Fake Graphs About Real Things

I have a tendency to be pretty verbose in my blog posts. My typical topic length has inched ever higher over time, and I think it's starting to impact my comfort level in starting new topics. Each new post, it feels harder to write about something because of the growing number of things I've discussed, and the growing number of words I seem to use each time. And as readers, I'm sure the sight of a wall of text is none too enticing.

This week, I had an idea for something different: fake graphs about real things. Basically, there are some concepts in game development that seem like they are easily described in graphs. They're not always possible to quantify, but the trends are pretty easy to qualify. Like describing volume as a function of distance from a speaker, or speed as a function of time spent accelerating, we can describe certain things in our industry in relation to other values.

So, before I accidentally type another paragraph, let's start "graphing!"

Fig. 1: Amount of time spent actually working on game over length of project.

The above one's pretty easy. Particularly if you're a solo indie, this is what you should plan for. In fact, it's a bit incomplete:

Fig 1a: Everything else you'll be doing.

Oh, and one more thing:

Fig 1b: It ain't over 'til it's over.

Here's another one for those running a game-as-a-service or Minecraft-like beta funding model:

Fig 2: Anxiety as a function of build release schedule.

Those with heart conditions shouldn't wait too long between releases! Particularly if:

Fig 2a: Ohgodohgodohgodohgod!

This one, while sobering, is probably no surprise to most:

Fig 3: Game sales over time.

"That's not so bad," you might think. But we may be missing some points of reference:

Fig 3a: WTB rent-free treehouse with free electricity and internet...

There are a few things you can do to help, though:

Fig 3b: Or this might just be a NASA pulsar graph

Each of these peaks will likely have a diminishing effect on the subsequent peaks, as market saturates and relevance decreases over time.

You could also try adjusting the price of your game:

Fig 4: Sales as a function of price.

$0 is a popular price! Conversely, not many people are into mortgaging their homes to buy a game. Though, as the app store has shown us, there are 8 people who will buy your game no matter what (1 of which, accidentally).

How does this look in terms of actual money? Probably something like this:

Fig 4a: Number may not actually be magic.

This assumes some minimum price, of course. Most places aren't selling games for $0.000001. If that were the case, the vertical slopes would be more gradual.

Let's talk about another topic. Phil Fish has recently made the news (again), and you might be wondering what you'd do in his shoes. Being criticized can be unpleasant, but not all criticism is created equal:

Fig 5: Amount of attention paid to criticism vs. how much I respect the critic.

Put another way, if someone is the type of person who slings insults at complete strangers over the internet, it's hard to take them seriously. After all, with such a low barrier to lashing out, they probably do it to everyone. I might even feel left out if they didn't.

Similarly:

Fig 5a: Attention paid as a function of bias.

Overly negative (and positive!) commentary isn't very useful, so I tend to pay the most attention to balanced critique and critics. Overly biased feedback is about as helpful as a ruler with all 8s.

Speaking of usefulness:

Fig 6: Likelihood of reading feedback as a function of its length.

If I open up an email or forum thread, this is pretty much how things are going to play out. Don't get me wrong, the following is also true:

Fig 6a: Wanting and doing are different things, though.

But if it's going to take me 30 minutes to read, 15 minutes to digest, another 10 to re-skim, and then an hour to reply...well, I might not. Of course, I tend to dwell in the far right hand side of this graph when writing, so there's some irony/hypocrisy to be had here.

And while we're on the topic of weaknesses, here's a big one for me:

Fig 7: Desire to postpone decision as a function of its importance.

Decisions can be hard. Big decisions even more so. While it can be healthy to take time to consider options when faced with a decision, it can be unhealthy to postpone for too long:

Fig 7a: "Just a little more research..."

The important feature of this graph is the peak and subsequent negative slope. For every decision, there is some amount of consideration that is optimal, and beyond that, an ever-increasing opportunity cost. The real-world version of this graph may be bumpy, but the general form is the same.

There are more, of course, but this is already quite a bit. Let me know if you found this format to be helpful, entertaining, or even erroneous. And enjoy the break from my walls o' text while you can!

The Hardest Part of Making Games

I was playing Rock Band the other day. We dug the plastic instruments out of storage, and fired up the 360 to dust off our faux musician skills. And at one point, we played Nine Inch Nails's "The Hand That Feeds."

As the little, colored notes dropped off the screen, I found myself imagining how cool it must be to make music like that as a career. I love musical instruments, and to be surrounded by synths, sequencers, 1/4" audio cables, humming amps, electric guitars, and mixers would make my day.

I've dabbled in composition from time-to-time, and I've even had some relatively pleasing results. Sure, they're amateur at best, but creating them was fun. I actually long for the time when I'm simultaneously un-busy enough and motivated to get back into that.

That last thought brought me back from my daydream, even as the colored notes continued. "I'm too busy and too tired," I thought, "because I already have a cool day job like that." It was as sobering as it was uplifting.

In reality, Trent Reznor probably doesn't sit in his studio, admiring his collection. He doesn't sit with a cup of tea, trying out all the synth presets on his Korg M1. He doesn't feel the blissful absence of pressure as he surveys his laboratory.

Mr. Reznor has a business to attend to. He has music to compose, a brand to promote, investments to consider, and relationships to manage. What we picture him doing each day is blissfully ignorant of pressure.

What's So Hard About Making Games?

Like with music, I think there are many on the outside looking in at game developers. Each has their vision of what goes on in a developer's day, and some are more accurate than others. Some may picture developers coding away in the late night hours, illuminated by a cold monitor. Others might picture long conference tables, half-empty pizza boxes, and colored dry-erase diagrams.

Some people picture...other things.

So when it comes to game development in practice vs. imagination, what actually goes on? What are the types of work being done? Are any of them pure enjoyment? Tedium?

And what is the hardest part?

As with music, games are complex products, the creation of which involves a wide variety of tasks. How hard or enjoyable each of these tasks is will depend on the person(s), their abilities, and their preferences. It will also depend on the type of game being made, the tools being used, and the project constraints.

Since NEO Scavenger and Blue Bottle Games are primarily a solo project, I wear a pretty good number of hats. I do most of the dev work, content creation, business administration, and I've even collaborated with a few talented individuals.

What follows, then, is a review of the types of things I've had to do as part of developing NEO Scavenger and running Blue Bottle Games since it started. Along with each, I'll try to call out some of the more enjoyable, challenging, and tedious aspects of each.

