As I'm a newbie here, wanted to ask the forum postion on rags demos. I see that several games have been posted here with various opinions on their completeness. I find it hard to test my own games so it's helpful to have player impressions. But I find that the more content I've placed in the game, the harder it is to include player suggestions. WHile playing a completed game is great from a player standpoint, isn't it a good thing to be able to make suggestions that could actually be implemented in the game?

Just wanted to know what the stance on demos is before deciding if posting my own works here is a good fit. Thanks.

Hi Lydia,
I think there's no problem at all downloading a RAGS game here if perhaps it's clearly indicted being a beta test. I'm not speaking for everyone here obviously so feedback from the administrators would be appreciated.... :-)
If you do decide to download a beta version, you're really going have to state explicitly what you're looking for in terms of feedback. For example, are you looking for feedback on story consistency? For example, what happens in chapter five makes sense and ties together with the previous chapters? Are you looking for game bug testing? Maybe your looking for sentence/spell checking/grammar? If you don't specify what you're looking for I think the beta test will run in all directions..... Any other thoughts out there?

Greetings Lydia!

Welcome to the lagoon... and be careful with all the sharks swimming around!

What I am going to say is just my personal opinion (perhaps shared by other members), part of it I have already stated a couple of times in this forum.

If you're Lydia02 from Hypnopics (I think you are), I've played your two sim dates and must say "chapeau!" to one of the best storytellers I've found in (A)IF! You're really great when writing is concerned!

Furthermore you know how to play with eroticism without being pornographic!

Now the other parts:

1st- A game shouldn't be released to the public before it is finished. You - the author - can always make a sequel to it, if the players are able to convince you to do so.

2nd- A game shouldn't be released to the public without a previous thorough beta-test by a small group chosen by you as its author.

Doing otherwise leads to producing mediocre games - no matter what eventual polls can show - and sooner or later to a lack of interest from the real players. Here I am not talking about (unfortunately) a lot of people who ask for a walkthrough one or two days after the games are published.

Besides, this behaviour also strongly concurred to a lack of interest - almost rejection - of the RAGS engine within the great AIF community.

This said, if and when you need a beta-tester (I play with the engine since its version 0.4.2) provided I'm not too busy at the moment - currently I'm working in a team project (RAGS) - just give me a shout and I'll be only too pleased for giving you a hand.

Cheers!

Thanks for the welcome and replies. I thought at first I had already been too much of a newbie as I couldn't find this thread. It appears rags is starting to having a bit of a presence here.

Thanks for the input Yamato. I try to make it clear when I post updates that the game is in such & such status of a demo. But as you suggested, I need to keep reminding myself that players can't read my mind to know what feedback I might be looking for.

Thanks Trucla for the compliments. Guess there aren't too many lydia's so my user name was a bit of a give away. The University SIm games are mine. I've also posted an early demo of a haunted house game called dartmoth manor. I'm not sure of the best way to go about the whole create/share a game process. I shared an early demo of my first game to see what players thought before taking the gaming plunge. Then didn't post an update again until the game was largely completed. Players absolutely hated the time system and fixing it was a major piece of work that late in the process. I've also asked for beta testers as you suggest and this upset certain players as well.

I've found at hypnopics, that posting a few updates seems to work best for me. I believe that in doing so, I am able to create better games. I hope that yourself and other players find my little games enjoyable. I'd like to think I've managed to avoid falling into the "mediocre" pile so far.

But this is a different place and you have your own set of rules here. As visitor, I'm trying to avoid missteps, so I made this thread to get some input. I continue to try to be open to suggestions and maybe beta testers is the way to go here. I'm interested in hearing what players have to say on the subject.

Thanks again.

you're popping up everywhere Lydia. Someone just told me about this place. I love seeing other people's take on RAGS games. This seems like a perfect place for dating sims!

