I'd be glad to read it over.
One more thing CROS, it involves the site, basically, the style. You seem to have two major styles that really clash sometimes (like in this quick reply box). You've got the retro pixelesc style with the logo and top menu bar. But then you've got gradients etc in the achievements, forums and elsewhere. Perhaps refining Game Jolt's style could be a consideration? I'm not saying it's bad, but sometimes something just really sticks out.
Graphic style is ok.
Do you have anystats on how many people use chat? People don't like to chat, or they don't know there is chat. Maybe some popup reminder about chat from time to time / until they open it first time?
I don't agree Polan. Popups make you think spam site, many gaming sites already have a bad reputation from doing things like that, I'd prefer if Game Jolt stayed away from that. Though adding an animation for when a new message was sent would bring more attention to it. That could get more people chatting.
Not a typical popup, I mean some div/frame on wesbite, with arrow down, saying "hey, there is chat below here!". Like we have random game on every page..
I still think it would be more practical if the chat either did a little bounce or the chat rolled from one to another. Animation draws attention more than a static image. No matter where that static image is placed.
Runewake ~ Just so you know, Cros had me do design work for the e-mail newsletter not solely for that, but also as a kind of base to work from for the rest of the site, so basically, he plans on changing the look gradually to something much more unified. Heck, there are still things remaining on the site from back when we really didn't know what direction we'd be taking (before the rebranding), such as the default achievement trophy vectors... Looks are super important to me, so I agree with you whole-heartedly, but as I said, it should get better. 
That reminds me, for some reason the newsletter didn't display properly in my e-mail client again, so I'll have to send Cros a screen of that. Blargh. <- Correction made.
Last edited on September 18, 2012 - 06:02 PM by KniteBlargh
Ah, thanks, actually, a pixelized trophy would look pretty neat.
Also, I believe you meant blargh, not blah. 
graphically I agree with Blargh and Rune, as for new contests... there are not that many anymore in the indie scene that can be played for fun. and a regular Jam or contest would really jolt the site if you'd ask me. I mean, look at the Ludum Dare, it's still going on regularly without any prices and it's a really big event.
as for the random game of the day... I'd really like that :) besides the 3 featured on the frontpage, most people don't even notice it, unless you get to the site the first time. I myself first check the forums, then if my games got some new ratings or whatever, then get straight to the chat.
some more animation would really put in some eye-candy too, though I'm not doing to decide on that :P
Hey guys, great suggestions so far.
Polan, I have something planned that's almost exactly like you mentioned just to call out the chat bar a bit more. Just sort of an arrow saying something like "Chat is where it's at!" 
As for the graphical style, the site will slowly be changing and morphing graphically. An example of new pages is the contest page, or login/sign up pages, or the dashboard. I don't want to go through changing every page in one go, or I won't have time for other things, and I think there may be more important things at the moment. So, I'll change as I can.
But, as promised, here are some ideas that I have! This'll probably be a bit of a long rant, but I kind of want to bring the community into these discussions. First off, what problems do I currently see with Game Jolt?
Game Jolt was based on an idea I had about 4 years ago. I saw a site that allowed any indie game to be uploaded (whether it was flash, downloadable, silverlight, java, anything). A place where developers could freely and openly show their games to the world. Screenshots, files, music, news articles, etc. The problem? Other sites are doing many of these things now, and probably better than we do it, too. IndieDB/Desura and Steam/Greenlight are doing a fairly good job now of giving a place for indie developers to share their games with the world and get recognition.
So, Game Jolt's idea is outplayed and tired. Which is why it needs to be reworked. What we need to do is decide what is the future of indie gaming? Where is the medium headed? What would best serve the developers that make the games and what would be the best way for gamers to interact with them/what do gamers actually want? And not just right now, but in the next 4 years.
I don't think anyone really views the homepage. Not many people actually look through the new games. And It's almost like an information overload when you hit that page. How many people actually care about the top 5 games in every category? Even the featured games don't get hit that much.