If you're considering getting into game development, maybe this will help illustrate some of the rewards and challenges you'll face. And if you're already there, maybe it'll comfort you to know you're not alone :)

• Game Ideas - It won't surprise you to learn that this is one of the easier, more enjoyable aspects of game development. I love coming up with ideas. I can't not do it, in fact. When I get up from bed to go to the bathroom at 3am, I have new ideas by the time I crawl back into bed. I have journals stacked in a drawer with ideas, a massive folder on my hard drive, another on Google Drive. When I bought my first Palm III, it was so I could jot down ideas as I rode the subway to work. I gave up a lucrative job at BioWare so I could make my ideas into games. I've been known to turn down perfectly good ideas in favor of coming up with ideas of my own. Have I mentioned I like coming up with video game ideas?
  
  While usually not tedious, there are a few times when it can be frustrating to come up with an idea. Usually, this is because one needs an idea for a specific problem, but none are coming. Ideas pour when they rain, but they're not always what you need when you need them. They're also notorious for derailing otherwise productive work with distraction.
• Research - This one's a bit like ideas, above. I have to restrain myself from researching things if given the chance. Before I start drawing something, I research it. Writing about something? Research. Start building a new system? Research what other games do.
  
  Research can be tedious, of course. Plowing through an academic paper is rarely as instantly gratifying as Wikipedia. And many times, there are conflicting sources that need to be resolved. Vocabulary can also cause research effort to mushroom, as one is confronted with a wall of unfamiliar terminology.
  
  And then there's the question of research's value. Some of it is justifiable, as research can reveal useful strategies or opportunities. Most of the time, though, it's a guilty pleasure that gets in the way of real work. The challenge is often keeping that in check.

Not the hardest part of making games.

• Pixel Art - Drawing game graphics is moderately hard work, but I enjoy it. It was harder and less enjoyable when I started, as the results were more frustrating. However, with practice, I'm getting better at producing the level of quality that I want, and I enjoy the process more. (The process grows faster, too.) The least enjoyable part of this job is when a piece requires other "infrastructure" art to help it.
  
  For example, drawing a new rifle is lots of fun. Drawing that same rifle again and again, once for held, worn, and stored versions, and again for the combat UI, then all of the above again for the strapped version, again for the scoped version, and again for the strapped, scoped version? Tedious. I'd rather draw a new rifle. However, for it to work in the game, it needs all of its requisite art done, not just the fun part.
• VFX - This one can be a lot of fun, but also very frustrating and complex. The cool thing about it is that subtle changes in code and art can make some really spectacular and interesting things happen. It's almost like a mini game development project within a larger project. (E.g. programming the flying, blinking lights in the Detroit map within NEO Scavenger, below).
  
  The hard part comes when the VFX requires complex algorithms, wrangling multiple coordinate spaces, or bypassing limitations in the platform (e.g. alpha blending that doesn't kill performance).

• Audio Design, Recording - Audio work is something I am terribly amateur at, but still enjoy immensely. As hinted at in my musings about Trent Reznor, I'd love to sit down with some audio equipment and just noodle for days. And I've even afforded myself a few such days during the course of NEO Scavenger, field recording, cutting and looping effects, and even composing a title screen piece (mercifully replaced by Josh Culler's great soundtrack work).
  
  It's not fun all the time, though. Sometimes, it means listening carefully to hours of recorded audio for useful bits, cleaning them up, slice and package them, and labeling them with tags for reference later. And in the worst cases, it can be doing this process over and over until it sounds "right."
  
  Frankly, producing good audio is a full-time job of its own, and I haven't given it the love it deserves. It's beyond my capacity right now, as features and bugs eat the lions share of my development time. I still want to, it's just been back-burnered while fish are frying.
• Programming - This is where a lot of time is spent. If I had to guess, this probably takes the largest share of my time. For just about everything I create in NEO Scavenger, some coding needs to be done to make it appear. Even coding sometimes requires more coding to work (i.e. bugs).
  
  As I approach the end of the project, that seems to be changing, though. Most of the early art/writing/design was for new systems that needed to be built. Now, I'm mostly filling in content variety in established categories, so the coding is shifting more towards maintenance and fixes.
  
  The difficulty and enjoyment in coding varies pretty wildly. Like with VFX above, coding can sometimes mean big changes from little code. This is also often the case when adding a design feature. At such times, coding is my favorite task.
  
  At other times, coding is a tedium that is hard to endure, or impossible to sort through. Rewriting the GUI for NEO Scavenger is one process that was agonizingly boring and involved. And some of the more complex problems can involve abstract and difficult thinking, especially when the system one is building is dependent on one or more systems that also haven't been built (or defined) yet.
• Writing - Writing may actually trump artwork, in terms of time spent on tasks. NEO Scavenger is pretty heavy on text, so a lot of work goes into planning and creating that text.
  
  As with many tasks above, there is fun writing, and there is boring writing. The fun writing comes when my brain is in the right mode, and I have trouble keeping up with it. The story just seems to flow, and I always know what to write next (at least roughly).
  
  The tedious part of writing comes when one needs to handle all the peripheral infrastructure. In NEO Scavenger, players can take multiple paths in encounters, and that means those paths have to be written. The tedium is helped a bit by the fact that I try to make each path interesting. However, nothing helps that sinking feeling when I realize, "ugh, they might do that, and that means a whole new string or tree of encounters I need to conjure up."
  
  The hard part of writing is rather like what I described in programming, above. When so little has been defined, it might seem like one has lots of freedom. However, that freedom can be paralyzing, as one is constantly second-guessing whether the idea or character is plausible, interesting, or whether it might sabotage the story somehow down the line.

"...and the player will be able to choose ANY action they want!"

• Game Design - Design is a bit hard to separate from the above, since it involves almost all of them. On a good day, it means recognizing clever ways of making two systems interact, producing a complexity greater than the sum of its parts. At times like these, one can almost enjoy their own game as if they're a new player, watching systems interact in surprising ways.
  
  On other days, there is a design problem that appears to have no good solution. I've spent days on some problems: thinking; starting down a path; recognizing a new issue; erasing; repeating. It can be very disheartening and frustrating. Sometimes, the problems with a new system don't emerge until all the work is done. Then, it becomes a trade-off between spending extensive time fixing, or extensive time rebuilding.
  
  And tedium can rear its head here, too. Some systems require reams of data entry and proofreading. Other times, navigating a web of interdependencies to ensure the systems don't undermine each other.
• Build and Platform Management - This refers to the process of getting the game to run on the platform of choice, whether it be a browser, Windows, Mac, or Linux. It also refers to the process of getting that game into the hands of the person who needs it, be they oneself, a collaborator, or a customer.
  
