steel marsh
"An indie computer game specifically created to appeal to streamers and other content creators as a method of quickly gaining popularity."
For the handful of hours that I've played Waterpark Simulator I've enjoyed it tremendously, although there is one criticism in particular that seemed to keep returning as I kept playing: the game sometimes feels more catered towards streamers opposed to regular players. This could be due to small details in the game, but also entire features that just aren't designed with the majority of players in mind. I'll be elaborating on what I mean by this and why it should be prevented in my opinion, as I really love the game in it's current direction and I don't want it to go down a path that I recognize in many other indie games.
Many things in the game are made with streamers in mind: the "Raegulls", "Queso", "L's in the chat" as a vandal text, Twitch integration being added with seemingly zero hesitation, and so on. There's nothing wrong with a nod to the streaming industry every once in a while, but, from my perspective, it can get to a point where the player just feels unwanted, and as if they shouldn't be playing the game themselves, but just watching their favourite streamer play it instead: when it comes to the vandal text and the Twitch integration, to a majority of the players it can be seen as "Oh well, that's cool for a streamer, I guess" and not much more than that.
If we extrapolate the current rate at which these features with streamers in mind are added, not only would the quality of the game for players decrease, a stigma around the game would form as well, leading people to brush the entire game off as just "another game for streamers" and maybe even something along the lines of a cash grab, similar to games like R.E.P.O, PEAK and others.
A good solution against this would be to think about a feature from everyone's perspective: would a player feel entertained or moved by this just as much as a streamer would? Will the game's target audience not deviate from what it's originally supposed to be because of this?
Of course making your game fun to stream is also very important for a plethora of reasons, and the point of what I'm saying is not to bash on existing features, it's more of a warning that I think is important to point out: regular players will be the majority of your playerbase, and it's important to have them feel just as wanted as the streamers are. Thank you for reading <3
naive knot