Idle Earl, home-made

Intrinsic

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pwe said:
I didn't think it was good enough, honestly. But with the positive feedback I might add some more stuff.
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Have you seen some of the stuff we've shelled out $5 for around here? hah. If I had seen it on Steam there's a high likelyhood that a low entry cost would have had me d/l it just to try. But that's easy for me to say from a consumer standpoint and doesn't take into account any of your time and effort of it being worthwhile.
 
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pwe

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Intrinsic said:
Have you seen some of the stuff we've shelled out $5 for around here? hah. If I had seen it on Steam there's a high likelyhood that a low entry cost would have had me d/l it just to try. But that's easy for me to say from a consumer standpoint and doesn't take into account any of your time and effort of it being worthwhile.
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I can see by the number of users that it would be a lot of crickets chirping if I put it on. It might be fun anyways, but it would take a lot of work. Now, what I really need is a good color palette. That blue looks like a kid made it in MS Paint.
 
Runnen

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pwe said:
I can see by the number of users that it would be a lot of crickets chirping if I put it on. It might be fun anyways, but it would take a lot of work. Now, what I really need is a good color palette. That blue looks like a kid made it in MS Paint.
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I know nothing of the limitations of that kind of game development / coding / programming / design, but since it's kind of medieval-oriented with knives and wizards and monsters, I figure some more subdued medieval themed color scheme would work, like some kind of wood brown, unsure if you can add actual wood texture packs to the info panels around the arena, and framing those panels with some kind of iron / dull metal texture would give it a sort of old school touch. Or perhaps you can find inspiration in old EQ interface, they had a more stone / marble texture look to them which worked well I thought.
 
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pwe

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Runnen said:
I know nothing of the limitations of that kind of game development / coding / programming / design, but since it's kind of medieval-oriented with knives and wizards and monsters, I figure some more subdued medieval themed color scheme would work, like some kind of wood brown, unsure if you can add actual wood texture packs to the info panels around the arena, and framing those panels with some kind of iron / dull metal texture would give it a sort of old school touch. Or perhaps you can find inspiration in old EQ interface, they had a more stone / marble texture look to them which worked well I thought.
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It does sound fitting. I'll see if I can find some textures.
 
Runnen

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Also, not to turn your game into an EQ spinoff or anything, but the EverQuest font is available online (free I believe), it's called Tarragon ICG. I use it for some of my AI wallpapers and stuff, it looks great. That is, if you'd like to match a mode medieval-oriented decor with a fantasy font style for the title or some of the main text, probably want to keep something more easily readable for the smaller text on the upgrades list for example.
 
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Hateyou

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pwe said:
I didn't think it was good enough, honestly. But with the positive feedback I might add some more stuff.
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There is so much dogshit on steam, I think this one is fine to put on there if it was more fleshed out. You’re very likely to not make much but you never know what can make a game that seems basic and not fleshed out take off. It has a good basis for an idler imo.

Look at this stupid shit with 90k reviews.

IMG_6674.jpeg
 
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Void

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Yeah, the fact that I'm not actually clicking shit for the first however many minutes is a big plus for this game.

Other than that, my constructive criticisms would be:

In most games of this nature that I've played, rebirths come fairly quickly at first. Like, within an hour or two at most of your first finding the game, it is more beneficial to rebirth than to grind it out longer. Subsequent rebirths can take longer, but not too drastically. I know this because I always fucking wait too long. In your game, I had no chance to rebirth until over a day into it (granted, it ran minimized most of the time so I was missing out on arena stuff, chests, etc. but still, it wouldn't have changed the time by a factor of 10 or so like I'm used to).

Also, the higher tiers take much, much longer to get to than seems normal. I realize it is a balancing act between making them too fast vs not having enough tiers to keep it fresh, so you'd need to create several/many more tiers if you sped the progression up, particularly if you also sped up rebirths as I suggested, so that might be more work than you are looking to put into it.

Finally, is there ANY way to fix the browser issue? I realize that's not your problem per se, and people playing at work isn't your problem either, but I have to keep it minimized 99% of the time, so I never progress very far in the arena. I even left it up last night when I went home, but since I locked the computer apparently that counted as "not visible" so I am back down to Arena 50'ish. Can it be made into an app or something? That would limit your metrics I'm sure, but it would eliminate the problem.

Either way, I think it is a great effort and I appreciate the change-ups from typical idle games. Not sure how much you value your time or the sales you might get, but this would be an automatic buy for a lot of people at 99 cents with a few upgrades. I'd imagine you could get a few thousand sales easily with a little promotion, but I'm no expert either. Good luck!
 
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pwe

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Void said:
Yeah, the fact that I'm not actually clicking shit for the first however many minutes is a big plus for this game.

