It’s hard to avoid doing it, but I do recommend trying not to look at reviews so soon after release. A couple of times at launch, I’ve blocked the play store and steam pages on my phone because I knew I’d end up staring at them obsessively and it just results in stress. After a few weeks, I felt happier about taking a look, and could do so in a more relaxed way when I had more distance and less anxiety.
@Eiwynn has said some eloquent things about reviews over the years. I remember this post from several years ago sticking with me (though I don’t know if Eiwynn’s opinion is the same these days!)
I think taking a bit of time to collate feedback which you can use for the second instalment is very smart.
Oh I am not the type to be a chicken. I love trying new things, I just need to find the time to get around to do it. If I managed Twine, Adventuron and Ink, I’m sure I’ll manage CScript… eventually
Agreed. Also, sometimes it can be hard to tell if a review has actionable feedback, or if they’re simply not your reader. Either way, distance and time tends to ease the sting of other people’s opinions, in my experience.
In other news, I’ve been struggling to find writing time lately. The good news is I’ve been focusing on family, homeschooling, house stuff, and lots of time with my dog. Hopefully I can get some words down this weekend.
May Goals:
Finish Chapter 7
Maybe start Chapter 8
The last few chapters of a game take much more mental energy, so it can be hard to push forward and clock as much progress as I’d like in each session. At this point, I’m just happy if I make any forward progress. Some days I do, some days I don’t. One way or another, I’ll get it done.
Well, it seems I wasted my Wordsmithing Day being busy with other stuff (being woken up by someone drilling in a neighboring apartment didn’t help, let me tell you) and I’m too sleepy now, but I am also currently wondering how much I want to go for the horror in my post-apocalyptic setting.
Well, think of it this way. Two people left reviews and probably hundreds/thousands played it and didn’t leave reviews. Negative feedback is usually painful, but two is not a significant sample size. Might still be good to put a hold on writing if you aren’t feeling it. Give it a few days; you earned a break.
So, my five games on Steam have a total of 28 reviews, very mixed, despite selling about 3,500 copies there. Steam players are hard to please, and hard to get to leave reviews anyways
There was only one review in English, and the actionable feedback in it is feedback I have seen you receive in posts and interaction with the forum community before, so I believe Harris’s summation
is the smartest play here, Vance.
.
Yes, I still believe that store front reviews are the double edged “sword of Damocles” that hangs over every creator who launches a game in any and all of the modern marketplaces.
I can talk more about why I call these reviews the sword of Damocles for creators in the future (if people want to continue the discussion thread) but …
I still feel what I posted in the linked post applies: it is a lot of hard work to build your personal feedback loop over time, but if you persist and hustle it will pay-off big time for you.
@HarrisPS is one of those authors who work their ass off day-in and day-out to build their feedback systems and you can not go wrong by emulating them.
They are not alone in our community and all of us can look at the efforts of those that work hard everyday to connect with their audiences.
@JimD, for example, suffered a major set-back when another publisher of his games went under. What he has done since that time is nothing but inspirational!
I still believe building as many different sources of feedback as you can (each of us have different abilities and tolerrances) is key to any feedback loop, but I would caution about isolating yourself to those vehicles (such as Tumblr and Patreon) where you control everything.
Please excuse the double post, but I felt this post did not belong as part of the other post.
Storefront reviews are often anything but “honest” … nor are they always relevant.
@Samuel_H_Young has a legitimate counter to many of his Nascent Necromancer reviews when he says they ignore the relevance of the “nascent qualities” of the game.
With that said, even Sam would agree with me (I think, he can correct me if I am wrong here) that there is still something he can take from the reviews he receives.
Some of my reviews on Necromancer, while brutal, definitely have some good points about the writing style and linearity. However those bad reviews usually also contain the angry parts about the description and title being misleading (They’re not ) which I think increases how much they’re upset by the real issues.
