Digital

What things are on the top of your mind as fears when you sit down to work on your game projects? I think just everyone fears something during their development, but I am curious as to what specifically scares our intrepid  @Game Owner s!

So, when you leave the house, what do you usually bring with you? What can you not live without upon walking out the door at any time?

For me, it is my sunglasses (cause I be blind in sunlight without them), wallet, and naturally - smartphone. Of course, I usually at least have one child with me as well.  

Welcome to TGL @LostEscape! What brings you to our community, and how can we help you?

9 hours ago, Ouli said:

I love the idea of paths. It reminds me of Digimon.

Affinities.. hmm it sounds interesting though what if a creature that's clearly designed to be aquatic gets the fire affinity?
Would it be possible to have certain adopts with limited affinities to hatch with? Though if you want an aquatic creature with a fire affinity being able to change affinities is nice and having one could be interesting for roleplaying.

Exploration sounds interesting. No real thoughts formulated on that though but it might make a nice addition.

I was thinking that any Adoptable can have any Affinity. The idea was that an affinity is what the Adoptable was drawn to, not necessarily what they are. I think can kinda be described as "If a fish want's to breathe fire... why not?"

If our pets were remotely realistic, I would say yes limit it, but I kinda like the looser fantasty of the idea.

7 hours ago, Anoua said:

I like adopts right now and agree with @Pepper-Head on the low maintenence being a forum and liked the ideas too. Glad to know the codex us developed like that now, always prefer the discover approach. And the branching might be neat if some are added.

Your inventory and explore ideas could be fun, I am not against them, but just depends on what focus your going for, that'll make it more like a game and may distract from the forum aspect.

This is something I am struggling with. The Adoptables are huge draw for many members. I want them to be fun, but never mandatory in terms of advancing on the forums. These features I proposed, although available, are not mandatory to advance in the community sense, but to grow your pet, and provide some social interaction. The Affinities being random on hatching, perhaps open up new forum ideas/topics on Adoptable trading. An economy perhaps item trading or buying/selling amongst members.

It is gamification, but I want it to feel like useful gamification. We have played with the daily streak bonus, but it doesn't seen terribly interesting to members. My thought if I can provide a little more interaction with Adoptables, with the encouragement of gamification (to a degree), it might have an effect of encouraging activity.

We have our current forum focus, but I do not feel the above would supersede or ruin those existing topics. Actually, we tend to get a lot of users that have joined that fall into the Player category, and are here to find or play, not to develop and build.

1 hour ago, LIZ said:

so we are not getting rid of adopts now?

Adoptables are staying.  

Some ideas I wanted to toss out to the community:

• Adding a form of element to each Adoptable, randomly at pet hatching. These could be called "Affinities". Initially limited in function, eventually useful for other activities. Earth, Fire, Wind, Water.
• Adding in a basic item inventory, and having items to:
  • Rename pets.
  • Change an Affinity of a pet.
  • Increase XP for x period of time.
  • Decrease XP for x period of time. (Could be used against an Adoptable belonging to someone else.)
  • The ideas for items are wide ranging, from temporary visual changes to items that could cause effects on other peoples pets.
• Exploration of a world (split into different regions) with random events. These would provide Adoptables with XP in exchange for some time, or other random events.
• Allow learning of abilities related to the Affinity, could be used in Exploration as a simple form of battle.

Thoughts?

12 hours ago, Pepper-Head said:

Possibly some alternate forms. Either as 1 gets a "shiny" form with colors that has a chance to be when it hatches, or it has a chance to evolve into a variant by features, like one has antlers and the rarer form doesn't 

I like this idea, something to consider.

12 hours ago, Pepper-Head said:

Some adopts have evolution "paths" where one adopt has two or more paths that it has the potential to adopt down, determined by how quickly it is grown

We actually already have this as a feature, but no pets that actually have paths so far.

On 10/19/2017 at 8:02 PM, Dinocanid said:

I've been thinking this for a while, but maybe you could make it so you can only post news for games you submitted to the directory? So when you type into the "game" field, only games submitted by you should appear. This is mostly because I freak out about accidentally posting news to Wild Howlz instead of Wild Souls, since both names are similar so they both appear in the dropdown for me to click on. There could be exceptions for this, like maybe if you're part of a game's team you can get permission from the game owner (or whoever posted it to the directory) to post news for that game.

I agree this would be awesome, but I am not aware within the current limits of the game option that such is filterable. It is something to look into though.

23 minutes ago, Dinocanid said:

What about a simulation section? We have a pet sim section, but I mean a section where you are the animal/creature instead of taking care of it? Lioden for example wouldn't really fit into a "pet" section. This might not work at the moment though, since the niche is so small.

I would agree that such a section would be great, but I feel games for this are too small to make such a section really useful. What do other  @Game Owner 's think?

Are we sure there are no other suggestions from the  @Game Owner 's?