  I'll admit, there's little here that I enjoy. I'm thankful for some of the experiences I've had in making NEO Scavenger cross-platform, but I wouldn't call the work enjoyable. Mostly, it's a mixture of tedious and challenging.
  
  The challenge is usually wrestling with the idiosyncrasies of each platform, be they resolution, user input devices, UI conventions, performance, or unexpected bugs. Flash helps with much of this, but as it turns out, causes almost as many problems.
  
  The tedium is usually the actual build process for me. Creating each of the platform builds requires a lot of PC-hopping, file uploading, changelog-writing, and form-filling.

They LOOK friendly enough...

• PR - Interacting with press and public is a job in itself, and can take as much time as you offer. There will always be more conversations out there about your game than you can handle, so you have to set some limits to leave time for game development.
  
  Without a doubt, reading press and player feedback is my favorite part of PR. Praise can be highly motivating, as can constructive criticism. Even knowing that people are simply playing the game can raise one's confidence.
  
  I also enjoy learning about the art of promotion, and creating plans for publicity (e.g. special events, giveaways, strategic link placement, game festivals, etc.).
  
  I'm terrible at executing those plans, though. I hate asking people for things, so cold-calling press outlets is hard for me to do. I also have a hard time pulling the trigger on a PR event, knowing that "just one more" fix or feature would improve the first impression, perpetually delaying my plans.
  
  When it comes to customers, some interactions are easier than others. I love helping people, so if my response can offer something useful to the player, I feel good about it. Conversely, if I don't have anything helpful to offer the player, responding stresses me out.
  
  There are critics out there, but they're actually not as stressful as you might imagine. In cases where the criticism is valid and constructive, it's actually welcomed and helpful. And in cases where it's more insult than critique, it's easy to disregard.
• Team Management - NEO Scavenger may be a solo endeavor, but I have had help along the way. And most of my experience prior to Blue Bottle Games was with large teams.
  
  At its best, teamwork is awesome. Being surrounded by talented, creative, and motivated people can make you do amazing things, and create stellar products. Some of my happiest moments (in any career) were when surrounded by a tight team of bright minds with a shared vision.
  
  Working with Josh on NEO Scavenger's music, and Cameron on NEO Scavenger's story and design, was equally inspiring. They could see things I missed, and offer ideas I never would have, helping to produce a fuller, more professional game experience.
  
  If there's any tedium I experienced, it was due to one major mistake I made: making myself the bottleneck. There's nothing more mitigating to a high-performance machine than forcing it to drive in rush-hour traffic, and that's what I did with Josh and Cameron. I never built the infrastructure for collaborators to contribute directly, and I wanted to own as much of the process as possible. As a result, I slowed down their progress. One could argue that I failed at one of the greater challenges of team management: delegation.
  
  Of course, there can also be bad teams. I've been on my share of those as well, and they can cause no end of tedium and frustration (for both the members and managers). Diverging goals and opinions, authority issues, poor communication, and lack of clarity can ruin even the best collections of talent. Bad teams are jobs in themselves, and making games becomes a side project compared to keeping things from melt-down.
• Business Analysis - As with PR, this is an area I enjoy exploring quite a bit. And that came as a surprise to me.
  
  Learning about economics, business strategies, and entrepreneurship can be really addictive. I enjoy looking at the game I want to make, the market it's trying to reach, and hashing out features, pricing, sales channels, and partnerships to make it viable.
  
  Running the numbers can be tedious, of course. As can digesting info to keep one's picture of the market up-to-date. However, there's a certain Skinner-like reward to reading news about the industry, and suddenly recognizing an opportunity your product is poised to take advantage of. It's one of those rare moments in life when your "money-making idea" can actually do what it says on the tin.
  
  The hard part, here, is often just finding useful information. Nobody is in the business of writing "A Market Analysis Tailored for Dan Fedor." There's a lot of filling in blanks with educated guesses, extrapolating data, and in some cases, blind faith. Will your next game idea be a hit? Nobody knows. Even the AAA analysts are clueless here.

Let's not forget DIY desktop support.

• Testing and Debugging - When folks say things like, "oh, you just play games all day?" this is probably of what they're thinking. And they're wrong.
  
  Just about everyone on a game dev team tests and debugs their work. Or at least, anyone worth their salt does. Fire up the game, navigate to the area where your recent work shows up, and start testing it.
  
  This can actually be a pretty fascinating area of work. It rewards good experimental method, note-taking, statistical analysis, and deduction. Sometimes, it can feel like forensics or detective work. And yes, once in a while, you get a chance to play through a section to see how it "feels."
  
  Unfortunately, this type of work can also require a lot of patience and persistence. It's not good enough that one tests entering combat and exiting again. One has to test cases where the player initiates combat with AI, AI with player, player with AI already in combat with AI, AI with player vs. AI. What if the player dies instead of leaving? The AI? What if one AI leaves and another stays? What if the player leaves, and more than one AI stays?
  
  There can be a combinatorial multitude of scenarios to test, and doing this job right means testing them all. Worse yet, once a change is made to the system, this entire suite of tests needs to be run again. And changes to the system are always happening.
  
  Some testing can be quite frustrating, too. A notorious example in NEO Scavenger are the null-pointer bugs that only show up later in a game session. They're frustrating because the cause is unclear, and one must play the game for long periods before the bug might appear. And often, the symptom of the bug varies from game-to-game, making it hard to tell if two bugs are related. If the bug cannot be caused reliably, and requires long periods of play to trigger, imagine trying to fix it. And worse, verifying that the fix works.
• Project Management - In an ideal world, each developer could just release the game they want, when they want to. In reality, the pressures of time, budget, and manpower impinge on that ideal. Project management is the process of quantifying those needs and constraints, and finding the compromise that balances those forces best.
  
  A lot of folks picture project management as Gantt charts, scrum, status meetings, and spreadsheets. And a lot of project management involves those things.
  
  However, all of us do some amount of project management subconsciously when we assess the value of a new feature against our capabilities, schedule, and budget. Whether it's a customer asking for widescreen format support, or a teammate asking for alpha channels in their sprites, we're assessing cost vs. value somehow in our decision-making process.
  
  There is little that I enjoy about this process, honestly. Gathering data can be a lot of work, it often involves telling people "no," and the results are based on a lot of guesswork.
  
  That said, the process can reveal useful questions and concerns that are missed in more casual assessments. It can also serve as a common reference point for discussions among others. Even as a solo developer, it can be very helpful to have a to-do list that I can sort by effort, value, finished/unfinished, or other criteria.
  