Game thumbnails are too small, screenshots/videos aren't being displayed prominently enough (although that's slowly changing with the media bar), and the game pages are starting to look kind of boring and not showing off each individual game so well.
I don't feel like the site really does a good job of making you want to interact with it. A game's page should make you want to play the game (if it's good), or make you want to comment on it, or rate it, or tell your friends about it. The way game/developer news is presented on the site is bland and without heart, I think. But you should want to read the news articles and actively follow game's development.
The biggest problem of all, though, I think, is that there are loads and loads of some really shitty games on this site. Or games that our particular type of indie gamers don't really care for.
What are the solutions for this? That's why I need your help with, I think, but here are some ideas... Many other sites do similar things, I'm sure.
Gamer Score/Karma
The idea going is that each user has Karma on the site. I think I want the Karma to be their gamer score. Basically, an aggregation of how involved they are in the site. Maybe we award certain points for doing certain things on the site. Like commenting on stuff, rating things, inviting friends, playing games, getting trophies, etc. It would be a combination of Karma (like reddit perhaps) and something like gamer score (xbox, etc.) Gamer Score/Karma should be a way to decide how active the user is and how influential they are on the site. This idea will have to be fleshed out more. It may be that it makes more sense to have site karma and gamer score separate rather than combined. I do like how Kongregate has a leveling system, though, and am considering implementing that on Game Jolt. Could be a good way to keep gamers playing games and finding new ones to play.
Proving Grounds
Then, we have the concept of the Proving Grounds. Other sites have this now, like Steam's Greenlight. I believe Newgrounds also does something like this. And perhaps others too. But, basically, what the Proving Grounds will be is that you need someone with a high enough karma/gamer score on the site to rate your game and prove to the community that it's a game worth showing in the main game listings. Before that, your game is uninitiated. This does put a barrier between gamers and the users, but I think it's a good barrier. This way the site (homepage etc.) is only showing at least somewhat decent games. It could also probably get kind of cool where certain users on the site will be known to have the power to pull a game out of the Proving Grounds, hence making them somewhat important within the community. Karma will actually mean something.
Voltage
And finally on to Voltage. Voltage has been mentioned quite a bit, but I'll quickly go over it's intended purpose here. Basically, a game's average rating isn't always that great of a way to know how good a game actually is. If it has one rating that's a 5, should it really be the best game on the site? No, it shouldn't. The rating of the game should factor in how many ratings the game has, among many other things. Voltage is a way to decide just how "good" a game is based on the data we have. Basically, when you're browsing the site, you usually care about "show me some good games, or promisingly good games". I think that depending on how active a user is on the site (their karma) a rating on a game should matter more. This would remove the ability to make duplicate accounts to rate a game high (unless they invested a lot of time to make all their accounts have a high karma). It'll also probably factor in the actual raters' tendencies (like if they just tend to rate high, or just tend to downrate, etc). With enough tweaking, I think this system can be VERY powerful. The full details of how it works will probably be kept secret, just to prevent people working around the system.
What do you guys think of karma, proving grounds, and voltage? Can this create a site that is actually fun to be a part of?
I have more ideas for some of the other problems, but I'll try to tackle those later.
Last edited on September 19, 2012 - 03:36 AM by CROS
I absolutely love the idea of voltage.
As for the main page, how about removing all of the categories and replacing them by just something simpler? I think there are way too much to look through them all.
Karma and voltage seem like good ideas and proving grounds as well as long as enough people use it.
"there are loads and loads of some really shitty games on this site"
Thats probably true, but I thought it was a little rude. The description of proving grounds was enough.
I would say fix bugs before adding new features.
http://gamejolt.com/community/forums/topics/applet-supplemental-files-not-really-being-deleted/1146/
I know a lot of people probably don't care about Java applets, but that seems like it should be simple to fix especially if supplemental files are working for Flash, etc.
