to share since last time!)

Also, we're on 299 followers so... once again, who wants to be 300???

Thanks for playing! And that's quite an incredible British accent ;) Congrats on solving the puzzles too- good perseverance. Also, we still have 'cowboy coffee' over here. I haven't heard that phrase before, but I'm definitely going to start using it!

She now has a point and click adventure podcast.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/save-your-game/id1729089915

Thanks! Enjoyed your commentary, and how you avoided the British word for 'cigarette' ;) Soup Con is the place to be!

Thanks for playing!

Thanks for your comments- glad you had fun!

We have actually given in to popular demand and added hotspots to the next build of the game. This will be uploaded soon (we've also fixed the Wrong Un bug).

We haven't given in to demand with the puzzles yet, though! I think these are hard but fair ;)

I'll keep you posted on the full version. This could be some time off but we do have the main coding elements and most of the story done now.

Hi Vaken, good to see you back! Hope you enjoy it :)

Thanks, we were so lucky to get our artist!

This is a new demo that we haven't got round to publicising yet. Hope you enjoy our 'walk and click' adventure!

https://krunchyfriedgames.itch.io/five-day-detective

An immediate issue for me is your game's thumbnail. This stuff's very important for promotion because it's the first thing many people will see of your game. Your screenshots look pretty good, but the thumbnail looks like a rushed afterthought and people may be put off clicking onto your gamepage because of it.

I'd definitely suggest redoing it. If you need inspiration, look at the thumbnails of similar games that you like. See what they're doing well, what appeals to you, and how you can apply this to yours :)

We're planning to do both of these but... not til next year. Sadly I can't give you future stats XD

I'd say it's not a bad thing to put out a paid game on itch, because you don't lose anything other than potential views of people who'd only play for free. And having a demo on your page fixes that problem altogether.

However, if a dev doesn't think they'll get their $100 back from Steam, I'd be surprised if their game would sell more than a few copies here either. Exceptions might be very niche games with a small but dedicated audience (some visual novels, or asset packs maybe).

I've just realised @hechelion and I have both read your question in an entirely different way, so I apologise if this answer isn't what you wanted!

Thanks for your comment! We're umming and arring a bit about the prompts/ hotspots. The worry is, it might make it too easy if we show every interactable object, but this is certainly something we'll think about for the full game.

Heh, the game wasn't intended to be heavily British- maybe that's just how it came out XD

We wanted to go with keyboard/ controller character movement for this one from the start. Sure, some people will prefer using a mouse and cursor, but this is the road we've gone down, and there's no turning back now.

So, essentially, you've got a band together but don't know what sort of music to play.

You've also got issues with income but video games are unlikely to make money in the short term so, I'll just concentrate on the first issue.

First of all, you need a project you're all passionate about and think is worthwhile to ensure everyone has motivation. Maintaining a four-person team over the long term is very difficult, and you must be prepared for people to drop off, whatever you do.

It feels like you have good communication on your team, so that's an excellent start. You just need the much maligned 'ideas guy'. Maybe schedule a meeting on Zoom, or Discord, or however you do things, for a week's time, and ask people to write down ideas for that meeting (no matter how vague). These could be ideas in terms of theme/ genre/ story/ tone/ mechanics/ existing games to draw inspiration from/ art/ whatever. In the meeting, you could go through these and see what makes people enthusiastic.

Coincidentally, a lot of people have been writing on this forum lately struggling with ideas, and I wrote a thread here to try and help. Hopefully you'll find this useful. 

Wish you luck :)

Edit: At some point, you're also going to need a leader. Once all the ideas are on table, someone's got to be moving things forward. It might be that this is you.

Further Edit(!): As @Magicsofa says, do not worry at all about being nearly 30- that's a great age to start out!

Spitballing is good! Think I'm gonna take tonight off, and coder Mike and I can talk it over for the main demo build and see what we come up with. It might be that this would just be less frustrating if the character's movement was changed to come to a dead stop before the walk cycle was over. There'd be a trade off with the animation quality though. There always seems to be a trade off!

Thanks for your comments! Yeah, we'll certainly have a look at the movement. The 'interact' is a bit tricky. Part of the reason for having a controllable character was to try and avoid the pixel hunting you get in a lot of traditional point and clicks. Obviously stopping everywhere is similar but making it obvious what's interactable on a screen might make things too easy. We'll have to have a think about this, and your other comments. Glad you liked it :)

Hi All,

FIVE DAY DETECTIVE ALPHA

We have the first build of our upcoming game out, and would be grateful if anyone would like to check it out: see if there any bugs and tell us what you like and dislike about it.

