Lizard Isle - Small Idle game

An idle game with a growing for profit theme to help replace the food generation Urns of the lizard people.

As small as this game is, logged the time spent on it and it's at 15 hours.

I like it - used (and credited) graphics from game-icons.net and from cooltext.com. Very nifty quick assets. Also appreciate the people of the forums who gave me coding advice along the way!

https://www.scirra.com/arcade/other-gam ... -isle-9045

Do you just click the two buttons?

At 10 urns an auto buy unlocks that buys in lots of 10.

As said it's a small game and a main feature is that it is completed - I've seen too many amateur game designers think there has to be so much more or else and then feature bloat kills the project - they never complete it. I've done this as well, too many times.

The thing is I've seen games which are about killing things which aren't much more complex than this - maybe buy more damage or stuff but it's still about clicking the same button a lot or leaving it to idle. Perhaps Lizard Isle might seem simple because its not about killing stuff.

Edit : Also in terms of doing anything, in games like this one you do nothing at all - and it's gotten about 122k plays per year since it's upload.

Just asked a question - no need to start hating on other games and get defensive.

It is true that it is an accomplishment to finish anything. But you should also be open to questions and feedback on things you post in a forum.

Any comment or questions shows more interests than not leaving a comment at all.

Please, it's a bit rude to call anyone a hater or defensive (or not open) as if it's a fact rather than a guess. If you wouldn't like to be told you're being a hater or defensive as if its definitely true, then it's not a good idea to tell others they are as if it's a fact. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you, and all that.

So let's not escalate to that - I've faithfully answered the question by anticipating audience interests. There are tons of games out there where you are killing things - and so I've broken genre a bit by removing killing. Breaking genre has an effect, I'll grant. We could discuss the essence of idle games - I mean, in the killing games there can be an upgrade to frequency of auto attack, auto attack strength, active attack strength, etc etc. But in essence it still breaks down to clicking a lot or waiting a lot. So for anyone who is into idle games (which isn't everyone, which is fair) aught to be able to see the fun in the opportunity to click a lot or wait a lot to auto gain points. It's fair to say something like 'Adventure Capitalist' is a bigger game and thus a bigger fun - but they both come from the same essence.

Like artists study colour theory by breaking down to the primary colours, I think it can be a good base for discussion to make a game that is broken down to the raw essence of a genre (and as a side bonus it's easier to complete the project that way). So let's discuss game design and question what is raw essence (of any genre of game) and what is really just added features rather than requirements.

Not sure why you felt the need to start talking about other games in order to answer a question about your own

Nice start to the idle game genre!

I'm a bit new to the "idle" and "clicker" genre and totally get why some people don't like them also (especially that one you linked on Kongregate, how the hell did it get so many plays??). Although I did make the Clicker game template on the Scirra store awhile back, I never had really played any which is kind of funny. But anyways, yea the clicker and idle games have took off pretty big (remember these waves die out quick so make sure you get a quality one done before then).

Just first glance advice for what you got so far:

1) Maybe a quick skip button for the intro for impatient ADHD people like myself

2) I never really liked any of the idle games that had numbers with decimals, I always was like..just round! So maybe consider rebalancing the numbers a bit and make them whole?

3) How are you saving the game right now, is it just Localstorage or savegame state? One thing you might want to look into is saving it into a database. The easiest one right now is Firebase which rexrainbow made a wonderful plugin for. So then you can package up all the stats into some json and send it to firebase and then pull the data when needed, etc. Just a further down the road suggestion, but definitely think about it as you develop because it is a pain to switch how you save data after the fact..I have made that mistake a lot lol.

Otherwise, keep it up and if you ever need any other help feel free to mention me in your post and I will try my best!

[quote:1rvfypui]remember these waves die out quick so make sure you get a quality one done before then

I think it'll be around for awhile, but the 'big new thing' interest will trough at some point, definitely.

[quote:1rvfypui]1) Maybe a quick skip button for the intro for impatient ADHD people like myself

Like clicking or pressing space would make the next page button come up early so you can move on quickly? I'm kind of on a new project now but I'll prioritise assigning time to go back and make an adjustment like that and upload.

[quote:1rvfypui]2) I never really liked any of the idle games that had numbers with decimals, I always was like..just round! So maybe consider rebalancing the numbers a bit and make them whole?

I get the aesthetic issue with that. I'm not sure about revisting Lizard Isle due to extensive recoding needed (as I estimate it), but in my new project I'm currenly using fractions. I was going to split it into two currencies to make it nice and round, but then went with fractions to use use one variable. But maybe I should have two - kind of like how D&D has silver and gold as two separate currencies, when silver is really just a fraction of gold. So I get your point, was going to do that in my new project, passed on it but now on reflection I'll have to include that!

[quote:1rvfypui]3) How are you saving the game right now, is it just Localstorage or savegame state? One thing you might want to look into is saving it into a database. The easiest one right now is Firebase which rexrainbow made a wonderful plugin for. So then you can package up all the stats into some json and send it to firebase and then pull the data when needed, etc. Just a further down the road suggestion, but definitely think about it as you develop because it is a pain to switch how you save data after the fact..I have made that mistake a lot lol.

It's in local storage. I'm not sure what advantage firebase would have? Apart from the user being able to go from one machine to another and still use the same info?

[quote:1rvfypui] (especially that one you linked on Kongregate, how the hell did it get so many plays??)

Well, I'm not going to lay into his/her effort - it has its audience and even if it didn't, they made something and that's to be respected. But it's still a surprising level of interest given it involves zero interaction - 10k of plays a month is not to be sneezed at!

Thanks for your reply, Djfuzion!

Just asked a question - no need to start hating on other games and get defensive.

The game was clearly marked as an "idle game" in the topic title, of course the creator is going to feel defensive if you come in and say "but all you do is click a couple of buttons". That's the genre! If you don't like it, why did you open the thread?

Anyway nice job finishing a game Callan

I asked in case I was missing something. There was no judgement.

I was just answering. There was no hating on other games or defensiveness, just as much.