  So, for me, it's one of those things I'm glad to have done, but dislike doing.
• Taxes and Accounting - If you're running your own business, the CRA/IRS wants to know what you earn. And likely, you'll want to know as well.
  
  There is nothing enjoyable nor rewarding about doing taxes. It is 100% tedium and challenge, so I'll leave it at that.
  
  Accounting can be grueling, but the rewards are there if done right. It's important to know how one's business is performing, in order to make sound decisions. And it can sometimes be an ego boost if sales are good. But it's a lot of careful, detailed work, and it can involve some challenges of data-management and research.

More fun than taxes.

Some Additional Hard Parts About Making AAA Games

There are quite a few other areas that I could discuss, particularly from the point of view of a larger team. NEO Scavenger is a pretty small undertaking compared to AAA efforts, and I don't (yet) have to worry about such things as:

• Animation - Either traditional or 3D rigging, keyframing, motion capture, and the like.
• 3D Modeling - 3D models include characters, environment art, props, etc.
• Materials - The development of textures, shaders, and other surface material properties for models.
• Lighting - 3D worlds, and even some 2D worlds, require sources of light to be placed strategically.
• Cinematics - Positioning cameras, moving them around, as well as managing the content being shown, settings for playback, and related work.
• Localization - Translating the game for multiple markets.
• Physics - Assigning volumes and physical properties to items in the game world.
• Licensing - Negotiating permission to use licensed properties.
• Other - And everything else I've forgotten about.

What is the Hardest Part About Making Games?

So what is the hardest part about making games? You may have noticed a pattern in the list above, having to do with the aspects which I find tedious or difficult. "God is in the detail," as they say, and this is as true in game development as any other field.

Dabbling in an art or science is fun, but due diligence is work. The hardest part of any task above is when I have to get my hands dirty and follow through with all the details. There's a reason organizations usually have a limited number of leaders with the broad-strokes vision, and an army of workers to do the detail work.

However, even the tasks listed above are manageable on their own. Many are measured in hours, days, or weeks, and not much worse than school assignments in that respect.

The hardest, in my opinion, is finishing a game. Spending hours each day, every day, consecutively for over two years. Waking up on day 520 of NEO Scavenger, and finding the motivation to do one more. That's the hard part. I like making games, but even I get tired of making the same game after all that time.

Don't mind if I do.

The hardest part of making a game is finishing it. For all the things I can do on my project, that's the one I still haven't.

Return from Vacation, and the Road Ahead

I apologize for the previous gap in updates. Rochelle and I were at the beach with my family for a few weeks, and I made it a point not to do any more work-related stuff than was necessary.

I could get used to these.

Unsurprisingly, work still crept in, here and there. I cut down my email and web administration duties to once every other day, but it still took a few hours each time. There isn't really anyone to cover for me in these cases, so I'm on the hook for order issues, spambot surge mitigation, and customer inquiries. One alternative would be to "go dark" for several weeks, but that seems like an irresponsible thing to do when running a business, particularly where customer support is a component.

As such, vacation wasn't a complete break from the stress. Nothing critical arose during the break, thankfully, but it was still something that was in the back of my head. Work check-in was never more than a day or two away, and more significantly, a giant to-do list awaited me when I returned.

I think that while previous vacations have taught me that vacations are necessary and healthy, this vacation added the caveat that vacations can be diminished by obligation. Basically, there would either have to be no obligations to fulfill, or someone to fill those obligations for me in order to completely relax, stress-free.

The former requires that NEO Scavenger be finished and support-free. Admittedly, that goal is pretty far off, if even possible. More than likely, there will be a long tail of support and attention required, no matter how bulletproof I make the game. Platforms evolve, partnerships are formed, and other changes in the business landscape mean that a product is never truly dead (see Homeworld, Wasteland, etc.)

The latter requires that I expand the team, which is a daunting goal in itself. Questions of trust, availability, motivation, and compensation are each topics that require their own, significant, due diligence. I've long been reluctant to let anyone into the sandbox, and these are some of the big reasons why.

It's time to "start finishing."

As such, my current goal is to "level up" NEO Scavenger, and make it newsworthy again. A little more work, and I can at least consider the demo "done," making it ripe for sharing with portal sites like Kongregate and NewGrounds. That should hopefully make new players aware of the game, and if the beta looks like a worthwhile-enough upgrade, drive new sales as well.

The increased awareness would help with the Greenlight campaign, which is a bid for more PR and sales in itself. There are some contests I'm considering, as well as some "taste makers" I'd like to finally contact, now that NEO Scavenger is maturing.

And if things go smoothly, I can see either finishing the home stretch personally (albeit slowly), or maybe investing a little money to speed the remainder of the content work.

It's a scary moment, one of those crossroads where I endlessly find excuses to avoid taking the next step, but it's time to get into high gear. Whatever happens, I'm already happy with the outcome so far, and I only have more to gain from moving forward.

Plus, peace and rest waits for me over that next hill, and I never thought that would be such an enticing goal.

Cross-Play

Recently, I was contacted by a couple of digital games vendors (ShinyLoot and Amazon Digital Games) about the possibility of selling NEO Scavenger on their services.

First of all, that's great news! It's encouraging to have folks asking to host NEO Scavenger. And those services each represent good-but-different opportunities to serve a greater market. I look forward to exploring those, and other, options further as NEO Scavenger approaches completion.

The point of this post, however, is more about the big picture, and how to properly balance NEO Scavenger's sale across multiple vendors. Specifically, I want to muse on the topic of "cross play."

What Is Cross-Play?

When I say "cross-play," what I'm referring to is the ability to buy a game from one service, and to have that unlock access on other services. I realize there are a few definitions of "cross-play" out there, but for the purposes of this post, it's about buying the game once, and playing anywhere.

In the case of NEO Scavenger, buying beta access at bluebottlegames.com automatically grants access on Desura. Similarly, buying a copy of the game on Desura allows the user to unlock a copy at bluebottlegames.com, using the Desura Connect feature.

When NEO Scavenger was sold in the Be Mine 5 bundle, Desura keys were given out, so those customers were also eligible for cross-play. Though in retrospect, that was less than fully effective: many customers didn't realize they had Desura keys, and weren't aware how to update, or even that they could. I should probably see about doing keys-only, rather than binaries plus keys, in the future to reduce confusion.

Why Provide Cross-Play?

One of the biggest reasons to provide cross-play is simply because it makes the customer happy. Customers feel like they're part of something bigger, and dealing with a business that values them more than their dollar. It let's them know that no matter which store they bought your product in, they're your customer, and you appreciate them just the same. And customers who feel appreciated are more likely to return for future business.

