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> That's where I kind of start to consider the game "bullshit", I want to play and enjoy myself, not have constant FOMO of what could be if only I'd spent some

> That's where I kind of start to consider the game "bullshit", I want to play and enjoy myself, not have constant FOMO of what could be if only I'd spent some more money. It probably won't be too much of a FOMO thing really. The game is mainly just a "see how far you get" game, kind of like a Flappy Bird or Temple Run type game, but choice based, not dexterity based. If you choose poorly you can lose pretty quickly, but then you can just start the game over again if you want. But if you're like "wow, this is the furthest I've been, let's go for it this time!" or whatever, and you burned through the items that you earned during the course of the game, well you could just see if you get lucky and get farther, or you can spend money to get a bundle of items help ensure you survive a bit longer. But the game is designed that if you keep making the right choices you can continue indefinitely (in practice, though, you will almost certainly pick wrong enough times at some point... I've simulated it, and with 100,000+ simulations, it doesn't get further than a certain point, and it's super rare to get that high). Personally it's not something I ever spend money on in these things, but I'm pretty anti-IAP for my own personal use and have rarely spent money on IAP in general, but I enjoy playing the game just to see how far I can get just with the items I earn during the game, so I'm hoping even some players that are anti-IAP will enjoy the game anyway. Because ultimately I'm trying to make a fun game, just add some way to make some money while not charging up front for it.

StavrosK 7y ago
Oh, I see. Yeah, that sounds reasonably okay. Just don't add any of the crappy "pay to play again or wait 39 minutes" mechanics, those are a guaranteed uninstall for me.
- cableshaft 7y ago
  I wasn't even considering it. It bugs me too. It's nice to hear what people who are annoyed by these types of games like and dislike though, so thanks for pointing it out.
nottorp 7y ago
> If you choose poorly you can lose pretty quickly, but then you can just start the game over again if you want. But if you're like "wow, this is the furthest I've been, let's go for it this time!" or whatever, and you burned through the items that you earned during the course of the game, well you could just see if you get lucky and get farther, or you can spend money to get a bundle of items help ensure you survive a bit longer. ... actually, my assumption will be that you designed the game to require purchasing those items, and I won't even install it :) It's not only that I have to believe you when you say they're not required, but even if i do, I have to believe you won't sneakily - or not so sneakily - change things in the next update. It was bad enough when EA bought Popcap and my paid for Plants vs Zombies turned into some bullshit with IAPs.
- cableshaft 7y ago
  Yeah, that sucks. Plants vs Zombies should have never gone IAP. It's fine that you don't trust that it won't change. That's probably a good thing overall to have that skepticism. This is my first real experiment with designing a free game that isn't just a free flash game with zero monetization that I just put out there and let millions of people play without getting any income for it (what I used to do 15+ years ago...basically just gave a lot of free money to flash game websites that did have ads). I've worked on a F2P game before at a video game company and it did all those terrible tricks and I didn't feel to happy working on it, was always hoping we'd get a new client for more interesting and fun games, but it never ended up happening before they had to do major layoffs. I'm not claiming I won't ever do something that you personally won't like, this is mainly just what I'm thinking now. But I'm hoping that being less obnoxious will earn me some more good will than trying to squeeze every last dime out of players like big companies do. I'm just one guy making games outside of my day job, here.

StavrosK 7y ago

Oh, I see. Yeah, that sounds reasonably okay. Just don't add any of the crappy "pay to play again or wait 39 minutes" mechanics, those are a guaranteed uninstall for me.

cableshaft 7y ago
I wasn't even considering it. It bugs me too. It's nice to hear what people who are annoyed by these types of games like and dislike though, so thanks for pointing it out.

nottorp 7y ago

> If you choose poorly you can lose pretty quickly, but then you can just start the game over again if you want. But if you're like "wow, this is the furthest I've been, let's go for it this time!" or whatever, and you burned through the items that you earned during the course of the game, well you could just see if you get lucky and get farther, or you can spend money to get a bundle of items help ensure you survive a bit longer. ... actually, my assumption will be that you designed the game to require purchasing those items, and I won't even install it :) It's not only that I have to believe you when you say they're not required, but even if i do, I have to believe you won't sneakily - or not so sneakily - change things in the next update. It was bad enough when EA bought Popcap and my paid for Plants vs Zombies turned into some bullshit with IAPs.

cableshaft 7y ago
Yeah, that sucks. Plants vs Zombies should have never gone IAP. It's fine that you don't trust that it won't change. That's probably a good thing overall to have that skepticism. This is my first real experiment with designing a free game that isn't just a free flash game with zero monetization that I just put out there and let millions of people play without getting any income for it (what I used to do 15+ years ago...basically just gave a lot of free money to flash game websites that did have ads). I've worked on a F2P game before at a video game company and it did all those terrible tricks and I didn't feel to happy working on it, was always hoping we'd get a new client for more interesting and fun games, but it never ended up happening before they had to do major layoffs. I'm not claiming I won't ever do something that you personally won't like, this is mainly just what I'm thinking now. But I'm hoping that being less obnoxious will earn me some more good will than trying to squeeze every last dime out of players like big companies do. I'm just one guy making games outside of my day job, here.