For help on part 5, leave a comment on this blog post : http://www.vdategames.com/wordpress/?p=195

TUTORIAL 5 : Final thoughts

Player names


First of all, here’s one more thing I forgot about in the last tutorial. This is how to give the player the option of entering their name, then have it display in game.


First of all, download this : LINK.

Inside, you will find an html file. Add it to the same folder as all your other ones.  


Make sure the player can access the file when choosing their other character options at the start of the game by linking to it in one of the early pages.


Now, whenever you want someone to say the  players name in game, add this little piece of code to the dialog :

<script src="myname.js"></script>


It should look something like this :

Note the code on line 24.


And that’s all there is to it.

Final Thoughts


For my last tutorial, I’m just going to write a list of general hints and tips. I will probably keep adding to this list over time as more things occur to me.

  1. Statistically speaking, players prefer dates with more extreme personalities (either wild or shy). There is no preference for hair color however.
  2. Player’s favorite scenarios are visiting a strip club and photoshoots.
  3. Have a certain logic to the way your gameplay works. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed, players really dislike it when a choice abruptly ends the game for them. For instance, if the player gets to say “I really like rock music”, then the date really dislikes them (or something similar). If there was a hint earlier that she didn’t like the music, it works, but if it’s a sudden opinion that come from nowhere, it doesn’t.
  4. If you are buying your own website, I recommend using dreamhost. Hostgator are very expensive (especially if your website becomes popular), and yahoo don’t allow adult content. Make sure your site host allows adult content!
  5. Google advertising isn’t allowed on any website with these games. If you want to monetize through advertising, I recommend juicyads.com.  If you want some publicity for your site, they are also good to advertise through.

I will finish with a small offer. If you make a game and want to release it via this site, I may be willing to host it. Vdategames.com gets around 250000 unique visitors per month, so it may be a good source of publicity. If you release it as a free game, you can also setup juicyads spaces for the page you game is on, and get to keep all the money you make from them.


If you would like to charge money for you game, we can also do this. I’ll release it via the members section and give you 80-90% of the profits from it. If you want to discuss details, email me at chaotic@vdategames.com.