The kong community had been good to me with feedback and suggestions. i figure why not help some of you newer developers improve your projects with constructive, honest feedback. I will rate your game honestly, and post my suggestions in the comments of your game, or PM you, whatever you prefer. just list your game and info like this. keep in mind, this is for newer developers, and not so much for guys who already know what they are doing. a) My Awesome Game (link) b) How long you have been developing games c) Comment or Private message you my feedback d) anything special you want me to look at (optional) ready….. go!

Here we go! 1)[Little Pixel Heroes](http://www.kongregate.com/games/ethrich/lph) 2) 2 weeks 4)… comments are welcome !

i gave it a good go… here are some general things to keep an eye on. 1) Just because you understand how the game works, don’t assume the players will. It took me way to long to figure out where to click. mouse over tips and small instructions here and there go along way. 2) playtest your game to make sure that things don’t get weird 10+ levels in. health bars and other text not visible or distorted. 3) Cramming everything onto one screen can be too much to the eyes sometimes. consider breaking things apart into different screens. if you must display it all, devise a clever way to display something. prioritize what will be visible and large, and what is secondary and not so important to show. hope this helps. let me know if you update your game, i will check it again.

I’m working on a new version, thanks for the info ! hope to get some more next time !!

a) [Legend of the Ender Dragon](http://logd.uphero.com) b) 2-3 Years c) Comment

on it :)

I know you said that this was primarily for new devs, so its no problem if you skip over my request. But I’m really looking for comments on my new game and no-one has left any yet(the suspense is killing me — and this game in particular was a really off-the wall idea for me). a) [InfOS](http://www.kongregate.com/games/BryceSummer/infos) b) Almost 10 years now. c) Comment, please :) d) The game is very abstract — at many points you will think its over but it isn’t. This is by design. Like I said it was a really “out-there” concept for me.

LOED… Well, as you can see from my previous post, i am not really into plain HTML games, but my review won’t cover that. 1) Way to much stuff to read on that front welcome screen. Try to cut back all the clutter, and make the important buttons big and readable. 2) Those Side nav bars are very unintuitive and confusing. I would leave them open with an option to close, and only use one side. Maybe the right side. Make it so there are sub navigation menus under one menu, rahter than trying to split the info up on 2 navs. 3) Font sizes, Colors, and overall graphical appeal needs much more work. 4) I had a VERY hard time understanding what i was looking at, what i was supposed to do. no guide or tutorial to get me off the ground. I was almost shocked (and extermely confused) when the main section loaded up and there was a modern city. Legend of Ender Dragon does NOT sound like a game that takes place in modern day. You have to be very careful to label the game , the description, and screenshots properly. if you mislead the players in anyway, off they go to the next game. sadly, i could not even figure out how to do anything. The game does look alittle complex, which i am very into, but if after 30 minutes of clicking around trying to get my bearings, i got frustrated and gave up. i felt as if i was on a website that was supposed to be a game but wasn’t Anyway, if you make any more improvements, let me know and i will give it another go.

infOS…. The concept and presentation of this game was kinda neat. the graphics and all were suitable and looked clean. The models, the textures, all that was great. BUT…. i felt like the intro took too long, i although i understand why you didn’t put a skip button, you still should. you NEVER want to force players to sit through long cut-scenes and animations. I did enjoy the sequences, but some were just too long for what seemed like no reason. The way that you had that help overlay pop up to explain the hotkeys in the forest, you need that from the start. make the player interact more to advance the sequences. like. instead of the pc text telling you to click space. you might want to make a simple menu method that you can call over and over to help the player interact and advance the story. maybe like this. game loads, player is sitting at the PC. PC is off. player must turn it on. click a few onscreen menus to decide what is installed and where. (even if it means nothing to the actual game). Make those zooms fast. BAM you zoom out enough to see your hands. then there is a launch application prompt. you click load and the forest sequence loads. your help overlay pops up, gives you the hotkeys and a simple task. you explore a bit and complete of fail the task. then the error occurs… you need more interaction. i just felt like i was watching a memory of an acid trip from a trainspotting like movie. i am totally into abstract games and weird art experiments, but this lacked the interaction i was looking for. players want to feel like they are accomplishing or achieving something. this game could easily do that with just a bit more player interaction, some kind of progress measurement that is visible to the players. i did like that soundscape in the forest, i would almost say that part of this art experiment was my favorite. maybe give the player something more to do there before progressing to the skeleton.

