Whiterabbit-uk,

Thanks for the feedback, especially on the language bit. We couldn’t decide at the time if we wanted the player to choose a language at the start or show both together just for the fun of it – so that people could learn a word or two of another language.

As for your comment that you’d buy the game if it was in Steam:

Steam charges a fee of $100 to list a game in their store. Previously that was non-refundable. Now it is refundable if your game earns more than $1000 – which means in most cases it is still non-refundable. It’s an exclusive store for people who can afford it.

Itch.io was started to offer a level playing field and to give sellers full control of their stores. At present they charge $3 for a tax interview which goes to a 3rd party – but that is charged against future earnings. That means their store is accessible to everyone. They’re constantly working to develop the store. It’s a great place to be.

Janette - Evolutionary Games,

..................................Moderator comment.....................................

I like the idea regarding learning a few words of Spanish, but generally I still think that having both on the same page does make the page look too confusing. I would recommend adding the list of features that I copied from your web site as part of the help menu as not everything is obvious. Knowing all those facts from the beginning helps me to decide whether a game is worth playing. At first glance I thought it was just a simple catch-it game. I was pleasantly surprised by the excellent cartoon like graphic, but initially I almost deleted the game. I'd not read the introduction on the giveaway page and even ignored the help page in game (but partly becasue of the mix of languages). Basically I just downloaded and installed the game, then jumped right in, so not having any idea as to what I was supposed to do, gave me a negative impression of the game. Once I'd read all the information on your web site, I realized the game was much better than I'd first thought. Thanks again for giving it away

I've purchased a lot of games via Itch.io as well as other sites like EA games Origin, Ubisoft's uPlay, and other distributors, plus I've received a lot of games from indie bundles that included Itch.io codes. There's loads of excellent games to be found on that site. Still I like Steam because of all the extras that are included with it; for example, the community with a messaging system to friends, news items about games, a big picture mode, that gives you the ability to stream my games to my TV and to share most games with family and friends around the world (only when I'm not signed into my account), the ability to Stream my game play to friends, an editable library where I can categorize my games into genres (because my Steam library has over 11700 games, its impossible to remember every game so the ability to categorize them into genres and other categories like VR, horror, Sci Fi, Space etc is really useful becasue it makes it easier to find a game especially if I can't remember its name; for example I remember a game I want to play, but can't remember its name, it has dragons is based in an open world, and has potions and magic, so I look through those categories and usually find what I'm looking for. Steam also offers the ability to auto updates games, includes a workshop for mods which you can install or uninstall at the click of a button, thousands of achievements, and a market place where you can sell stuff - {I made around £1500 selling trading cards and other items that were dropped for free while playing various games} and of course the frequent regular sales.

I didn't realize they charged just for listing a game as well. I know they take a generous cut of the profits that are made from sales, but Steam does reach millions of users every day, so the potential for sales if a game is good are pretty good. Sadly Valve have in my opinion become too greedy. When I first joined Steam over 10 years ago, it was still a place run by dedicated gamers for gamers and the quality control they had was excellent. Since the advent of the Greenlight project (5-6 years ago), the quality control seems to have become almost non existent. There are thousands of £0.39/€0.39/$0.50 games, most of which seem to have been cobbled together using free assets from various cheap game engines, and most of those cheap games have unimaginative game play, poor graphics and lots of bugs. That said, I'm sure some of those developers creating those games will go on to create masterpieces. We all have to start somewhere. When I first joined Steam, game engines were beyond my affordability, but now, thanks to Steam I have several game engines (all purchased while on sale) , plus loads of graphic programs such as 3D sprite renders, Particle generators, Character Creators, Geovox, various versions of RPG Maker, GameMaker Studio, Leadwerks game engine, , Manga Maker, Mindtex, Substance Designer & Painter, and others for creating games and assets for games.

Your game, apart from being original is brilliant in comparison to most of those dirt cheap games I mention above.

Have you any games in development? I used to do a lot of beta testing for various developers such as Alawar games and other arcade developers, as well as some AAA developers (Ubisoft & EA Games). If you need any testers, I'd be happy to help. I'm retired, so usually have plenty of time to devote to such things.

Whiterabbit-uk,

Thanks for the offer - I'd love to have a beta tester - but I tend to write the type of games you don't enjoy. I only have 2 or 3 arcade type games of my recent games - this one, a free one (Cloud Calming), and one or two for Android devices that aren't fun to play if you don't have a touch screen - hence no PC version. All the rest are puzzle / hidden object / time management. I mainly concentrate on developing for Android devices now. (I can't afford Apple...)