Other than that, my constructive criticisms would be:

In most games of this nature that I've played, rebirths come fairly quickly at first. Like, within an hour or two at most of your first finding the game, it is more beneficial to rebirth than to grind it out longer. Subsequent rebirths can take longer, but not too drastically. I know this because I always fucking wait too long. In your game, I had no chance to rebirth until over a day into it (granted, it ran minimized most of the time so I was missing out on arena stuff, chests, etc. but still, it wouldn't have changed the time by a factor of 10 or so like I'm used to).

Also, the higher tiers take much, much longer to get to than seems normal. I realize it is a balancing act between making them too fast vs not having enough tiers to keep it fresh, so you'd need to create several/many more tiers if you sped the progression up, particularly if you also sped up rebirths as I suggested, so that might be more work than you are looking to put into it.

Finally, is there ANY way to fix the browser issue? I realize that's not your problem per se, and people playing at work isn't your problem either, but I have to keep it minimized 99% of the time, so I never progress very far in the arena. I even left it up last night when I went home, but since I locked the computer apparently that counted as "not visible" so I am back down to Arena 50'ish. Can it be made into an app or something? That would limit your metrics I'm sure, but it would eliminate the problem.

Either way, I think it is a great effort and I appreciate the change-ups from typical idle games. Not sure how much you value your time or the sales you might get, but this would be an automatic buy for a lot of people at 99 cents with a few upgrades. I'd imagine you could get a few thousand sales easily with a little promotion, but I'm no expert either. Good luck!
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Lots of goodies here. I did drag rebirth out a bit because there are only so many tiers. But it also takes some time to balance. I don't think I can fix browser throttling, I should have been prepared from the start. I noticed Clicker Heroes - Play The Free Idle Clicker Game has the same problem. They try to fix it by simulating your away time.

But, plain .exe/apps files can be uploaded to Itch.io too. I assume they scan for virus, I dunno. But that wouldn't have the problem.

I don't expect to make money from this at all, it's just a hobby project. But I'll add some more stuff as long as it's fun working on it.
 
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pwe

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I seriously can't tell. Is this getting better or worse? Too many options.

1755113864694.png


1755114249040.png
 
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Intrinsic

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The second one looks good. Adds a little bit of character that the original rounded rectangles don’t have.
 
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Hateyou

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pwe said:
Spoiler: there are not many tiers left. I can't really tell if it's worth it or not. I could add more tiers, I just thought hardly anyone would get that far ;)
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I think adding a couple of other things might be more enticing for people to rebirth. Like 10% chance to throw two daggers. Could add tiers for zaps and fireballs too. 1.1x damage multipliers. Things that make you stronger and not just flat $ multiplier and I bet people would rebirth more often.
 
Runnen

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pwe said:
I seriously can't tell. Is this getting better or worse? Too many options.

View attachment 597856
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I like the second one better too, but maybe it would look even better with a kind of parchment texture, or even a subtle parchment coloring. For the green and red maybe it should only be outlines, or a sort of rune / glyph that is green if you can buy and red if you can't, so it's not the whole rectangle.

EDIT : here is a quick mock-up of what I'm talking about, just to give you an idea. Parchment kind of coloring (no texture though, but I really like the shape you picked), EQ font, and a green outline for the available purchases. I'm sure it can be refined a whole lot, but it's just an idea.

IdleEarlConcept.png
 
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Runnen

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Trying some stuff with the title too, to give it some identity. I like the phrasing of your premise "Earl was just idling. Then the monsters came. Now you are idling.", but I feel Earl should be visible on the game name / logo, and you really love your little monster credit mob, so I put it there too.


EarlTitle1.png


EarlTitle2.png
 
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Runnen

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Have you given thought to changing Earl's skin based on progression? I think it could be a nice incentive to keep buying upgrades if your character gets visual upgrades (perhaps they could simply unlock and then you can select your favorite skin if you want to keep on using Basic Earl, or a previously unlocked Earl skin? or maybe make them unlocked by rebirths so it's another incentive to make people use that underused feature?

Here's my ideas, your Earl is Basic Earl in this scenario, and he looks funny so I think he's a good character mix of a pissed off knight and a hobo, but there could be unlockable skins when you upgrade your damage enough to turn into Knight Earl, Wizard Earl and Necromancer Earl (locked either behind Master Wizard and Necromancer upgrades, or on subsequent rebirths perhaps?).

EarlSkins.png


The styles of the helmets/hats don't necessarily work with your basic pixelated look but it gives you an idea I think. It should be simple enough to find pixelated items in the same very basic style, or even make them yourself like you did the other monsters, etc, or find them in a ressource site if that's what you did to develop your game.
 
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Runnen

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pwe said:
That is actually really good. All the details fit. ChatGPT? And can I use it? Don't know where atm, but maybe I'll find somewhere.

Also, a new tier was added to Idle Earl.
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I used Dall-E 3, and sure you can use it. There's tidbits of AI nonsense in places but I can fix those if you want a really good version for your page or to print and frame on the wall to inspire your future endeavors of video game development.


f2yrbleee7v81.jpg
 
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