The translations haven't been finalised yet and we'll put out a more polished demo in a couple of weeks based on feedback.

This has taken three years so far, and the full game is expected in 2025.

Cheers,

Dom

Co-operacats?

Kitty Conspiracy?

Since a young age of my life, everything go downfall. Right now, when I think it logically, I shouldn't be alive right now.  Maybe I will not longer be alive tomorrow or soon. I also want to live, I think living is beautiful.

First of all, that's a great sentiment to share, and I hope everything works out for you. It also points out something that I didn't which is how you want your players to feel. It might be that you can draw creativity from wanting to inspire your audience, or pass on a positive (or unique) world view to help people with their own challenges.

In both points I was talking about preferences, nobody is obligated to do x in a x way or something.  Just talking on what I want to do.

Absolutely, this is all just take-it-or-leave-it advice. We're not pointing a gun at anyone XD

There have been a few ‘I need ideas’ style topics lately, so I thought we should have a thread to share where we get our ideas from, and give any advice that might be helpful.

Here are mine: 

What game do you want to Play?

This should be your first question as, if the game doesn’t appeal to you, then what’s the point. I’ve seen horror stories on the itchio forum of people spending a year on a game and then deciding they’re not that bothered about it.  

What can you do that no-one else can?

Think about your own abilities and interests in and out of games. If you’re a ventriloquist rapper who’s into Pokemon, consider a game where you train talking dummies to rap battle against each other. If you’re an artist who works at McDonalds and hates one particular customer, how about a murder mystery game about a poisoned French fry set in an oil painted fast food restaurant?

Don’t put up walls or be afraid that your game doesn’t fit in- one of the best things about indie games is that they’re unique and often very personal.  

Play Bad Games

A good idea is to often play bad games, or just random stuff. This could well inspire you to think ‘Could I do this?’ or, preferably, ‘what could I do better?’  

Combine Elements from other Games

This might sound theft but- If you take elements from, say, three games and combine them- you’ve got a whole new game. Fortnite is basically just PUBG with Overwatch style graphics and tone, and that did alright.  

What If?

Similar to the above, but think about stuff in your day to day life, or things you see on TV or wherever and whether you could make anything of this. I had a job transporting medical casenotes round a hospital  and think a cool game would be ‘Casenote Chaos’- a parkour game where you have to navigate a hospital to save people’s lives, having to avoid obstacles like people throwing up, and patients speeding past in wheelchairs and hospital beds.

Sadly, this game remains beyond our technical abilities XD  

Collaborate

Game development can be loosely split between technical people and creative people. Creative people are good at coming up with ideas, technical people are good at implementing them. This is how Krunchy Fried Games works- there are only two of us, but we have both wickets covered. I was going to say ‘bases’, but there are more than two bases in baseball..

Aaaaanyway, finding people in game jams or on the itchio Help Wanted forum to bounce ideas off is a good way to spark creativity.   

Write Stuff Down

Keep a notebook on you at all times and write things down when inspiration strikes, or get some pens and highlighters and make a mindmap: write some headers anywhere on a page, and write down ideas stemming from these as they occur to you.

Good headers to start with include:

Theme,

Tone,

Graphics,

Music,

Mood,

Genre,

Characters,

Plot,

Story,

Goal,

Enemies,

Dangers,

Power Ups,

Clothes, 

Sound Effects   

Just clearing your mind and sitting down in a distraction free environment- or with music on- can be very helpful.   

Anyway, those are my tips. If anyone else has any, please share!

From my experience, you're best off contacting people directly. Try not to spam email but find streamers and indie-friendly Youtubers who enjoy similar games to yours. 

I'm going for a pint with Coder Mike today and will mention it to him then. I do have reservations about adding third party plugins in Unity though, so can't promise anything. 

Hi, would love to, but quality voice acting is currently beyond our capabilities (mainly for cost reasons). There are cheaper alternatives but these just sound awful.

Got to admit, I had no idea there were books on itchio until you pointed it out but, yeah, 9,310 of them in that section.

I suppose it just depends on whether you think maybe a couple of hours of your time to upload the pdf/ mobi/ thumbnail (or whatever) is worth it- and you've done most of this already.

As someone who's done both, I find promoting books even harder than video games, so I'd say it's worth doing anything you can- even if itchio is unlikely to be anyone's first choice as a book website.

It looks quite nicely presented and appealling. It might just be that very few people are seeing it in the first place. You might need to do publicity elsewhere- like the social media stuff that everyone hates. A browser build might help you get more plays. If you do this, consider releasing on Newgrounds too.