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[Alex Vostrov]

Honestly, I'm not too worried about people being able to play Paper Zombies.  I'm proud of having made the game and released it for free.  If I used your logic, I'd have to remove all my freeware games from the Internet just to make a buck.  I don't know about you, but I don't think that's cool.  I'm confident that Infested Planet is light ages better than Paper Zombies and I trust people enough to see that.

Just to give you an impression of the progress between the two games:



That's Paper Zombies, with my scrawly programmer art.  Paper Zombies is pretty much the alpha version of Infested Planet.



This is Infested Planet.  Besides being more purple, I added spiffy things like polygonal, cavernous maps, 4 more unit types and research system and a whole load of stuff more.  It's a better game in all respects.

[Fikes]

You missed my point I think. Obviously there are free games out there that any game has to compete with. I am not saying take Paper Zombies down or anything like that. I am saying that to a layman, you have made a $15 flash game.

I am sure that is not the case, but it is a logical conclusion for someone to come to. Because of this you aren't really selling Infested Planet the game, you are selling Infested Planet the upgrade. People who really liked Paper Zombies have to justify that they will have $15 more fun with Infested Planet. A list of addtional features and the color purple probably isn't enough.

On the other hand you have people who never played Paper Zombies and have no idea if Infested Planet would be any fun at all. People like me. Personally, I am willing to throw 5 bucks at just about any game. I spent that on lunch today and the sandwich sucked. But $15? For an unknown game and unknown developer? That is a hard to justify, espcially with

A demo, even one that is limiting and out of date goes a long ways to convince both groups. I think you'd see nice returns on it.

[Alex Vostrov]

My experience has been that people who played and liked Paper Zombies have been very excited about Infested Planet.  In fact, people who followed my work from my freeware days have been my best fans.

I agree about the demo.  One of these days I'll get to making it, but there's so little time and only one of me.    I think that it's a bigger deal for me to patch the game and please existing customers at this point.

These are the guys who have been supporting me and it's more important for me to make them happy than work on a demo right now.  Once the beta finishes, it'll be a different deal.

[jmancube]

I saw this awhile back somewhere, but I forget where it was. I dismissed it then, but I think I might enjoy this. I just have a question, is the game based on a squad attacking zombies or whatever they are, or defending from them? I'd like the latter, but honestly I like what I've been hearing. Oh and my opinion on the price, is that it's really not that expensive. I mean, you can't even go to the movies for that much... Eh, I'll have to look into this game, if it's as deep as people have been saying, I'm definitely going to get it.

[Grakelin]

Does anyone remember that other indie game that cost too much where the developer dropped by to defend how awesome his game was?

Man, whatever happened to Academageia? It was so mediocre!

[Jay]

Does anyone remember that other indie game that cost too much where the developer dropped by to defend how awesome his game was?

Man, whatever happened to Academageia? It was so mediocre!

I don't think they went so far as to offer a refund to people that don't consider it worth the money, though.

[Grakelin]

Well sure, they never made any attempts to delude themselves about the quality of what they'd made.

[Alex Vostrov]

I saw this awhile back somewhere, but I forget where it was. I dismissed it then, but I think I might enjoy this. I just have a question, is the game based on a squad attacking zombies or whatever they are, or defending from them? I'd like the latter, but honestly I like what I've been hearing. Oh and my opinion on the price, is that it's really not that expensive. I mean, you can't even go to the movies for that much... Eh, I'll have to look into this game, if it's as deep as people have been saying, I'm definitely going to get it.

Actually, it's both attack and defense.  You have to balance them against each other.

I've been meaning to post some video that shows how the game plays.  Here's a "Let's Play" that I did:

[Alex Vostrov]

Well sure, they never made any attempts to delude themselves about the quality of what they'd made.

There's a saying that I first heard when I was interning at EA - "Games are never finished, just shipped".

Most game developers that I know are very aware of their game's flaws.  Sure, you get one of the crazies once in a while who think that their match-3 is the second coming of Tetris, but for the most part we're probably more critical of our own work than you would guess.