Sorry Rick. The sentence came across not how I meant it. Game Jolt has always been and will always be a place where inexperienced developers will be able to show their games off and try to get feedback on them to grow as developers.
However, the main game listings of Game Jolt has been littered with games that are mass uploaded to Game Jolt by developers that don't care about the success of Game Jolt. They view us as just another portal to put a game on to try to get just a few cents more for their in-game ads. This, to me, is shitty, and that's what I meant.
As for the supplemental files not being able to be deleted, it should now be fixed.
Thanks for using the site, Rick!
I have a few ideas that would be neat to see featured:
- An important part about encouraging comments and ratings to games, I think, is making it easy for the player to do. So how about whenever you click the download/quick play button, somewhere a textbox and a rating box appear in plain view with some text above it such as "Join the community in improving this game with your feedback!"
- I've mentioned it before, but I really do think a focus on "teams" would be a GREAT addition to the site and would really help set it apart from others, especially if these teams could manage a game's profile together, post updates together, manage trophies/highscores/etc. and most importantly split revenue together.
- In conjunction with the team idea, a "team-member search" part of the site would be incredible. With your profile you can put up experience, portfolios, and other such important information and then apply to "Search for a team," where your name will be added to a list of users that can be located through various search parameters. This could help teams in that you can handle searching for a team member who, say:
- Skilled in high-res detailed art
- 2+ years of experience
- Will work for 0 to $X.XX
- Worked with RPG games before
I think these would be incredible features that would really set GJ apart from other communities!
Well, wants to revitalize indie gaming he says.
A few ideas,
Jolts, these are website based scores that persist between games. It's similar to gamer scores except that Jolts fluctuate. The idea is that a game can reward a user with Jolts for doing a specific task, defeating a campaign, killing one hundred enemies etc. These jolts may then be used in game to purchase a new weapon, a fancy new ride, some cool new hat etc. Additionally, Jolts build on the social aspect by allowing gamers to trade Jolts with other users for offering programming advice, art, code etc. Further, you can integrate Jolts into a referral program so that users recieve a percentage of all jolts earned by referals (maybe 5% or so). Effectively this creates a Game Jolt atmosphere so that users are encouraged to come back to a game to earn more Jolts and stay with Game Jolt games in order to get more cool stuff. Further, it encourages use of the API as offering Jolts provides users with a way to do pseudo micro transactions using these Jolts.
Obviously, this presents a few problems. First, coders could abuse this idea by simply providing a stream of constant Jolts to attempt to attract gamers. It might be wise to implement some form of peer review for Jolts in which games with Jolts must first be passed by a number of fellow developers in order to be shown on the site. Other solutions are also availible.
Second, Global Settings, once again this integrates into the API and acts more or less as Data Storage. What this does, is present users with a number of controls such as Forward, Backward, Left, Right, Attack, Jump, Action, Menu, Special etc. These controls can then be saved on Game Jolt and thus, a user running an app on different PC's will have the same settings. Further, a game integrated with this can use the default settings to be personalized to the user. Allowing general settings and per game settings would be optional. The simple availibility of global settings would be awesome and is something that neither steam nor desura offer to my knowledge.
Source Control, simply put, users should be able to sync their Codeplex, Git Hub, Google Code, Assembla and other source control sites to Game Jolt. That would make the Source games more open and accessable.
Add a Mods section to games. This would allow users to upload content for a game that they do not own that is displayed for the game. Developers should have an option to turn off this tab on their project as some can't be modded. All Mods should require a "How to Install" text document so that users can easily know how and what they need to do to get the mod running and should also include the download. Screenshots, Videos and News could also be added to the Mod. Effectively turning a mod into a Game submission that requires another game first.
Group Games, this would allow a game to be submitted by a group. This would allow any of that groups members to update, edit, submit news, post screenshots etc. Each members permissions could be limited. Further, a project could include a "looking for X" so that a team in need of an artist could advertise that cleanly and effectively.
