Fangames > Gameplay & Discussion
Serious fangame making questions
kadykunde:
I suck at formating so no quotes :(
-How much appreciation and support (if any) do fangame creators deserve, and are they currently getting enough?
Sometimes I do wish some creators got more appreciation than they get, but thats just my opinion on the stuff they made, in general I think they get what they deserve.
-Is it okay to heavily criticize people’s fangames that they made on their own time for everyone to enjoy?
-How much patience and forgiveness (if any) should fangame streamers and players be expected to have?
-What is the right balance of encouraging quality fangames while not scaring off potentially good creators?
I think criticism is very important for the makers to grow and make better games, but sometimes people put too much "emotion" on their criticism and end up begin more of an attack than a lesson. Please keep it cool when criticizing a game, specially for newer people, dont want to scare away any new makers.
-To what extent can you be proud of a fangame that heavily uses other people’s content? (spook jam, medleys, and in general using music+sprites+sounds made by others)
Just as proud as you are with your other projects (at least for your own part, or you can be proud of your team/as a team).
-Is it okay to use the self-made assets of other people’s fangames?
It makes me really happy when someone uses something from me (unless its completely copying chunks of the game), but please ask, everyone feels different about this and it's important to make sure the creator is ok with it.
-To what extent (if any) are quality fangames not getting attention they deserve?
Personally, there are a lot of games that I wish people would give more of a chance/gave more attention, but thats just because I think its good, others might not think the same, so I guess its all fair(?) (ended up begin the same thing as my first answer)
-To what extent (if any) are fangame creators limiting their creative growth as opposed to making freeware games for a bigger, more general audience?
I have a lot of ideas that I want to make but dont fit in fangames, so I end up begin lazy and forget about them, but I dont think they are limiting my creative growth, just the comfort of making fangames is making moving to non-fangame-games harder.
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I enjoy making fangames (enjoyed? idk it has been some time), but praise and seeing people play them is what moves me, and I always wish more people played my games (even if they are played quite a bit), but I think thats fine, just dont let it bring you down.
Artardss:
* How much appreciation and support (if any) do fangame creators deserve, and are they currently getting enough?
As others have said you're not entitled to anything. I think if you enjoy making the game then you shouldn't need appreciation in the first place, even though it's very nice to get and will be a motivation to work on other games for some creators.
* Is it okay to heavily criticize people’s fangames that they made on their own time for everyone to enjoy?
Long story short:
Depends what falls under critique in my opinion. If you have critique that people can use for later projects/updates then go nuts. If you're just gonna drop a "the design in this game is bad/good" then keep it to yourself, it's not useful to anybody. People should also keep it civilized, critique is usually fine as long as you don't make it personal.
* How much patience and forgiveness (if any) should fangame streamers and players be expected to have?
None, that being said I think some people would be better off quiting a fangame earlier if they don't like it for the most part. I personally don't understand why somebody would force him/herself to beat a fangame if they dislike the experience as a whole. I feel like a lot of salt and attacks on certain games get caused because of this.
* What is the right balance of encouraging quality fangames while not scaring off potentially good creators?
I think as long as the feedback is constructive "good creators" will not be scared off by critique/feedback. Just keep it nice.
* To what extent can you be proud of a fangame that heavily uses other people’s content? (spook jam, medleys, and in general using music+sprites+sounds made by others)
I would not by proud myself if all I did was copy some rooms and put them in a medley without adding something significant myself. That being said I would not be bothered if someone else would be proud, more power to him/her.
With collabs you can always be proud as a team or proud of the things you contributed to the game.
* Is it okay to use the self-made assets of other people’s fangames?
Nobody can force you not to, but asking would be nice. If they say no you could always consider using something else, there are plenty of assets out there for you to use without making people upset.
* To what extent (if any) are quality fangames not getting attention they deserve?
Quality is too subjective to me, hard to say. I think everybody has games in mind that they think are good and are not getting the attention they wished they would get. I don't think it's a major problem.