In the case of Infested Planet, I actually had to have people tell me that they liked the game to offset my natural OCD.  Without that, I'd still be freaking out about the shape of the particle trails on the grenades or something...

[Eagleon]

What's with everyone freaking out about the price? Do you people know how much effort goes into making something like this? A hell of a lot more than $15 worth =P First post I see about it on his blog is a year ago, and that's not counting the time spent on Paper Zombies. I get it, there are other games, competition, etc. It just irks me that people will outright tell someone "Your game is not worth what you want for it" after they've spent over a year of their life making it, without even waiting for a demo to decide that. Obviously the difference here is that Academagia never saw fit to provide one, but still. </rant>

Looks amazing, Alex. I'll give it a shot when you find time for a demo, or keep a look out for some pre-reviews, but I'll probably end up buying.

[Soulwynd]

You're ranting because people are telling the truth? Do you want to force them to pay for it?

They're basically saying that at this price, they don't want it. There's no offense to it, it's merely the truth supported by the fact they didn't buy it. Those who want it at this price will buy it. Plus, there's no putting worth in any given media based item. He made it once and can copy it forever with little to no cost, which technically makes it worthless (Limit of price = production cost / copies where copies goes towards infinite and production cost is a nearly static value). So it's the job of the consumer to decide if this is worth the asked price or not.

If anything some people might be swayed to buy it by his offer and discount. *shrugs*

Making 13 bucks is better than not making 15.

[Grakelin]

Well sure, they never made any attempts to delude themselves about the quality of what they'd made.

There's a saying that I first heard when I was interning at EA - "Games are never finished, just shipped".

Most game developers that I know are very aware of their game's flaws.  Sure, you get one of the crazies once in a while who think that their match-3 is the second coming of Tetris, but for the most part we're probably more critical of our own work than you would guess.

In the case of Infested Planet, I actually had to have people tell me that they liked the game to offset my natural OCD.  Without that, I'd still be freaking out about the shape of the particle trails on the grenades or something...

You must have missed our Academageia thread. Those guys were insane about the quality of their game, in a scary Tommy Wiseau/James Nguyen sort of way.

[Shadowgandor]

That LP looked like a lot of fun, although I can't really see a lot of challenge in that particular map. Could you show one of the tougher maps as well please?
Oh and your voice was a total surprise to me, I expected a russian accent but got a completely normal voice

[alexpoysky]

Holy crap I remember that academagia business from last year. Yeah, that was borderline insane. My two cents are as follows. I took the plunge, for two reasons. First, so that I could write a review on this site, and second, I figured that if I could help a small dev team (later found out it was a single guy) out by giving some money, it would be cool.

The game itself is great, once again, I didn't play paper zombies so I could argue that as it is a new and fresh idea to me, the value has not been dumbed down.

Overall, it's an awesome game, with a weekly patch cycle that adds new stuff, the dev is really focused on giving the player what he or she wants, and makes an effort to do so.

He's already offered a discount, and the possibility to KEEP THE GAME FOR FREE IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT.

I honestly don't know if you guys have read that, but jesus, what dev does THAT?

I think that should be the ANTI bitching/whining/complaining argument here.

Yeah it might be 15 bucks or whatever, but if you don't like it, screw it, you get it for FREE.

Go for it, take the plunge, play the hell out of it, STOP WHINING (ARNOLD VOICE), and if you have any secere problems with it, just shoot the dude an email and he'll give you back your precious monies!

I'm going to go keep playing!

As for whether it is defensive or offensive, I have found myself defending more than attacking in this game. Last night I played a match where I would have taken probably ten minutes, had they not sneakily attacked my rear guard and overtaken four points in less than a minute. I was left with just one point, and had to defende against an inveritable HORDE of these guys for over ten minutes before I managed to push through the north, swing to over to the east, cap a point surrounded by natural land barriers, and then SLOWLY make my way back.

It took an hour and twenty seven minutes.

A FUN hour and twenty seven minutes.

[Shadowgandor]

I've bought the game. Haven't played it for long enough to review it yet (tutorial levels and the first easy levels) but so far, I like it