Thanks for the feedback. Your suggestions are spot on. I’ll see what I can do to add more interaction :).

i made it to the post-it, then the error, then i was lost. 1) put this game in front of a friend or family member. 2) grab notebook and sit behind them and watch how they play it. 3) you cannot answer questions until they say, ‘i give up’ 4) write down where you see them getting confused and what they are looking for. i love to watch players playing my games on youtube, i can see where i have missed the mark. i can see where they are struggling or confused. i make note of all these things and then make tweaks. after years of this, my new games avoid these issues completely. hit me up when you got an update ready. also, watch this ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAEWSpmTy9Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAEWSpmTy9Y)) , covers lots of tips trick and secrets about how to maximize your games rating on kong. its a 40 min video, but it is good. even a few testimonials in the comments.

Good thought! I’ve tried it with a few friends & family members — but I think I gave hints too early in the process. I will try it with some others and do less hand-holding. I had a hunch the post-it was going to be a bottle-neck for a lot of people. Maybe I should push it further back into the game or something. By the way, I just published an update on the game, if you have any spare time try it out — it should save your progress, and the post-it would be solved for you by now.

a) [Adventure](http://www.kongregate.com/games/Drelzar/adventure) (new to this site as a dev and to these forums) b) without putting it down, about one month c) either or works I’m expecting to learn from this d) its not entirely finished but since its the first game I’ve ever posted I want to be sure I’m getting everything right.

cool drelzar, ill give it a quick go now and a full review go in the afternoon tomorrow.

okay, i gave it a good go. since it is not finished, i will just list out what you need to do to make this a decent idle game. 1) make it fit the screen, i should not have to scroll anything to see everything. 2) make those main buttons across the top bigger, they are basically the main modes of operation, they are important, make them big. 3) make some graphics, no one wants to play a webpage. 4) basic instructions on what you see, even if it is just a simple overlay when you first start the game. 5) make stats for the item upgrade, we want to see why the next item level is better. 6) you need MIN / MAX buttons on the sale of ore. 7) don’t let me raise the number to sell, higher than what i currently have. 8) add sound, music, mute button. 9) game options for save games, game speed 10) tag your game properly, IDLE should be the main tag. 11) Add screenshots for your game, you don’t want players clicking what they think will be an ADVENTURE type game, to discover it is an idle game… you will get 1/5 ratings from most players very quick. 12) Make sure you game description leans heavy on IDLE, and why your idle game is different. 13) make icons for every upgrade item. if you are lazy, you can just render same class icons a different color. is this done it html 5? you could do this very easily in flash. i realize this is your first game, so i am guessing you are just learning the basic of coding and such.

Alright, graphics are definitely on the to do list. As far as the type of game goes, this is going to be an adventure game. I have been working on this bit by bit so I don’t have so much going on that I don’t know what’s happened if something isn’t working right. Its not meant to be idle game, though it will be part idle especially with the coal and furnace. The fact you are calling it an idle game tells me I need to do something to show it isn’t one. It’s being done in Javascript.

well, at this point, all i could do was click the rock to mine, and sell my ore, then buy a better pickaxe. this style is very common with idle games. the furnace and camp buttons do nothing. what exactly is the adventure part of the game going to be? if you are not going for the idle genre, i would suggest a completely different format. perhaps some form of character development. a story that sets the stage maybe. to be honest, it definitely came off as an idle type game to me.

There will be more in the Town tab other than the store, and there will be quests as well. I was also planning on putting repeatable quests in like making weapons and armor for the store, that way the smithing aspect wouldn’t just be making weaponry for yourself. There will be a map to this with areas you can explore and battles to be fought.