I’m still making a decision about my writing, but I definitely think it’ll be a good idea to block steam and google play from my phone and computer for now. I just realized that I had been checking it every minute ever since I first went to take a look, and it’s been damaging my mental health.
It’ll probably be good to take a break from writing first (or disconnect from the internet and write) and think about my next move later. There’re still some notes from the Spring Thing reviews which I’ve put together for the next game. There’ll be more to put together once I give my head a break.
I think you should think of it this way. People rarely take the time out of their day to actually review any of the games they play. I for instance have never actual given a review for any of the books I’ve read. Mostly because I’m either neutral or don’t really know or have the time to look to where I can review it.
Issue is that… You’ll really only receive reviews in one of two cases.
Someone didn’t like something enough to post a review about it to let their dislike be known.
Or.
Someone loved it so much they just had to gush over it in the reviews.
That’s kind of simply because if you had an okay time. Or enjoyed it but it wasn’t particularly a citizen kane moment, you probably will put it aside after finishing and move on. This is not to forget that it is much much more likely for people to note their displeasure than pleasure. It’s just a fact of life. So don’t be so disheartened if the first few reviews are negative. That’s simply the most common denominator for reviews this early.
I mean. I absolutely adored the last of us 2, frankly changed my perception on a lot of things. It is my GOTD. And I still didn’t leave review of it anywhere.
Good luck! I’d recommend, if a review made you upset, waiting until you calm down and can look at it objectively, instead of making any rash decisions about your writing.
My ideal is to have a friend/family member/agent who you trust to do the filtering for you. If I’m ever fortunate enough to have a Steam release, that’s my plan, get my husband to send me all the nicest comments for an ego boost and figure out the negatives later
There are a lot of surface level people out there who clearly don’t actually engage with a piece before trash talking it. Reading carefully is not a skill most people possess these days, by and large, and you’ll always have people misinterpreting or getting mad because your writing doesn’t perfectly match their niche interests.
… … …I just got hit by the most ridiculous writing problem ever, please help.
The issue: I want to change the hair color of a character. From a project that has no demo yet, let alone any public character descriptions. But! I have written a snippet where the character’s hair is mentioned to be of another color in one sentence, and I’m thus stuck in a mental block I’m unable to break out of.
The sentence in question says With his pale skin (looking like it rarely gets any sunlight) and long black hair (tied back in an elaborate French braid), he looks every bit the vampire he's rumoured to be. I’m not even sure why I did make the hair black, since I originally pictured him red-headed (maybe I was trying to avoid having so many redheads? I tend to have an abundance of them) but I did. What’s even more ridiculous, he’s a person rumoured to be a vampire from Latveria Balkans. He should be a redhead, but thanks to that stupid sentence, I’m hesitating.
Please tell me it’s okay to change an unpublished character’s design!
It’s super okay to change the design! Think of it like tweaking dialogue or body language—you’re just aligning what’s on the page better with what you envision. It’s super normal for that not to happen perfectly the first time you write a description/bit of speech/etc, just like it’s normal to edit anything else in a story.
I’d also suggest you try using a character builder sheet, so you have everything about a character in one place, and if you decide to change something about a character, you have a record of all the different details (for example, being from a Balkan state) and you can review everything together to make sure everything fits.
I keep the important details on lists in a text file, or at least those details I can’t keep straight in my head (there’s a reason why so many of my old characters have stupid but easy-to-remember names), although I do want to make proper RPG-style character sheets for them at some point, to see the actual stat distribution if nothing else (although they’re also pretty to look at and I like looking at pretty things!)
Currently blasting fallout 4 with a lorefriendly radio station with Dean Martin. Waiting for Fallout London and about to post the 24 last hours for the Diversity jam.
I am fine and what incredible journey is the 50s music and all Fallout setting
Oh I am not the type to be a chicken. I love trying new things, I just need to find the time to get around to do it. If I managed Twine, Adventuron and Ink, I’m sure I’ll manage CScript… eventually 
) which I think increases how much they’re upset by the real issues.