It also helps keep the audience fragmentation to a minimum. If communities were to develop at each storefront, then those communities may diverge over time, making it difficult to satisfy all tastes as they become incompatible. Smoothing out inroads between communities helps everyone stay on the same page, and helps keep the audience united.

There are also marketing advantages to providing cross-play. Customers who are pleased with the arrangement are more likely to recommend it to friends. And the relative rarity of cross-play may mean the press finds it a newsworthy business practice.

It can also accelerate sales, in the case of a gradual product roll-out (as is the case with NEO Scavenger). Knowing that one's preferred service will be supported in the future sometimes causes hesitation in customers, as they'd prefer to wait until the game comes out there. However, if purchasing the game now entitles them to a free unlock on their service of choice later, then there's no reason to wait. This was particularly the case with Steam users, as noted by the comments in NEO Scavenger's Greenlight page.

Lastly, there's a neat technical benefit to having cross-play enabled for one's game: redundancy. If something fails on one service, there's a way to get affected customers up and running again on a different cross-play service.

A recent example of this was when a new build was launched on Friday to both bluebottlegames.com and Desura. The new version went live immediately on bluebottlegames.com, but the Desura version was awaiting authorization over the weekend. Customers who wanted access right away simply used the connect feature to get the latest version at bluebottlegames.com instead.

Why Not?

One of the first reasons most will think of against providing cross-play is that there's a potential hit to sales. This is probably true. Anecdotal evidence abounds for customers buying and re-buying the same game across different services as they become available. Some are accidental (e.g. losing a CD or key), others are intentional (e.g. wanting the game in their Steam library for convenience). In some cases, they're even points of pride for the customer ("I love this game so much I bought it five times!").

In the first two cases, the customer is repurchasing the game for their own benefit. In the third case, it's primarily benefiting the developer. With cross-play, the customer can still repurchase the game if they want to, so the third situation is unchanged.

The important thing to remember about the first two cases is that customers who don't want to repurchase the game no longer have to. It might cost the developer the price of a new (or discounted) copy, but it gains the developer some good will. And I'd rather have an existing customer's good will than their additional $10 or less.

There is the possibility of customers giving cross-play keys to friends, so I suppose that's a consideration. I'm not really one to police pirates, though. And I figure that if they're going to pirate the game, cross-play doesn't greatly change their ability over the DRM-free version I sell now.


Technical feasibility may be a bigger reason. So far, cross-play between Desura and bluebottlegames.com has been pretty easy to implement. Desura has a workflow already setup for this, and adding a custom one to my site was entirely up to me. I want to do the same with Steam, though I may only be able to provide one-way unlocks (e.g. bluebottlegames.com customers get Steam keys, but not the other way around) depending on whether Steam has any mechanisms in place for cross-play.

Furthermore, each new case creates an increasing amount of integration work, and it would likely grow out of hand pretty quickly. There are a lot of services out there. E.g. ShinyLoot, Amazon, Good Old Games, Impulse, Origin, Google, iTunes, Ubuntu Software Center, etc. They all likely have different capabilities.

As such, it may be the case that my cross-play plans are impossible across 100% of vendors, even if I had the manpower.

Selective Cross-Play

In all likelihood, 100% reciprocal cross-play will not be possible as I offer NEO Scavenger in more places. So I'll need to come up with an acceptable compromise. The alternative would be to ignore sales channels that didn't offer cross-play tools.

I already suspect Steam is a one-way street in this regard, and cutting out Steam from sales channels would be pretty dumb. In fact, I think most online storefronts lack Desura's "connect" feature, so I may be living in a fantasy land right now.

One thing I can still do, however, is enable cross-play from bluebottlegames.com some other services. I.e. if they purchase at my site, they can get free keys to Steam, Desura, and maybe another service to two. More than likely, Steam and Desura are all most players care about anyway.

Plus, offering the one-way cross-play radiating out from bluebottlegames.com makes it somewhat more attractive to buy it there. The customer could still get a version on the service they want, plus elsewhere in the network. And more of the purchase money goes into developing new games. That seems like a nice win-win.

I'll have to see how this plays out, though. So far, I've been pretty lucky in that my only other vendor, Desura, makes this cross-play easy to do. So I've been treating it as my preferred business practice. But as I start working with new vendors, I'm see that the cross-play option is going to be complex to support.

Hopefully, I can find a way that is both sustainable and appreciated by my customers!

Marketing: From Passive to Active

To-date, NEO Scavenger's had a pretty low-key marketing strategy. As a title that's still under development, there haven't been many points where I felt comfortable actually driving folks to the game. I always figured that I should wait until I can put on the best show possible before I pump a lot of resources into marketing. As such, NEO Scavenger's been in a "passive" marketing mode.

Passive Marketing

Passive marketing mode is "word of mouth" marketing. I.e. the "soft sell." Rather than going out and seizing eyeballs and ears, I'm building something worth experiencing, and letting satisfied customers do the talking for me.

I'll gladly talk about NEO Scavenger to anyone who asks. I give interviews, give review copies to journalists when requested, and actively participate in fan discussions when I can. But I've only initiated a few marketing initiatives of my own, outside of bluebottlegames.com.

I've read in more than a few places that this is a terrible strategy for indie developers. The "build it and they will come" strategy, while comfortable for introverts like me, is not known for being very effective. And I think there's validity to that argument. Unless it's the right set of circumstances, or something that has an element of virality, word of mouth is a pretty unreliable method of marketing.

However, the soft sell has its place in a marketing strategy. For one thing, it's a good time to test the waters, and see how your product is received on a small scale before going big. You'll have time to see how the product behaves in the wild, see how people perceive it, assess feedback, and improve the product. Maybe people are excited about different elements than you expected, or your big selling point is still broken?

Plus, some target audiences are more receptive to a softer sales pitch (or no pitch at all). As a member of the audience my game targets, I can say with some authority that I appreciate a product that doesn't excessively toot its own horn. I like finding a product that is honest in its advertising, and sets appropriate expectations, rather than resorting to fanfare and hyperbole.

The operative clause above, though, is "before going big." Word of mouth shouldn't be one's only marketing tool. Instead, use it where appropriate, and plan on mixing it with some active strategies when the time is right.

Active Marketing

Active marketing is pretty familiar to most of us, by definition. From ads to interviews, "Let's Plays" to AMAs, it's the messaging with which we get bombarded every waking hour. "You can't buy it if you don't know it exists," as they say, and active marketing is trying to remove that very obstacle.

