June Dev Update

Last month we participated in the Cerebral Puzzle Showcase on Steam, organised by my friends at Draknek & Friends. I was hopeful this would be a good fit for Cadence—getting in front of players who enjoy thoughtful puzzle games felt like a perfect fit for our niche.

The Numbers Game

What caught me off guard was the sheer scale: over 470 games participated in this festival. For context, that's more than Steam's entire 2013 catalog—the year I started working on Cadence.

The indie game landscape has changed dramatically. There are so many quality games competing for attention now. While we didn't see many new players due to the festival, it was a useful reminder of how competitive things have become.

Steam Refresh

The festival still was a good forcing function to tackle some overdue housekeeping. I'd forgotten most of Steam's backend systems, so releasing a new demo was a helpful refresher course on how to deploy builds to Steam.

I also updated the Steam store page. The original 2016 cover art was great, but it didn't represent where Cadence is today. Design work always pushes me out of my comfort zone, but I'm pleased with the new capsule images.

It felt important to get Ren (the cat) prominently featured, which had me learning how to bake renders in Blender for the first time. It will never cease to amaze me how good Blender has become!

Small screens:

Last week I focused on iPhone compatibility. I've had an iPad version running since the dawn of the project, but getting phones working properly shows the major UI overhaul coming to fruition, and unlocks an important launch platform.

I'm concentrating on the Apple App Store for now. The mobile games market is cut throat, so it's hard to say what will happen, but I'm still hopeful the game can get some good editorial featuring. Whether I pursue Android will depends largely on how the initial launch goes.

Looking Ahead

Next up: late-game content development. This is the final major milestone before the game becomes releasable. I have some stretch goal ideas in mind, but I'm keeping those separate to ensure Cadence can ship regardless of what else comes up.

Thanks for following along with the development. Your continued interest keeps me motivated through these longer development cycles.

More updates coming soon!