Hi, just a quick note, I found out about this by accident reading this thread. If I may suggest, some sort of announcement elsewhere might be useful, if not now then at some later point. I was avoiding this thread because I hadn’t played the game yet. I checked it out now, just out of idleness, and good thing I did…
I understand there doesn’t seem to be a “convention” for informing people in general in a way that they get notified or that they notice if it’s on a place they check often.
Just an FYI from a user who prefers to play up-to-date versions and is perpetually in fear of playing, and being frustrated by, and wasting time on, an older version that doesn’t reflect the author’s intent.
If you want to play up-to-date versions of comp games, you don’t need announcements: just don’t download the game from the comp site until you’re ready to play it. Or play it online from the comp site where you’ll get the latest anyway.
Anathema to my nature. I have it so that I can play it whenever I feel like it, offline. I appreciate the ideas, but they don’t really fit me. Should I infer from your reply that there really is not much thought given to announcement of updates, and essentially “you play what you play, you play onlione, and if you happen to download an old version you’re crap out of luck because we’re not going to tell anyone aobut it unless the author does so in their private channels”?
It’s not what I would consider to be useful, but if that’s the way it is, that’s the way it is. I’ll play what I have, if some games give me a broken experience I’ll just experience that broken thing because I won’t know any better, and I’ll move on with a sour taste in my mouth from that game, and the world will continue to turn.
I would prefer for that not to be the case, of course, but if it is, it is. If it’s geared with a bias towards online play, then that’s the bias it has.
EDIT - Alternatively, it might be that it’s best to not download any SpringThing game until the competition ends. Would that be best, do you think?
EDIT - Yes, on reflection the above seems to be a reasonable thing to do. I’ll do that, so I won’t bother anyone with my unique preferences. Certainly I don’t expect others to cater to me individually.
Yes, that’s the deal, although I think you’re reading that wrong. It’s not that the player is out of luck, it’s that the author has to assume that people may judge based on the initial version. For instance, it’s explicitly in the rules of IFComp that no judge is obligated to get your updates; assume that some people will judge the game based on its initial version. And there are certainly people who download the big bundle at the beginning of a comp and never update. Updates used to not even be allowed during the comp period for some of the comps: what you submit is what people judge. A bunch of non-IF game jams work that way.
The IFComp site has a (pretty unobtrusive) list of update notes for each game: I don’t think the Spring Thing site has that?
If you want to encourage authors to do extra work to make it easier for you to tell if you need to download things again, sure, you can ask. But it’s explicitly OK to judge the original version, and I don’t think that “download it as soon before you play as is convenient, to make sure you have the latest version” is a “bias towards online play,” either. If you weren’t online you wouldn’t be able to get ANY notifications about the game being updated, so you’d be out of luck anyway.
I see, that is certainly sensible. Indeed, I was reading it wrong.
Made it easier for people like me; post-comp updates were more visibly announced. But it’s a good thing these updates are allowed in-comp now.
FWIW, sounds like a good idea, a good thing to have. Extra work for someone, though, so it’s something that’d be nice to have but I won’t lobby for.
I think you’re reading that wrong. I would like to encourage authors to have one extra line of effort - an announcement - so that everyone potentially interested (not just me individually; I’m just the squeaky wheel) is notified. One person doing one announcement for the benefit of all the interested players of that person’s game seems, to me, preferable than one person not making that effort and a plural number of players not being aware and playing an old version the author would rather they didn’t. At least, that is my reading of it. If yours is as you state, we’ll agree to disagree.
It’s a personal thing. I am online, but when I do my gaming I go offline. I don’t expect anyone to cater to this, but it does influence my actions. Not unlike any sort of accessibility. In this case, the “accessibility” is “my head needs not to be in front of the big computer monitor that it often is in front of, even when it’s for work, in order to enjoy a nice game; just me, sitting on the bed, in my bedroom, away from my main system, offline, nothing but the tablet and a physical keyboard and completely relaxing and tuning off”.
Again, it’s a “me” thing. I don’t expect anyone to cater to this. But it’s a perfectly valid thing.
Sorry, @Giger_Kitty ; I didn’t think to announce the new version, but it seems like a reasonable thing to do. I made a separate post so that to would be easier to notice. Thanks!
Just a note, since this was (understandably) split from the original thread and was named “Spring Thing Game Updates” I think it’s relevant to point to Where to reliably find new releases of games? , and specifically:
That way this very helpful link to a very helpful resource is also featured in this thread, which has a name that makes this a sensible link to have here.
No, I don’t find the previous sentence contorted and/or strained at all.
Certainly I don’t expect others to cater to me individually. 
