Hey Isherwood, I'm one of the founders of dropleaf! Thank you so much for the feedback. If you want to know a bit more about who we are, here's a thing I wrote some time ago about what we're doing and why: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WEB5EgGD4MmC7Vuvi5Zg0_NgzGnHi4IJ_5Xja3ZMn_I/edit?usp=sharing I think you're right about the play on sentimentality, but we needed to make sure we got a functional landing page up and running first. We'll be working towards that.
You need a minimum viable product. Right now, from that doc, it seems like you're try to do several things and don't have a common thread to tie all of those things together. Based on your manifesto and the language on your site it seems like building an LGBTQ gaming community is going to be your central focus, but right now you have no community features so your site's messaging isn't selling the product you have. Conversely, you have the tools to provide games but you don't have language that explains that service (how it works and what you get) on your site. Your marketing is a narrative and your product is the protagonist. You want to tell this story where your protagonist is an art gallery - you can pay your dues and come and go as you please. You can enjoy the work in the gallery but you can't take it home with you, and down on the ground floor there's this wonderful little coffee shop where you and all the other art nerds can hang out and talk about your love without worry of being judged. A narrative like that ties together your themes and can be slowly rolled out over months or years. It makes it easier to consume because it solidifies your identity. (I'm currently short on time so forgive me for being curt or making assumptions. I really like marketing, I really like games, and I really think you have a very neat idea).
The google doc was more of a description of vision than anything else, and I don't think the website even once says LGBTQ (I just checked), but I think I take your point. I like the "gallery" metaphor, it's a really great one! Thank you for that, I'm totally going to steal it. I think making our initial messaging more games specific and clear as to exactly what we have right now is a great Idea, and will be working on that. Again, thank you for the feedback. By the way, we do have an MVP our client is up and running and has a bunch of very solid indie games to play. (Granted, We're not the ultimate arbiters of "viable," customers are)
Yeah, I was playing fast and loose with the assumptions on my post and I probably should have left those off but I glad you could still dig up the main point. I also like the gallery idea and just have this vision in my head of a web site that looks like an art gallery wall, with indie game demo videos playing in ornate frames.
That might be a thing we add for v2 of the website. I love that image. Your feedback up to this point has been super insightful, thank you! I'd appreciate it if you were able to hop onto the client and give it a try, Hubski50 will make it 5/month for your first year or WelcomeHome17 will give you your first month free. (Cancel anytime etc)
Alright, I've made an account and I'm on my free month. I've been playing around with the experience and I wanted to start out by saying I love the bones of the service. It's a really neat way to try out a ton of games and see what grabs me without that sense of obligation I usually have when I buy a game on it's own. I definitely didn't think I was going to want to play any of these, but there were a few that were way more intriguing than I thought. That said, I'm not sure I would have given the client much of a chance if you and I weren't in a conversation. What I've been chewing on is the identity of the client. There's nothing in the client that really says who you are. From my perspective, this is a neat little indie game launcher and not much else. And I keep going back to that idea of games as art and your client as a gallery. When I go to a museum or a gallery, a lot of my enjoyment comes from the information I get from the labels. Take a look at this It's a white rectangle with black, sans-serif text. It uses this very rigid but ultimately understated formatting to structure it's data. It's classy. So let's apply that idea to one of your games. --- Dowino Villeurbanne, France A Blind Legend, 2015 Citrus Engine The goal of A Blind Legend is to create a novel experience for players. To do this, Dowino developed a video game with no video. The game relies entirely on binaural audio, sound reproduced as the human ear would hear it, to direct the player through their journey. Sighted players should appreciate the change to their senses as they play, noticing the rising acuity in hearing. Players should also take a moment to appreciate the depth of the sound design and how the developer layers different noises to produce a full and vibrant world. --- We put this on a piece of paper and we stick that piece of paper to a wall. So you've got your art, you've got your label, and you've got a wall. In the client, above the fold, you have a main exhibit. Commit to having a new set of game every month, every quarter, every year, whatever, that are tied together by some common theme - accessibility, aesthetic, developer location, engine, theme, etc. Do a little write up explaining the theme and why it's important to look at these works. This does two things - it gives you a dynamic front page that provides a new value to your customers, and it opens up your service to much older games. There might be some classic from 1999 that was the first to implement rudimentary particle physics and it's worth looking at in the context of this exhibit. Under that you can have your dynamically created exhibits - most popular, new art, whatever - but they're also exhibits that get their own static write up and gallery space. Blow you can have an extended collection that is much more compact and only shows the information on hover. I know I'm just taking an idea and running with it, but for me this cements your identity - you want games to be seen as an art. You want people to appreciate what games can be. You want people to have discussions together. You want gaming to be appreciated. The way I see it, this design would push your users to see that identity on every page.
Thank you so much for the feedback, We love the art gallery idea, and we're actually setting things up so that I have the ability to make the copy around the games more in line with what we'd like it to be, rather than copypaste from steam, or whatever got typed in. I really like the idea. It's a great visual.
Thank you so much for the feedback, We love the art gallery idea, and we're actually setting things up so that I have the ability to make the copy around the games more in line with what we'd like it to be, rather than copypaste from steam, or whatever got typed in. I really like the idea. It's a great visual.