Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania - Final Public Update! (July 25th, 2015)
Sorry guys, and sorry Anon42, last time i checked joining ulmf didn't mean being newborn or not knowing about your job previously.. my first contacts with you were via direct emailing, wasn't expecting you to assume that the only way of ever contacting you was via this tool/website.
I find it sad that you Anon42 take critics on such a negative context. I'm a full-fledged professional with over 15y of experience handling Six-Sigma quality standards and Marketing/Growth endeavors for worldwide and massive multi-million companies, not just some kiddo wanting to "shake the otter" as they say in certain country.
I kindly invite you to start taking feedback ALWAYS in a positive way, you have a clearly awesome talent that you're evidently using BUT, after so many years, you still have flaws that you have worked- NOT to improve.. and it has affected the "growth" of your product. Your greatest talent is being shadowed by the flaws that you don't even try to improve.
I'll be a bit arrogant here, so please kindly excuse me: Last year i learned to edit videos, this year i learned to edit images on Corel and Photoshop, i also learned French this year, not to say i know Marketing, Branding, Programming, Six-Sigma, corporate Growth, and even game coding.. heck English is not even my mother language; and every time i get hands on a product it outsells and blows the competition away (I can show you), getting awes and praises everywhere (and once prized with a special edition Rolex wristwatch for such good results).. yet heck the best part for me is seeing the look on the happy faces of the customers when they see my results. The point is that you can ALWAYS improve your flaws but it's up to you opening your eyes.
As long as you Anon42 keep on insulting back because someone objectively criticizes you, you're bound to stay surrounded by people who will only tell you what you want to hear and hiding what you need to know.
Consider these two situations that i was a part of:
- One person receives some "negative" feedback (no feedback is ever negative) and he decides to ignore them and "insult back" that i knew nothing
- Another person receives some "negative" feedback and replies immediately requesting "can you help me fix it?" and a BSC so i do it.
Who was more positive? Who was more open to improve?.. which of the above were you Anon42? Allow me help you: with one i started searching how to turn his game into a Nindy eShop game (taking away porn) and in your case i feel it’s futile to make any effort.
Marketing-wise, you have not been able to increase your funding because there are flaws on your design that people with criteria (those people you ignore so much) can clearly see and they're not drawn for that. You’re not yet luring more people because the lack of graphic appeal obscures everything good you have done.
Growth-wise you have not made the effort to go further (when you evidently have the talent) for whatever reason. You're on a bad streak?.. i committed suicide and then carried on so i know what having problems is like.
Quality-wise, you have a VERY engaging game yet you totally ignore the most basic fact: we humans are visual and if we don't see something amazing we won't make the effort to see the other results of your work. The graphical quality of CPE does not match the...
Branding-wise, CONGRATULATIONS! you got great people who helped you improve your drawings

, you invited people to create the game's name, the char's name, and made her look like a total badass, along with other things.. GREAT! You correctly and positively involved people
Now, for this dear community who dared to insult me just because "being new automatically means being an ignorant" consider my first feedbacks to Anon42 and tell me if i'm wrong:
- Using an old-fashioned image ratio. Four years ago widescreen was customary, let alone today. 9:6 is so 1990.
- Very small sprites: those who have played should be with me in that you must get too close to the screen in order to distinguish the details of many chars, and this is because.....
- Not using the whole screen nor allowing to Alt+Enter it compared to a PC screen, the game feels more like that of a GameBoy Advance... just not even widescreen.
- Alicia's proportions aren't consistent when she's dressed and naked; it's like her breast suddenly becomes the size of her head when clothes are torn-off.
- Her belly-button lower part and belly-button upper part of the body are not proportional to a real human being. Period.
- VERY PERSONAL: it's like she has a negative butt.. like a table or a smartphone screen, something that could have been fixed by adding 3 to 5 pixels.
- Four years and Anon42 never made the effort of fixing any of these basic flaws
- And these are only the ones I remember the most.
Those are very basic feedback that i, AS A USER AND NOT AN ARROGANT-WHATEVER-YOU-CALLED-ME felt; feelings are FIRST IMPRESSIONS and those should be shared immediately in order to improve a product (that’s QA 101).. specially considering that Anon42 was on early stages back then and could have changed and fixed all of them if only he had listened to.
You guys may say i'm an arrogant, you may call me a fool, tell me i love my mother far more than i healthly should (got it?) but my over 15y of exp. taught me that, if you have 100 customers and one of them complaints, YOU LISTEN TO THAT ONE WHO IS BITCHING, as he’s the one who sees your flaws and will make your product better over time.
Dear Anon42, you have a great, amazing talent:
- Gameplay: awe.
- Level design: awe.
- Battle system (that never felt mechanical nor easy): awe.
- Your vision for the MetroidVania progress system: great.
- Your desire to add visual effects to your game like water and light effects, superb!
- The atmosphere: incredible
- Hooking people into playing for hours: amazing!
But you totally ignore the most basic aspects of customer-centered products (as in: 100% of anything you sell)
- Humans are visual animals so, if not visually attracted to something, most people will likely ignore all the rest. Two examples: most people won’t dare reading to these lines when they SEE it’s so much text, and most people will buy a ps4 and games rather than a Wii U BECAUSE OF GRAPHICS.
- You have to keep up with times; once again, 9:6 ratio is SO 1990.
- People will want value, especially when they’re paying for it. You didn’t reach your 4k goal in over 4 years and you still dare to say I was wrong and i’m an arrogant.
- you stick to positive feedback and ignore (and get hurt by) “negative” ones.. negative ones will be those who make you grow as a professional.
- You don’t seem to understand the real potential of your job, and for this, you kept QA at a minimum in aspects that now shadow all of your talents to the eye of average prospects (your fans will love you no matter what).
To all of you who took the time to read all of this: THANK YOU, you have been very kind to do such a tremendous effort.
To ULMF staff: thank you for understanding this on the most positive on contexts, paying attention to these lines.. and not banning me XD
To Anon42: you may now decide either if you keep on calling me a jerk or start listening to all those who only want to give you the perspective of a final user, what are demos for then?. I bet if you even try to improve graphical design you’ll get new patrons and go far beyond your 4k goal. It depends on you and you alone listening to improve yourself or pretend no claims should be listened to.. after all.. I’m just a jerk who happened to think that feedbacking you would be a good idea for you yourself.
…and please don’t take 4 more years to complete the game for god’s sake
You're probably right. Sorry, I should have just ignored it - no sense in editing/deleting the post now though, I don't want to be disingenuous. Anyway, thank you for all of the kind words, and for sticking with me this long - it really does mean a lot.
@mayaktheunholy - No sweat man, support comes in a lot of forms that aren't just financial. I appreciate everyone that follows the game, regardless of if they donate or not.