I think NEO Scavenger is starting to near a point where active marketing makes more sense. One of the biggest obstacles to enjoying NEO Scavenger has been legibility of its substantial text, and ugly aliasing when trying to play above the native 800x600 resolution. With fixes for those issues imminent, I think it's time for me to start warming up the marketing engine.

Building a Strategy

Even though NEO Scavenger's been "on the QT" so far, I've actually been building a strategy behind the scenes since day one. Whenever an opportunity for active marketing popped up, I may have passed it up, but I still made a note to myself for later. For example, IGF 2011 would've been pretty premature for NEO Scavenger, since the game was not even playable at that time. However, I made a note to look it up later, when it made more sense. All of these notes are in a text file that I've creatively named "PR.txt."

Since I'm starting to review this process, I figured I'd share some of my notes with any other readers who may be formulating marketing strategies of their own. In no particular order, here are some ideas to consider:

• Press Kit - This is actually pretty useful even during passive marketing. Basically, it's a handy collection of anything a journalist would need to feature your game in their publication. Usually, it includes several screenshots, gameplay videos, company and game logos in some print-ready format (or high enough resolution for print), and any other relevant materials you can offer (such as company info, team member bios, etc.).
• Rami Ismail has actually put together a DIY press kit that many indies have used with success.
• Website - This should be done as soon as possible, way back in the passive marketing phase, if possible. Having a website is pretty much a requirement these days. You could get by without one, but if you're serious about building a brand and a community, you should consider how folks are going to find more of your work after they discover you. This is a whole topic unto itself, and I've already discussed website and business planning a bit.
• Game Journals - Contacting your preferred game magazine is probably the bread and butter of a game marketing strategy. Gamers each have their journal of choice, so it's a good idea to figure out which ones your audience reads, and see if any journalists there might be interested in doing a piece on you or your game.
• While a comprehensive listing of game journals and how to contact them is beyond this article's scope, there are some really great resources out there on this topic.
• Sales Channels - Whether you think of them as such or not, sales channels are a form of marketing. Players will discover games as they shop for games, so having your game in their store of choice increases the chance your game will be discovered. And while big names like Steam, Desura, and GoG may come to mind, don't overlook more niche locations. Often the smaller or newer channels mean the competition is lighter, giving your product a greater chance of being noticed.
• GamersGate
• Google
• iTunes
• Impulse
• Ubuntu Software Centre
• Amazon
• etc.
• Festivals - Indie games are fortunate in that they are often celebrated in festivals expressly designed to highlight their unique styles. While not every festival is a good fit for every game, many can be a great way to raise awareness for your title. Plus, many offer prizes to winners!
• Pixel Prospector has already compiled a handy list here.
• Kickstarter - Kickstarter is a fund-raising tool, first and foremost. However, that almost always has the side-effect of raising awareness of the product along with the funds (in fact, even if the funding fails). While I don't think Kickstarter is right for NEO Scavenger right now, it might be something you're considering. And if so, it makes sense to use it in synergy with your other marketing efforts.
• Greenlight - Rumors of Greenlight's demise may or may not be greatly exaggerated. However, for the time being, it still represents an opportunity to raise awareness for one's game. NEO Scavenger garnered some considerable publicity as a result of Greenlight participation. However, the hints at Greenlight going away, coupled with the $100 entry fee, may mean it's best saved for games which already have some marketing working for them, or are expected to go viral somehow. Based on stats I see for the top 100 games, it appears it's still possible to skyrocket into the top slots with good marketing, but the long, steady climb may not pan-out anytime soon.
• Bundles - As I discovered last October, bundles can have a pretty significant effect on publicity. Bundles combine the traditional deep discount motivator with cross-promotion between games to produce a strong synergy of sales. There are probably more owners of NEO Scavenger from that one 5-day bundle sale than there are from NEO Scavenger's entire year of sales.
  
  The down-side, however, is that these customers have usually paid a small fraction of the asking price for the game. In my case, some 16k customers bought the bundle, but my share of the revenue was only $5400 (before income taxes). So the average sale price for each of those copies was only about $0.30-0.40. That, and some fraction of the game owners weren't interested in NEO Scavenger, but rather bought the bundle for other games.
  
  Still, that's a significant number of people who have the game, whereas before they didn't. Getting the game in front of a player is often the hardest part!
• IndieKings.com has a comprehensive list of game bundles.
• Promotions - While bundles combine deep discounts with cross-selling, the discount can be a formidable source of publicity on its own. Steam's holiday sales are nothing short of a media event these days, as are the GoG sales. Putting your game on sale for a limited time can spur renewed interest, as can interesting pricing schemes.
• Piracy - I include piracy as a subheading here because it can be a form of discount promotion. Sean Hogan has creatively leveraged piracy to this end, offering his game freely in exchange for the increased publicity and Greenlight exposure.
• Demos - Having a demo is a powerful way to increase awareness of your game. Demos let players see if they really enjoy the game. And a good demo may be so engaging that the customer is enticed to buy the game, to access more of the same experience.
• Portals - There are several websites which specialize in hosting game-related files and demos. Like with digital storefronts, having a presence on such a site provides a boost to awareness. Often times, these same demos will be picked up by other sites as well, further increasing your game's spread. This is particularly the case in the Flash demo scene. Just make sure that your demo includes some way for the player to find you should they decide your game is worth their time and money.
• Let's Plays - Quite a few folks like to record playthroughs of games, and publish them with commentary on the web. Sometimes, these are simply fans who want to share, or show various strategies. Other times, these can be widely-known video producers with huge followings.
  