To follow up on another of the suggestions that @Pepper-Head shared, if you look at the Adoptable Codex, you will no longer see the forms you have not evolved your pet into.

Welcome to TGL, @skellri, you'll have to share some of your art  

1 hour ago, Pepper-Head said:

A link on the adoptable codex to lead to your adopts for convenience, since the adoptables tab at the top is more visible than going under your avatar and clicking "my adoptables"

This has been done as part of the update I released today.

So, it has been a while since I pushed anything new for our Adoptables, so here is the update. This mostly finishes the promise of a feature from several months ago (I know - I've been slacking).

New "Go to your Adoptables" button on the codex!

When you visit our codex, you will  (if logged in) see a button that will take you to your adoptables. Thanks to @Pepper-Head for this suggestion on our Feedback Topic:

I would encourage anyone with ideas to share them.

Earn XP by posting your Adoptable's click link.

If you happen to frequent other sites, and they allow you to share your Adoptable's click link, do so. You will earn 5 XP per unique click per day. There is no cap, so if you want to get your Adoptable fully evolved quickly, this is a great way to do so. There is also a link on your pets page to it's image. You can find both by clicking on your Adoptable's Name.

@Writer @Artist @Programmer @Members

Sending a shout to the  @Game Owner 's who might be interested and haven't already got in.

55 minutes ago, Dinocanid said:

Another suggestion too, how about team listings for the game directory?

I loved this and implemented it as far I can (at the moment). There is now a Team Member field on Games where members can be added, they display under the social media.

Do you have a pet? If so, introduce them to us! Pictures are even better if you are willing to show off your best non-human friends! 

(I will have to dig up a few pictures of our menagerie of four dogs)

What are the three sites you absolutely love to visit, and what about them has you coming back?

For me, it is http://digg.com, http://reddit.com, and obviously http://thegaminglist.com. The first two for the news (but not too much news), some memes, and general cute animal pictures to make my day go faster, the last one because I  all of you guys.

So, as  @Artist 's, do you know any other artists that you admire for their style or creativity? What is it about their talent or personalities make you go "Wow, I admire this person!"

2 minutes ago, Kesstryl said:

I think the adoptables are really cute, and a great motivator to get people to post.  I haven't quite figured out how to name mine yet though, is there a catch to that?

Ah yes, they are able to be named (or renamed) when they Evolve.

18 minutes ago, Kesstryl said:

I think the adoptables were a little more popular than you anticipated   Seriously, the layout and look of the current site is much better than what I saw yesterday, and to me it's easier to navigate.  The games list page is really nice too.

I believe they have definitely won the popular feature vote, which makes me feel good considering I coded it all myself.

So, we have a pretty neat Adoptables system, but I would like to hear our members feedback on what you feel could make it better. The suggestions here (since we have not really asked for any in a while) will help devise a roadmap for future improvements, and your input is very much appreciated.

@Artist @Game Owner @Programmer @Writer

So, I wanted to reach out to our  @Game Owner group about what additions you feel you would like to see for your game listings? 

Right now they feel pretty sparse and simple, and I would love your feedback on what additional details you feel would make your game listing page feel more attractive for people checking them out.

43 minutes ago, Kesstryl said:

After trying the new version yesterday, I do have to say I like this one much better, and yes I am happy to have my adoptables back!  I'll try to contribute more or buy a custom adoptable every now and then to help offset that $170 yearly cost.

The yearly cost isn't a terrible thing, and completely manageable and budgeted. The best gift any of our members could give is to contribute in the form of posting in topics, creating them, or continuing to help build this wonderfully supportive community  

Just now, Jared said:

Hi!

I founded the website called ChibiPaws. It was fairly active some years back but fell into disrepair by the management at the time. I’m currently recoding it with the intention of finding some help and here as an alternative to VPL. 

Very cool, cannot say I am familiar with it, but I am sure some of the other members here are. I hope you find what you need help with, we have quite the group of members who are always willing to help.

Welcome!

2 hours ago, Hasi said:

What are you going to do with a storm trooper and a baby skeleton?

I'll be wearing some eevee ears. Probably going to take my little wolf out to a few houses for fun. He can't really eat any candies so it'll mostly be for the fun (maybe exchange the candy for something he likes). Then hand out sweets or stickers to trick-or-treaters.

Take them out trick or treating. The baby skeleton can try his hand at charming the neighbors out of their candy.

36 minutes ago, Kesstryl said:

We already had our grown up Halloween party this weekend (so the kids among our friends and family can have theirs on proper Halloween), and I dressed up as a dryad.  I used to love dressing up as an elf, but I'm getting a few wrinkles at my age, and I wanted to try something that would look good with a little bit of aging.  I love how it turned out.

Who said elves cannot age? I see lots of wrinkles here (no gray hair yet though. I'd fail that requirement):

Welcome @Jared!

What game do you own?