[nirvana]

I wish you the best, whatever it is you are, so constructive feedback follows:

Voxatron is too humble. I just went to the page. I had my browser window pretty big... taking up most of a 21" monitor.

Here's what I could tell about Voxatron:

1. It's called voxatron

2. It's "pay what you want".

3. It supports charity

4. It is DRM free

5. The people behind voxatron thought a sorta mincraftish image would communicate something significant to me.

6. It seems like it can run on a Mac.

I think these are all, clearly, features you wanted to communicate, and you succeeded in doing so very well.

However, I then hit my back button because, in the time it took me to grasp on that, I realized I had no clue what Voxatron was.... and I have spent too much time trying to figure things like that out in the past on other sites such that I've gotten the impression that if I don't get it right away, I likely never will. (Seriously, I can't tell you how many times I've followed links from google, gotten to a corporate site, spent 5-10 minutes there, unable to make heads or tails-- when I got there because, according to the query I crafted for google, google thinks this company is selling what I wanted to buy RIGHT THEN. The barrier is much lower for links on HN.)

Is it a game? Is it a voice transcoder? Is it an auto tuner? Is it for musicians? Is it for kids playing around with digital signal processing?

Give me a one line description of what voxatron is or does, without too much hyperbole, and put it front and center, maybe right under or replacing the word "voxatron" where it is now on the page. And if there IS Such a line, and I completely missed it, then I think your page layout is too busy and it caused me to overlook it.

You got my 11 seconds, but didn't get me very far down the funnel to conversion.

Again, with all respect, and hopes that this is helpful-

[msg]

I knew what it was, so maybe I'm not the best test subject. And I agree with you that this kind of thing should be above the fold. But it's there if you use your scroll wheel in the first 11 seconds:

Be the first to tackle this voxel-based, old-school-gone-new platform shooter. Jump into the Voxatron alpha and shoot your way through twenty challenging areas filled with blocky baddies, destructible toys, and palliative powerups.

Get Voxatron's future content and gameplay updates. As a customer of the Humble Voxatron Debut, you'll receive access to all of Lexaloffle's future updates to Voxatron: levels, characters, and more!

Level editor included, with monster creation tools on the way! After conquering the alpha adventure, check out the “BBS Levels” for instant-access to user-created content. Want to make your own voxel masterpiece? Voxde -- the Voxatron level editor -- is included with every purchase, granting you the ability to create mind-blowing new environments to share with the world. And soon, Lexaloffle plans to add monster creation tools for designing your own blocky bad guys to populate your creations.

[ido]

Honest question: do you really don't know what the humble bundle is, or are you just playing devil's advocate?

[MrFoof]

A valid question in return would be, "Do you know how many people don't know what the Humble Bundle is?"

Moreover, what percentage of the population is even aware that A) you can buy games to play on the computer, and B) that didn't come from a big box retailer? I'll tell you this -- it's very much in the minority, especially when you look at the 30-and-up crowd. Much older than that and the percentage of the population starts to approach zero.

I grew up with an Atari VCS 2600 (that my parents had bought for themselves), as did most others I know. However if I asked my parents -- or those of anyone I know -- what Steam was, they wouldn't think of anything other than water vapor. Humble Bundle? Not a chance.

I've heard of kids on the bus and subway recently, talking about "this new Steam thing". If kids aren't aware of it, how aware is the general population of something far more obscure? Not very.

[ido]

Right, but we're on HN, and Humble Bundle Inc is a YC company that gets on the front page with some regularity.

I'm sure I'm in a bit of an echo chamber, but it just seems strange to me since it's been so widly discussed here and in other places I frequent (e.g. reddit - another site I don't expect my parents to know but would be surprised if the common HN-er didn't hear about it).

[morrow]

Just my opinion, but I too didn't know what voxatron was until I played the video (which was great, by the way). I know what the Humble Bundle is, but I think what threw me off is that I usually hear it referred to as "the humble indie bundle", and since it contained neither the words indie nor bundle, I assumed it was somebody using intentionally similar phrasing to promote an unrelated product.

[nirvana]

Remember, even if you've been exposed to something in the past, it doesn't mean you know what it is. I clicked on the article on the HN page, by reading the title, and didn't see the domain until I went to click on the back button. I can't say that I didn't have any inkling that it was a game, and whether it was from the mine craft like picture or the url I can't say (though I don't know for sure that humble bundle is only games.)

IF people are tweeting this page, how many people who see that tweet are likely to follow it and have never heard of Humble Bundle before? So, they'd know even less than I would...

[egypturnash]

This Humble Bundle is a bit of an abberation; normally the deal is like 5-6 games for pay-what-you-want. So the value proposition is normally a lot better - "dude I can get SIX GAMES for like TWO DOLLARS!" and that tends to be enough to draw you down to click on the games' icons and find out about them.

[buro9]

Same here, I looked around the page, identified the same things as you. Then gave up trying to figure it out what it actually is and instead thought that maybe the HN conversation might tell me.

Someone below says it's an indie game. Maybe I'll take a look later.

[Wilduck]

Are you familiar with the Humble Indie Bundle? This is like that. It's an indie game released for pay what you want to support charity.

[metellus]

I'm familiar with the Humble Indie Bundle, so I knew that Voxatron was some kind of game before clicking the link. After the link, I know nothing new. It could be a shooter, a platformer, a puzzle game, or anything else. There should be a brief description of the game in a prominent place on the page.