Welcome to the “Feedback Assist” thread for April 2024.
Here, authors seeking feedback, can set up posts that provide the particulars of their needs and readers seeking to provide feedback can set up posts that provide their interests and availability.
The format I’d like people to use for Author posts is the following (It is suggested to keep the header of each line item to avoid confusion) :
User Name (redundant but necessary)
Author Post
Name of Project/Game.
Genre and relevant tags that apply.
Time commitment (if running an alpha/beta run).
Feedback that you are seeking.
Link to the WiP thread, or other means of direct contact. Be sure to indicate if DMing is allowed.
The format I’d like people to use for Reader posts is the following (It is suggested to keep the header of each line item to avoid confusion):
User name (redundant but necessary)
Reader Post
Genres and tags that interest you as a reader. Things that would excite your interest in a WiP.
Hard passes. Things that would turn you off from a game (i.e., gender-locking)
Time commitment – Are you willing to participate in beta or alpha runs? Can the author follow up with you on feedback given, etc.
Specific qualifications that would help authors (such as being a screen reader)
Any contact info the author can use to connect to you. Be sure to indicate whether DMing is allowed or not.
Genres and tags: Will read any genre. Deep characters and romance is a big plus.
Hard passes: Gender-locked female.
Time commitment: Will do alpha and beta runs. Will do quick read-throughs and feedback. I’m more interested if author wants to have a dialogue about things, instead of me just providing one-way feedback.
Specific qualifications: Non-binary. Has taken part in both official and unofficial betas before. Happy to read even the most adult-themed games.
Preferred Genres and tags: Anything recent history, basically 1800s and forwards. Superhero stuff. Action stories. And most of the stuff that are modern day or recent history. Bonus points for Fantasy themes that have people who are isekaied into it. Be it MC. Or NPC like the bread must rise. It doesnt necessarily have to be those, but those are the ones I enjoy the most and replay alot.
Hard pass genres: Horror. I don’t like horror games or movies. They bore me.
Time commitement: I have a good deal of free time and I can be reached at pretty much any time that I am awake. I currently do not work and thus have a good deal of free time when I am not at University.
Specific qualifications: I still don’t particularly know what to put here. But I guess the most relevant “experience” I have is a good 7-8 years worth of Text RP experience and reading a vast majority of the COGs and HGs that are released. Particularly the longer ones.
Contact Information: DMs here are good. Although if for some reason you wish to contact me in a different manner to Forum DMs. My Discord is the same as my username.
Genres and tags: Preferably Sci-Fi or fantasy, but super hero things work too.
Hard passes: Sex scenes (either implied or graphic) that you can not opt out of. (Example: I beta read Congresswolf. There was an option to flirt with a character, and next thing you know my character was in bed with them without getting any option in the meantime to indicate if you want to go that far. (Or in that case, no options between the flirting and the implied sex at all.) High School (or College) settings. I tried Betaing for Community College Hero once. Only made it through one playthrough. It’s really not my thing.
Time commitment: I prefer beta testing because of my style of reviewing (a focus on low level (spelling, grammar, word use) and continuity issues). Putting together that level of feedback for a game in its beta stages will be a slow process, so count on a month or two for a single playthrough.
Specific qualifications: I’ve done proofreading for a couple of Choice of Games, Fallen Hero (only a little, mostly because of how huge the game is), and Unnatural (I have a cameo in the game. Isn’t that the coolest thing ever?) I’m demisexual and my partner is asexual, so if you want feedback on if your MC might be lusting after a character’s boobs too much despite the player being completely uninterested (looking at you, Samurai of Hyuga) I might be a good pick.
I feel like this thread quickly disappeared under more active threads.
Also, I gotta ask the other people who have listed themselves as readers in this or prior threads:
Am I just exceptionally bad at selling myself somehow, or have the rest of you also not received any feedback requests?
Seeing threads and posts that lament lack of feedback and then seeing no response here by authors makes me wonder where the disconnect actually is with some.
Yeah it is strange I am willing to read games when needed, but since I do not always have time to give real feedback I did not post as a reader but I stopped by to see If an author needed Help, but to see that even the readers did not get much requests is strange
I posted on two of the previous months and received one request. (I did like the WIP so no complaints there). Could be a little hit-or-miss I guess. I don’t think anyone here is bad at selling themselves.
I had also used this thread to reach out to one reader for feedback on my copyedited game. (If that reader wishes to reveal their identity, by all means )
I could advertise Scarlet Sorceress here now, but I’m not in a rush to get feedback for that since I’m leaving it on the backburner for another month while I wrap up my higher-priority project. Or maybe I should?
If you do not overcome and adapt to the realities, by fighting through the anxieties of having something in the public, then you must figure out ways that work for you.
WiP threads are not organic, are not “natural” and are not used elsewhere … developer diaries and discussion forums are, but the WiP thread is not the norm.
This is an attempt to bring successful practices from elsewhere to here.
It is my hope, that if I continue to nurture this, it will grow.
You have my support. But I really disagree with you on this.
And I wouldn’t put myself to being forced to sign in a thread like this. It also don’t think would be healty and productive really make people participating in something they don’t want and makes them feel bad and anxious
I don’t think she’s trying to say that anyone should be forced to participate in this thread. She’s saying it’s a resource that everyone would benefit from using willingly.
I don’t know if I think everyone should post here. More, if an author feels that they aren’t getting enough feedback and eyeballs on their WIP, then it’s a good option for making sure it doesn’t get overlooked.
But if someone complains that their WIP (or WIPs in general) don’t get enough attention, and they haven’t posted their WIP here, and haven’t messaged the people who literally volunteer the read WIPs, then such complaints ring a bit hollow, and might start seeming somewhat entitled.
We can agree on disagree with that. But I don’t consider entitled not want participate on this. Reaching a person directly with your wip it is a very different action that put a open beta.
It is a very different put a link passively that go and send private messages to individuals you don’t now about.
I think is a powerful tool for people that is prepared for it or is in a stage near publication.
But for some and people like me It won’t be useful and we should not be called entitled because a tool is not useful for us.
The entitlement isn’t in not using the tool, but in complaining about not getting attention, when they haven’t even tried using the offered tool.
Then it becomes something like “I am entitled to have people notice and provide feedback for my game, without doing more than the bare minimum work myself to have that happen”, if that makes sense?
I am also really anxious about posting my work (makes sense, considering I have generalized anxiety), so I don’t think I would feel comfortable posting an author post here for any of it, nor would I probably DM any of the readers.
But then, if I didn’t get much traffic on my WIP thread, that would be on me, and I wouldn’t complain about it in other threads in the forum.
Let us remember not to focus on the poster, but rather the post instead.
My post here:
was a bit hyperbolic, but the fact that available tools exist that are not being used and yet, some desire to passively sit on their hands and expect certain outcomes is what prompts this.
Sometimes, it takes rethinking an approach to something (in this case, feedback) and doing things outside your comfort zone.
No it is not entitled If someone does not want to use this resource .
But it somehow get’s entitled when you whine about no feedback, when you do not actively search for feedback. I get being afraid to openly post Here, in a WIP Post or else, but you can not expect from other people something you are not comfortable enough to do yourself. It of cause Not the same entitlement that some customer shows, but it is entitled.
)
Or maybe I should? 