  Whether you plan for this or not, it's going to come up. So it's best to decide how you'd like to handle Let's Plays and other videos of your game early. It wasn't long before I was asked for permission, and in some cases, you may be asked to sign paperwork authorizing them to publish videos of your game, depending on the video service.
• Once again, I have to defer to Pixel Prospector here, as they maintain an excellent list of YouTubers.
• Videos - Let's Plays aren't the only video format that can be useful for promoting your game. Creating videos with gameplay footage, teasers, or backstory can provide yet another a way for customers to explore the world you're creating. Some folks prefer watching a video over playing a demo or reading, so this opens up the game to that demographic. Plus, if the video is hosted on a socially-enabled website, viewers can easily share your video with others, or post it in reviews and other articles. Some places to consider publishing your game videos:
• YouTube - Probably the easiest to do, by far. Offers monetization via ads, though I would tend to stay away from any advertising to avoid branding confusion.
• Vimeo - Another popular video service with emphasis on creativity and quality, though it's had some run-ins with indies in the past.
• Any place your game is sold online (e.g. your website, Desura, Steam)
• Ask Me Anything - AMAs are pretty much what they sound like. You'll find quite a few game devs conducting these on Reddit, or similar. In practice, I find I'm doing a little bit of this every day, in various locations around the net. However, setting one up personally can lend an air of authenticity to the discussion, and help centralize and focus it, which might help it grow to larger proportions.
• Forums - Discussions tend to pop up all over the net, and I'll often swing by to read comments as they develop. I have my own forums, of course, and they provide the greatest volume and detail of all. However, it doesn't hurt to keep an eye out for discussions elsewhere, as they can often provide useful feedback of their own.
• Social Tools - It's also worth considering which social channels you plan to use. Every person has their preferred suite of social tools, and every one you support caters to that type of person. A word of caution, though: don't bite off more than you can chew. A stale or abandoned social channel can cause as much harm as good.
• Twitter - Very popular with indie developers. Provides easy sharing, direct access to fans, and all in bite-sized chunks.
• Facebook - A lot of indies have setup Facebook pages or sites for their companies and games. Provides a means for fans and developers to communicate directly. Can also be a cheap alternative to a website for burgeoning indies. However, be careful about making Facebook (or any third party service) the official site for your game. If things ever turn sour with the service, they've got your community as a hostage.
• Subreddit - Reddit can be a powerful tool for promoting content, if that content proves popular. A number of developers have setup specific subreddits, and often post updates to their projects, or other promotions.
• Conventions - Having a presence at a game convention can mean a couple of things. One option is to rent a booth, and show your game on the expo floor along with other developers. Alternatively, you could try to get a speaking gig, and use it as an opportunity to garner more focused attention. Game conventions each have a different flavor and style, so there's no guarantee a convention will be the right fit for your game. However, if you can find a way to make your game work with the format of the con', it can be useful for meeting fans and other devs alike. And if your presentation or personality are memorable, it can really stick with visitors long after the show is over.

There are others, for sure. Just about anything can be used as a tool for raising awareness, with the application of an appropriate amount of creativity and elbow grease. In particular, see if there are certain strengths you can leverage which set you apart from the crowd. Uniqueness usually more than compensates for volume, and is cheaper!

A Note About Messaging

Before closing, it's worth pointing out the importance of messaging. Take some time to get a real handle on what it is about your game that makes you special. Why would customers care about your game? What types of customers would most like your game?

As Tadhg Kelly puts it, You Need a Marketing Story.

The better you can tailor your messaging to the intended audience, the more effective it will be. Similarly, the more you can narrow your focus, the higher the chance is of getting through. Trying to reach "everyone" puts you in direct competition with AAA marketing. In that arena, money wins more often than merit. And believe me, they can outspend you.

So stay light. Stay nimble. Use guerilla tactics. And most importantly, be interesting. We're game designers and developers, after all. If anyone is equipped to design an engaging experience, it's gotta be us.

On Resolution and Fonts

I wanted to talk a bit about screen resolution and fonts today. A larger resolution and font has been one of the most requested features in NEO Scavenger, and it has come time to do something about it.

Where We Are Now

NEO Scavenger currently runs at 800x600 resolution. Back when I was first making the decision on resolution, I chose 1280x800, half my monitor resolution, so I could see full-screen with 2x scaled pixel art. Shortly after that, I switched to 1280x720 (720p), to better align with standard HD.

However, since NEO Scavenger was originally intended as a portal-sponsored title, I decided to scale it down to 800x600, using 1x scaled pixel art. It was a tough decision (I liked the 2x scaled look), but it made better business sense at the time. (Portals typically have an upper limit of 800 pixels for game width.)

Outside of the portals, though, 800x600 is a pretty restrictive resolution. And while NEO Scavenger can be played in resizable windows, the nearest-neighbor scaling can make things pretty ugly. So if players want to see NEO Scavenger in a larger format, what resolution makes the most sense?

User Statistics

Before deciding on a new resolution, I thought it would be helpful to see what most users have. Unfortunately, that's one statistic the in-game NEO Scavenger metrics don't track.

However, one benefit of running one's own storefront, and hosting one's own game, is that I have website logs to turn to. It's not as good as tracking that info from within the game, but it's pretty close. So I opened up Google Analytics to take a look:

Figure 1: Total Visits Sorted by Screen Resolution

Hm, that's not as clear-cut as I had hoped. The top 10 resolutions only cover about 57% of all users. Worse still, look at the lower right hand corner. That's right, there are 1336 different screen resolutions used to view bluebottlegames.com! (Also, damn! Missed it by one!)

Ok, so it looks like we'll need to do some data-slicing and bucketing.

Aspect Ratio

What about aspect ratio? Overall screen size may vary quite a bit, but surely most are either standard (e.g. 4:3) or widescreen (e.g. 16:9), right?

As it turns out, between the various device types (LCD monitors, laptops, netbooks, tablets, phones, index spiders) and display configurations (portrait vs. landscape, single vs. multiple displays), there are ~400 aspect ratios in the logs.

Fortunately, this is their distribution:

Figure 2: Histogram of Aspect Ratios

In other words, only a handful of aspect ratios are in significant quantity. And if one looks closely at the values along the x-axis, many of these aspect ratios are only marginally different. So I ran some algorithms on the data to group things further.

First, I grouped identical displays with different orientations, so portrait and landscape orientations were combined (with the largest dimension reported as width). I realize this may not be perfect, since users who prefer their monitors in portrait mode may not be willing to rotate their screen to fit a wide game screen.

However, since NEO Scavenger is a landscape-oriented game, accommodating portrait mode on most monitors would restrict the game screen considerably. It's current width of 800 pixels would already break the limits on many monitors. Besides, I suspect most gamers will have a landscape orientation, as that's how most games are designed.

Second, I grouped similar aspect ratios such that there was a +/- 8% tolerance in the final aspect ratio value. For example, 1.7708 and 1.7778 would be in the same group, but 1.6 would not. Doing so reduced the spread considerably:

Figure 3: Histogram of Aspect Ratios, 8% Tolerance

Now we're starting to see some familiar faces. 16:9 is the HDTV ratio, used with displays that are meant for 720p (1280x720) and 1080p/1080i (1920x1080), as well as many widescreen computers and tablets (e.g. WXGA). 4:3 is the SDTV ratio, which was common in older televisions and desktop computers, such as 1024x768 (XGA), 800x600, 640x480, etc.

