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[hemmingjay]

I wrote it explicitly with the intention of drawing as much attention to my statement as possible without starting another thread to complain about it, which I find to be not constructive. I knew that there were two ways to make sure my thread wasn't ignored. First, appear to use explitives. Secondly, get a banned tag next to my name. People can't resist stopping their skimming and actually reading a post when the author was banned. Want to know the funny part? My ban was removed by the moderator.

[Tilla]

Yeah, unfortunately, going from regular game to dev is like going from regular person to a public figure. Suddenly you can't state your opinion without possible repercussions.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmTUW-owa2w
Good essay about how a tiny bit of niche internet fame makes your every waking moment under observation. A cautionary tale using Phil Fish as an example but applicable to just about anyone.

[EuchreJack]

Generally, I go by the motto that "curse words are the sign of a weak argument", and thus avoid using them.

...Although I sometimes get pissed off like everyone else.  Plus, swearing is F*cking hilarious.   

[EuchreJack]

Almost forgot my actual reason for reviewing this tread:

Any expected date when I can throw money at you?  I can finally afford to buy games again!  Whoot Whoot!

[Delta Foxtrot]

From the OP:

Expected PC release date July 31st, 2014 Mac, Mobile and console to follow in Autumn 2014.

Buried deep in the thread (paraphrasing):

No preorders. Preorders bad.

[hemmingjay]

It's true that I am against pre-orders because the game might turn out bad or might not be the type of game you would enjoy. I would feel awful if I had your money and you had a game you didn't want to play.

As for the release date, We are still aiming for July 31st but I suspect it will likely be sometime in August instead. We are currently delayed because of some issues with 2 of the 4 platforms I plan on releasing on. Their business support teams are busy or on vacation and have left us in limbo halfway through the process. One of them is Steam and if my rep still doesn't respond by the end of next week, I am going to just put the game up on Greenlight. They told me I could skip it, but then they went missing for more than 2 weeks. I don't want to release on 2 stores and then a couple of weeks later release on the rest. I want people to be able to buy it the way that they want without making sacrifices. Some people really like the GoG no DRM option and others like the convenience of Steam's organization and community. Then there are the rest of you "oddballs(<3)" that like Amazon or Desura or Humble Bundle. I suggest people buy it on Steam for the community, access to forums, and centralized mod access(later). However, I also suggest you consider GoG with it's no DRM and a money back guarantee if you don't like the game.

Release date: Before it's too late

Seriously, the reason I waited so long to tell anyone about the game is because I wanted to be sure it was close to ready to play. I've seen too many developers try to get an audience excited for a game and take pre-orders before clarifying that the actual game is 2 years from release.

[hemmingjay]

So, my little game has reached 10,000 likes on FB, they are legit...I checked, without any real advertising or announcing the game anywhere of merit. It's pretty crazy since a lot of games don't hit numbers like that even after releasing. It's not proof of anything, but 10K in less than a month is noteworthy and I know of a few games that sold almost 200k copies and have less than 40k likes 6 months after launch and similar.

I will still consider anything over 30k copies to be a success.

I have another question for you all. Mini-games. I have a use for 3 mini-games to be included in Arms Dealer in a non-forced way, while giving the player a chance to say no and skip them. They also wouldn't come up more often than 15-20 minutes at the most and wouldn't ever have 2 stack back to back.

For example, one would be a passport forgery mini-game. It would show you a detailed passport and then give you a short time to recreate it through drag and drop as well as matching colors. Another would be outrunning a law enforcement agent in a maze-like setting. I am hesitant to add any features but I think it could really break up the game in a menaingful way a la Covert Operations and I am already delayed 10 days while waiting on some art materials anyway.

[Meta]

Mini-games in a tycoon game? Hm... nope. I prefer you crafting a solid game, instead of you losing times to add some mini-games.

Beware feature creep!

[stabbymcstabstab]

Please no mini games they just don't seem to fit in this genre.

[hemmingjay]

They worked for Sid Meier in Covert Action, Pirates, and Sword of the Samurai.

[Meta]

They did, but these games were not tycoon ones.

[hemmingjay]

Keep in mind that they would be optional and that without them 90%+ of the player's actions will be buying and selling weapons. There are political options and deeper strategy elements, but it's still a descendent of the Drug Wars trading games. You spend 80% of the game looking at menus, 15% looking at the map and 5% paused on the options screen. The goal was to take 10% from the menu time and allow a user the chance to improve profitability or other benefits through a short burst of thematic diversion.

The final decision hasn't been made because our primary focus is on finishing the original planned features. We have been lucky that the game is exactly as it was originally planned while not having to cut any features. That is rare for development. Now we are in a position where we can consider adding some of our "cherries on top" since we have a 5 week window of unavoidable delay and are schedule to finish on time. If all goes well, I will definitely play around with it, but I'll only add it to the final game if it makes things more fun. I'm not in the business of adding things for the sake of having them, but I also didn't get into development to follow the rules.

[Anvilfolk]

They worked for Sid Meier in Covert Action, Pirates, and Sword of the Samurai.

And I was hopelessly addicted to these for a while. They're not really tycoon games, but they are, in a sense, management games.

Anyway, if you feature minigames and they give you an advantage, but are skippable, then people who don't like them will like they are losing out. That's probably not a feeling you want players to have. Perhaps every time you encounter a situation where you might have a minigame, you could have a chance to automate it and get the full profits with high probability, or just a high percentage of the profits with 100% probability (besides playing the minigame itself). This would hopefully mitigate any negative feelings of people who don't enjoy minigames.

[HopFlash]

If I play a tycoon or managment game I want to play in a relaxed way...most mini-games are not relaxing.
Making important decisions don't go against relaxed-gaming but if I need to solve a maze in time it's a very different "game" as the game I want to play.

Personally I want more different incidents or random events or other things which suprise me and need my tycoon-attention instead of mini-action-games. So I don't get boring but still play the same game.
Mini-games stresses me out I think.

[TCM]

If there's enough stuff to keep the players occupied, I don't really see the need for mini-games. Most RTS/Business/Tycoon games I've played have had enough stuff happening that I wouldn't have much downtime. Instead of mini-games, you could have some side-business for the players to attend to while the main transactions were going through, like some small time investments/gambling or some charts to view so they can gather some more in-depth info on countries/marketplaces/events.

Of course, that's just my opinion. And I doubt I'll get to play the game for at least the first couple months so my statements don't hold that much ground.