Streaming, I've said it once and will say it again. Streaming integration for developers and gamers has the potential to draw in gamers looking to make a bit of cash off of their game time. Further, it advertises Game Jolt and the games on it.
The Game Jolt Store, basically, what this is, is an archive for developers. It would allow developers to find, look up the license of, and download any number of assets from sound effects to 3D models. It could implement some form of cost in Jolts or real money, but preferably would be free. The idea here is to provide developers with quality content that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and also looks nice. This would be extremely useful for the community contests where development time is stunted. The store could also include tools or links to tools such as Paint.NET and other free applications that developers may want (Audacity is another example here).
Getting Started, this section would be designed specifically for "first games" and "how tos". Basically it would take all the games that users designed as a first attempt and stick them in one place, first so that all gamers know where not to look for the best game jolt has to offer (no offense new people), but also so that the new coders have a place to start and those that are looking to start developing have a place to go and get started with the very basics of coding, game making and which tools/engines/resources they will need to start. Effectively this is your proving grounds, but designed more for making the users that do want to get better able to do that.
HasUpdate API, basically what this does is query the Game Jolt database and see if a new version of the Game exists. If so, then the game maker can do something like show a message, open the webpage etc. This, while not necessary, would be very helpful. Returning a link to the download would make auto updaters possible.
Chat Groups, I think anyone that uses the chat has run into this. You have two conversations running at the same time with people talking over one another. It always reminds me of Thanksgiving when my family attempts to solve all the worlds problems. Obviously, everyone talking over one another is not great. Thus, I propose either we get a General Chat, Developers Lounge (only availible to Developers and focused on coding etc) and Private Sessions for when a small group wants an isoloted chat. This way, the chat clutter could be removed.
Statistics API, allow us to add custom data points to the Statistics shown under the Revenue report or, at the very least report basic events like Game Launched, this will allow us to put a number on players to revenue.
Commenting, while I agree it is nice, I don't think popups are ever a good thing. That being said this should be worked on to encourage ratings, however this is an issue that every site including the app store for Apple and microsoft both suffer from as well. I would even say that Game Jolt has a higher comment/play ratio than these sites, though I don't have the numbers for those sites and my guesses are only based on personal experience.
Game Recommendations, allow people to "Recommend This Game". Basically, when you recommend a game it shows your friends that you recommended it (perhaps integrating a recommended games feed on the home page that is personalized for you). Additionally when showing recommendations and games it will show a number representing the number of recommendations it has from your friends. Obviously a game with more recommendations would rank higher.
Change Logs, add change logs to each game update. This way a use downloading a game can see what is different and what has been fixed/updated/redone/added.
Game Updates, show when games you like have an update uploaded for them. This can either be integrated into your dashboard, home page or somewhere else. The idea is that you can see when a game that you have rated highly or recommended has been updated. You could then see change logs for that update, the decription etc. This could also apply for new News, Screenshots, Videos etc. This would be different than the one currently on the Home Page which covers a very broad spectrum.
Anyway, that is enough suggestions for now I think, I'm sure I'll think of more later, but even if you implement half of this you will have a decent amount of work set out in front of you. That being said, I do believe that a number of these could really improve Game Jolt. Especially the idea of Jolts and the Game Jolt Store. The Store could significantly imrpove the quality of games that are made by a skilled coder who is not necissarily skilled or possessing the time to create high quality graphics, music, sound effects etc.
I posted some of my ideas on this in another topic not long ago. Something else, while I want the community to grow, I came here initially for the hosting and to be perfectly honest, that's what I care about above anything like ratings or karma. What drew me to Game Jolt is that it's a platform for distribution which is completely free while offering a better sense of presentation than something like host.net or dropbox. I like the idea of the proving grounds to clean out 'junk' a bit. But yeah, to be honest I can't see myself being any more active just to farm karma to gain influence (though I'm sure many will). I just want to upload my games and let people play them :)
Last edited on September 20, 2012 - 08:01 AM by Jordan Browne
...to chat
