Games in Development Forum - Rules & Guidelines

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Games in Development Forum Rules & Guidelines
Please remember that this board's rules are in conjunction with the General Forum Rules.

What is this forum for?

• This forum is here for you to post in-development game ideas and concepts. Here, people can offer constructive commentary and criticism regarding your ideas. They can help you improve the story, streamline the gameplay, and offer suggestions about what could be added, changed or removed. It is also here so you can look at the ideas posted by others. You can help someone with the game they're building, through suggestions and constructive criticism. You could even join a project that's in the works. In essence, this forum is for you and others to help each other improve their game ideas before you're too far into a project to change something, and to offer help if possible.
  
  When posting in the Project Discussion, members are expected to understand and comply with the rules and guidelines in this topic. The rules include not only starting threads but posting in others' threads as well. If you have any questions about the rules, feel free to PM me or another moderator or administrator. Not following the rules will result in actions being taken by the staff.

What are the rules for posting in my threads?

• Minimum requirements for a thread
  • There is a set of requirements that must be met when creating threads. These requirements show us that you are making an effort with your project and want constructive advice and feedback.
    
    Your post must have at least two screenshots. These show that you’ve actually made progress on your project beyond conceptual stages. The screenshots need to show actual gameplay, not just title screens or menus. You must also have at least one full paragraph of story or gameplay description. This is to tell us what happens during the game, what the player will be doing, and what the player will be trying to accomplish.
    
    Because these are only the bare minimums you must include in your thread, feel free to have some flexibility. It’s generally a good idea to include information and a small biography about some of the main characters, as well as some of your project’s features: things that set it apart from other games and make it unique.
    
    Remember, any genre of game is allowed here. We don’t want you to feel constricted with the requirements. You can substitute story description, for example, for a description of gameplay if your game is more of an action or a shooter game. The main goal is for people to get a good idea of what your game is about and what playing the game involves.
  
  Responding to criticism
  • When you create a thread for your project, you are allowing people to comment and say what they want about it. Not all of the comments will be positive, nor will they all be nice. Flaming is “empty” feedback where the comment offers no advice and is simply an insult meant to anger you. Negative criticism, despite it not always being said in the most polite or nice way, is nonetheless still criticism and you must treat it as such.
    
    For example:

    • wow dude, those screenshots look terrible! get some different sprites, something that doesn’t clash so badly with the tilesets

    Do not accuse a user of flaming if it is constructive criticism.
    
    If you feel a post is a personal attack, report the post and a moderator will take action if necessary. And if you don’t think that you can handle negative and sometimes harsh feedback and criticism, then perhaps it might be a good idea to refrain from making a thread here.
  
  Do not post topics prematurely
  • Posting a topic prematurely means creating a topic that does not meet the minimum requirements and not having the topic finished before it’s posted. Threads that are posted prematurely with notes such as “Editing in progress” or “Not finished, don’t post yet!” will be locked immediately. If you don't think you're ready to post a thread that fulfills the minimum requirements yet, then it's a good idea to wait until you are.

What are the rules for posting in other peoples' threads?

• Do not post “empty” feedback
  • These forums exist primarily for one reason: To help fellow amateur game developers improve their skills and become better developers. And the only way people can improve their skills (and this applies for almost everything) is by critique and advice from others. Therefore, posting "empty" feedback is frowned upon and is something we discourage in the forums. "Empty" posts are lazy and of no use to the developer. If you’re going to tell them that there is something that could be improved upon, don’t just say that - explain how it could be improved.
    
    An example of an "empty" post would be:

    • this game looks really good, i can't wait to play it! :D

    
    An example of a thought-out, helpful post would be:

    • I think your characters could use some more personality, try fleshing them out a bit more and giving them more interesting histories. Also, your maps aren’t very easy on the eyes. Try using a different colour for that grass and giving the houses more varying designs.

    It offers advice and tips, extremely useful to the developer, while the first example isn't useful at all. Posts like this are encouraged and are the kind of posts we like to see around here.
    
    And for everyone’s sake, don’t post for the sake of posting. Quality is better than quantity in this forum, and people would rather see just a few good posts than a lot of bad ones.
  
  Don’t beat a dead horse
  • If you see several posts stating the same thing (For example: three or four posts in a row saying “your gameplay sucks” or “your story is clichéd”) there is no need to repeat it again. The topic owner can read, and nobody appreciates spam. The exception to this rule would be repeating what has already been said, but actually saying how it could be improved, or offering advice for the future.

Helpful Links

•  Project Critique Station
  • The Project Critique Station is a thread where you post a project you want a critique on and other members offer comments and criticism on the work you have thus far. Do not worry about necro-posting.
  
  Beginners' Lounge
  • The Beginners' Lounge is there to help you learn - by posting a link to your project, or information about it - help will be at hand to talk you through the smaller steps that you are unsure of and basically get you making games with the program.