-Tina B

cool to see a dedicated site for rag games

If I understand the lagoon layout, this is the beta test area. There is a thread below of people who are willing to beta test. But I think it is understood that any game posted in this section is still under development, so post away

styler wrote : If I understand the lagoon layout, this is the beta test area. There is a thread below of people who are willing to beta test. But I think it is understood that any game posted in this section is still under development, so post away

If you look carefully, there is a group named "Games Creators" with two sections: "RAGS games" and "Projects". As far as I understand this organization you're right for the Section "Projects", not for RAGS games. Otherwise instead of "RAGS games" it should have been named "RAGS projects".

Cheers!

tinab wrote : you're popping up everywhere Lydia. Someone just told me about this place. I love seeing other people's take on RAGS games. This seems like a perfect place for dating sims!

-Tina B

I don't know about everywhere. Just trying to find a good a forum that's a good fit for my style of games.

Shark, what are your thoughts? is rags for beta since it is under game creator or is not intended for rags in progress? I was assuming finished rags would reside under sexy games with all the others.

I would be inclined to agree with Trucla's interpretation of the intentions of the forum setup. Demos would be posted to the project section and completed games to be posted to the rags games section. But I'm sure there will be a clarification on this in response to your query.

I totally agree with you lydia and trucla. I think shark has opened this forum because in the last few weeks/monthe there were even more questions about RAGS-Games, so he desided that it wiould be right to open a special forum for it.
On the other hand it will be much easier for rags-fans to find new or perhaps old rags-games here.

Trucla

As my reply to your nasty bit of a pm has vanished and you seem to enjoy taking shots at other game creators in the forum, maybe it's better that I address the issues here.

You've been quite clear that you don't care for demo games that creators post. So why do you insist on continuing to play them? Plus you say that mc & transforming games turn your stomach, but you continue to play games that the central site theme is mc or transformation. Then pass judgement on the games as if they were completed works. That anything that isn't completed or has mc/transforming is garbage. All of this some kind of crusade you nominated yourself in as protector of the rags game engine.

If you truely want to help a game creator make a better game, offer constructive criticism. Calling my demo games garbage outside of the writing because they aren't complete games isn't helpful. I clearly label my games when they are demos so it's not some big surprise to a player that they aren't playing a full game. Your current methods only discourage people from creating games. They are making these games for free in their spare time. They deserve a much better reception than you greet them with. Tell people for the 1000th time that you like completed games and no mc/transforming if you must, but leaving the grading comments to yourself. Or perhaps you'd care to bring some of your own games around for players to grade your efforts. I for one look forward to you answering my challenge. What do you have to offer if you are so high and mighty in judgement of mine and other creators works? Or as I suspect, you've got nothing.

lydia wrote : Trucla

As my reply to your nasty bit of a pm has vanished and you seem to enjoy taking shots at other game creators in the forum, maybe it's better that I address the issues here.

You've been quite clear that you don't care for demo games that creators post. So why do you insist on continuing to play them? Plus you say that mc & transforming games turn your stomach, but you continue to play games that the central site theme is mc or transformation. Then pass judgement on the games as if they were completed works. That anything that isn't completed or has mc/transforming is garbage. All of this some kind of crusade you nominated yourself in as protector of the rags game engine.

If you truely want to help a game creator make a better game, offer constructive criticism. Calling my demo games garbage outside of the writing because they aren't complete games isn't helpful. I clearly label my games when they are demos so it's not some big surprise to a player that they aren't playing a full game. Your current methods only discourage people from creating games. They are making these games for free in their spare time. They deserve a much better reception than you greet them with. Tell people for the 1000th time that you like completed games and no mc/transforming if you must, but leaving the grading comments to yourself. Or perhaps you'd care to bring some of your own games around for players to grade your efforts. I for one look forward to you answering my challenge. What do you have to offer if you are so high and mighty in judgement of mine and other creators works? Or as I suspect, you've got nothing.

Just one comment: You are a great writer but a really bad reader and rather impolite!

Lydia: Please ignore the adverse comments from those dissatisfied people. You have my support whatever they say.