16:10 is also quite common in desktop displays, as well as many tablets. And 5:4 is a common ratio found in many non-widescreen LCD displays.

Five buckets is a much easier dataset to digest. And fortunately, the answer seems pretty clear: the vast majority of users (~80%) are on a widescreen aspect ratio.

Screen Size

So what about the actual screen sizes? Assuming I decided on a widescreen format, what size would fit the largest number of users' screens?

To answer this, I took the most common 16:9, 16:10, and 4:3 resolutions, plus a handful of other common resolutions from the top of the web logs, and calculated what percentage of users could display each size without cropping. Here's what I found:

Figure 4: % Users Supported at Various Game Resolutions

Again, it looks like we're pretty fortunate. There are 5 screen sizes that would each support 90% or more of my site's visitors.

480x320 is there because it was one of the top 15 screen sizes, but it's a bit deceptive. It's actually a common smartphone screen size (e.g. iPhone, BlackBerry, etc.), so it's not likely players of the game as much as web surfers. Furthermore, the number of users in this screen size only account for about 1% of all users. They just have a tightly-grouped bucket. Like I said, deceptive.

That leaves us with 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x720, and 1280x768. I'd really like to do a widescreen format, since the data shows that most users have that aspect ratio. However, both the 1280x720 and 1280x768 formats would leave ~10% of the site visitors with a squashed or cropped screen.

However, as I'm mulling over these values, a thought occurs to me.

Steam User Data

Each year, Steam does a hardware survey of its users, and publishes the results. And with over 6 million concurrent gamers at peak, that's a lot of useful data.

So I grabbed their screen size data, did some number crunching, and applied the same filters and sorting as above. Here's what I found:

Figure 5: Histogram of Aspect Ratios, 8% Tolerance (with Steam)

Figure 6: % Users Supported at Various Game Resolutions (with Steam)

First of all, it's good to see similar numbers. I can't say for sure if my calculations are accurate, but at least they're precise :)

Once again, we see that widescreen is a big winner. And in fact, the gap between 16:9 and 16:10 is more pronounced. Perhaps even more heartening is that the top two widescreen resolutions are more widely available to Steam users. Just about 95% for 1280x720, and 94% for 1280x768.

The "Right" Resolution

So what's the "right" resolution for NEO Scavenger? I'm leaning towards 1280x720. Knowing that widescreen is more widely supported than not, I'd prefer to chose a widescreen format. The question is, which one?

Of the widescreen formats, it seems 1280x720 (720p) and 1280x768 (WXGA) are the two most viable. 720p is slightly more widely supported than WXGA in both my and Steam's users, so that's one reason to prefer that format. 720p also seems like a more standardized format, since it is the HDTV standard, and many devices are designed to support it for that reason (tablets, consoles, projectors, etc.).

The main reason to go with 1280x768 would be to get the extra vertical real-estate. However, when looking up screen sizes, it occurred to me that many 16:10 devices are computers, and this extra vertical height might be a design response to the OS taskbar. It's possible that designing software for 16:9 still fits a 16:10 monitor better, since it leaves room for tabs or other OS UI.

I can also see that 16:9 outstrips 16:10 considerably, in pure aspect ratio terms. It would seem that no matter the reasoning behind 16:10, 16:9 simply has more reasons to choose it.

So, 720p it is.

What About the 10%?

Unfortunately, choosing 720p still makes life difficult for 10% of my users (or 5% if you judge by Steam's numbers). What about them?

And what about the Flash portals? I'm always saying how I'd like to publish NEO Scavenger's demo on portals for broader awareness. Won't this screw that up?

It does. And to the question prior: I'd like to support them too, if possible. So my current plan is to see if there's some way I can setup the UI to work in both 800x600 and 1280x720 modes. It's a daunting task, since the available real-estate is quite different. And it means storing either two different sets of coordinates and zoom, or else some sort of UI-scaling rules.

Neither are going to be trivial. But I think it's at least worth trying.

And What About Fonts?

Right, I mentioned fonts too, didn't I?

Fonts are another area that needs improvement in NEO Scavenger. More than a few users have complained of eye strain trying to read the tiny pixel font in NEO Scavenger.

I'd like to just bump up the font size, and be done with it. However, the font I'm using is actually a custom made one. So simply scaling it up won't make it clearer. It'll still be pixelated, because that's how it was designed.

I briefly started toying with 3rd party fonts, like Arial, Verdana, etc., but then the question of licensing popped into my head. I did some research, and for a moment, thought I was in the clear. Then I saw a comment that gave me pause.

So I did some more research, and then it seemed like I was in the clear again (search for the string "SWF" in that last adobe.com link). Unfortunately, after an hour-and-a-half of this ping-pong, I was only learning one thing: font licensing is in a state of hell, and I want to have nothing to do with it.

My current leaning is to just eat the time cost and make my own font again, just for a larger size this time. The only thing that bothers me is that I don't want to "guess and check" a bunch of times if each time means designing a font. They don't take too long to make if you know what you're doing, but I can't afford to make 15 different fonts just to find out each doesn't look right.

So what I may do is use well-known fonts to gauge the size and style I want, then go make my own in the same style and size.

Scaling

Lastly, a note about scaling. Whatever screen size I choose, it won't fit everyone's screen. So when the game goes to full screen, it won't always be a perfect fit. So I have some choices to make.

The first one is whether or not to scale at all. I think this one's a given. Some folks just want to zoom in, and see things bigger. So I plan to make the game scale up to fit the full screen, but maintain the aspect ratio, using black to pad the extra space. I'll probably also add an option to just leave it at 1x zoom with black bars at full screen, for those who want it (should be trivial to add).

The second is what type of filtering to use. Up until now, it used the default flixel nearest-neighbor filtering. This type of filtering produces clean, crisp images when zooming in whole increments (e.g. 2x, 3x, 4x). However, fractional zooms (e.g. 1.5, 2.1) produce horrendous artifacts. This is likely the source of many font complaints so far.

I could switch it to use bicubic (or similar) filtering. This would make things look smoother when scaled, but would also introduce blurring. I opted not to do this originally because it's usually better used on photos than pixel art.

However, it may be an improvement over nearest-neighbor if I am to allow non-integer scaling of the game (which is likely, given the wide array of screen sizes in use). I think other games, even pixel art games, are doing this nowadays, too.

And then there's the question of whether to change fonts when scaling. This might be overkill, but it might look better if graphics use one filter, and fonts another. I haven't tested it out yet, though.

For now, I'm getting things setup for alternate screen sizes in the code, so I can start testing these ideas. I welcome any advice or experience on the matter!