Hey momoguru I’m a big fan of Starship commander and I found your youtube video on getting kongregate exposure really useful. You’re one of my top 5 flash devs. Here’s what I’ve been working on for about two months now: [http://www.kongregate.com/games/DannyDaNinja/project-eldaris-v0-2](http://www.kongregate.com/games/DannyDaNinja/project-eldaris-v0-2)

awesome danny, i’ll give it a go :)

a) [Random move](http://www.kongregate.com/games/vd2b/random-move) b) 1 month for this game + 2-3 months a long ago c) comment d) difficulty level – which stages are not challeging enough or are too hard

Eldaris- You definitely have a solid game going here, keep up the good work. i think you really need to incorporate a little bit of hand holding in the beginning to help players figure out what to do. you have lots of options, lots of stats and plenty to explore at the start, but this can be a bit overwhelming and confusing at first. right from the start, you need to make the only available settlement a nice big button in the center of the screen. took way to long to figure out i needed to click on that grey text. the mouse over did help, but remember that players without patience, will bypass this game if they feel like they cant get off the ground. this overall concept applies to about 90% of what i saw. you have plenty of real-estate on the screen, use it. make those options buttons for each place BIG. add a small 1 sentence description that doesn’t require a mouse over. mouse over descriptions are great when your space is limited, but if not, explain it right on the screen. again, bigger buttons for things that are more important. graphics, you need some more graphics. for the type of game this is, it wouldn’t take much to incorporate a main graphic background for each place. if i am in the inn, show me the inside of the inn. if i am at the barracks, show me i am. animations for things like picking pockets and eating meals wouldn’t hurt either. since the genre of this game is fairly common, you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding or creating some simple scenes for each place. players tend to dislike buttons that ‘seem’ to do nothing. as developers, we tend to care more about the functionality of these buttons. we care more that they do what they are supposed to behind the scenes. if a player doesn’t see right away that the button they clicked actually did something, they tend to think the game is bugged or poorly created and they will leave. yes, i reallize you have a little log on the left side, but if i click a button to chop some wood, i want to see a popup box saying, you gained 2 gold after 2 hours of work. maybe a little wood axe and some chopped would image in the pop up box. i cannot stress enough the importance of this. as a dev, i know how it goes. you just are trying to get the mechanics in place first. but even i tend to forget that i need to go back later and add some type of interactive notification method so that the player sees right away that what they interacted with, has been processed. overall, i enjoyed tinkering with this. with a bit more streamlined gameplay, and some graphical sprinkles here and there, this could be a fun little game that many players will enjoy. so… hold my hand in the beginning. walk me through the first 10 things that YOU as a developer would do when playing your own game. slowly introduce the player to the basic concepts and functionality. too much too fast is bad. it will force players away. the object is to suck them in, not scare them off.

> *Originally posted by **[vd2b](/forums/4/topics/462858?page=1#posts-8939892):*** > > a) [Random move](http://www.kongregate.com/games/vd2b/random-move) > b) 1 month for this game + 2-3 months a long ago > c) comment > d) difficulty level – which stages are not challeging enough or are too hard you’re next :)

Thanks man :)

momoguru thanks for your advice and suggestions I appreciate it very much. Could you elaborate a little further on the graphical appeal? I have updated the login page with less clutter and added a link at the top of the page for gameplay tutorials. As for the location images in a modern city and the game title, the theme of this game is based off of Minecraft and a creature in that game called the Ender Dragon. There is really no specific timeframe for the gameplay, and players often do create modern cities. Although my game is in the classic style of a text-based RPG, it does have a modern twist that works well if you know about Minecraft, which most players of my game will already be Minecraft fans so no worries there. I think you’re right about the side nav menus. I will give those an open/close toggle and make an attempt to implement collapsible content sections. I don’t think I will be able to squeeze all the info onto one side of the screen though, because the travel navs and stat display lists can both become larger as you level up. Thanks for taking the time to help everyone here and give your feedback. :)