* To what extent (if any) are fangame creators limiting their creative growth as opposed to making freeware games for a bigger, more general audience?
Probably to some extent, but I don't really think it matters that much if that's what they like doing right now. It's all about having fun. What drew me into fangames was the amount of absurdity in the first place, which would probably not be well suited for a more general audience anyway. I think there is a lot of creative stuff you can pull off in this community that you wouldn't be able to do in others.
Arclooper:
Might have misinterpreted a few of your questions, so if any answer doesn't make sense, sorry.
--- Quote ---How much appreciation and support (if any) do fangame creators deserve, and are they currently getting enough?
--- End quote ---
Mostly agree with everyone else here, don't think anyone is entitled to anything but it's nice to give people credit/support for their work.
--- Quote ---Is it okay to heavily criticize people’s fangames that they made on their own time for everyone to enjoy?
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It's ok to give heavy criticism but if by harsh you mean going overboard in how you say it, then it's technically still the person's right to do so, but wouldn't say it's really ok. As someone who constantly exaggerates/fail to express my opinions properly, I often catch myself regretting the way I said some bit of criticism and see many other people that get too carried away as well, especially in stream chats where there's always some degree of hivemind going on. We shouldn't stop criticism but maybe try to be more careful of how we do it, focusing more on praising the effort than bashing on results we might find negative.
--- Quote ---How much patience and forgiveness (if any) should fangame streamers and players be expected to have?
--- End quote ---
No patience should be expected imo, if someone doesn't like a game and doesn't want to play it then they shouldn't feel forced to, though giving the games a chance to prove you wrong is generally good attitude. On the forgiveness part it gets kinda tricky, as in generally we should give the same amount of respect we would expect for ourselves, but if the makers themselves were doing something disrespectful to begin with, I don't particularly find myself too forgiving, the only problem is that this relies a lot on opinion and impression, so there's room for a lot of misunderstanding.
--- Quote ---What is the right balance of encouraging quality fangames while not scaring off potentially good creators?
--- End quote ---
Don't really have a good answer for this tbh, best you can probably do is be mindful of how each creator you talk to takes criticism and try to balance the amount of criticism/encouraging on a case by case basis.
--- Quote ---To what extent can you be proud of a fangame that heavily uses other people’s content? (spook jam, medleys, and in general using music+sprites+sounds made by others)
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You can be fully proud of any work you do, even if that work is "just" importing and organizing screens to make a medley, finding good sprites/songs/sound effects to use, there was still effort in that. And for projects like spookjam, like kady said, nothing wrong with being proud of the team/as a team member as well.
--- Quote ---Is it okay to use the self-made assets of other people’s fangames?
--- End quote ---
Might get hated for saying this, but I actually find it kinda annoying and hypocritical how some fan-based communities get so touchy about people taking assets from within the community while taking a truckload of assets from outside is perfectly ok. I mean, if you can reach out to the maker of a sprite you wanted to use to ask it's only polite to do so, but when people get so mad about someone not asking, it's not like we as a community generally reach out to companies, or even indie devs, to ask if we can use their content for fangames a whole lot as well, that always felt like a double standard to me.
--- Quote ---To what extent (if any) are quality fangames not getting attention they deserve?
--- End quote ---
Like others said already, deserve is not really a good word, as no one is automatically owed attention for what they do, but if you feel like something should get more attention than it got, nothing wrong with saying so or trying to promote it, just don't be forceful about it.
--- Quote ---To what extent (if any) are fangame creators limiting their creative growth as opposed to making freeware games for a bigger, more general audience?
--- End quote ---
There might be a few makers who stick to fangames because it's their comfort zone even though they could probably make good original creations, but for the most part the people creating fangames aren't really trading the time they would otherwise be making these other projects. In fact starting with fangames, that already have engines and other tools to work with, plus an active community to give feedback provides a place for new devs to grow and maybe make their own stand-alone projects later if they feel like it.
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