Dev Diary - Steam Next Fest

The Game

As far as I can tell, there were no major issues with the game over the course of Next Fest. I had essentially "locked" the build 2 weeks before Next Fest started to make sure I didn't accidentally break anything, and I'm very happy with how it held up.

I only noticed a couple of relatively minor bugs while watching streams and reading feedback, and managed to fix those & publish new builds without any issues. Most of these bugs weren't things anyone else would notice, but here's the list:

• AddedBUGThe "Continue" button was enabled on the first slide of the New Hire Orientation training before you finished watching the video.

• BUG: The date text shown on the computer on day 1 was timezone dependent (so showed June 15 instead of 16 for European players).

• BUG: Clicking on a person would remove the maximum zoom restrictions in HAE-Eye.

• BUG: If you copy the text from a Place Association search box exactly (e.g. "Madame Estelle (AB12345667)"), you would get no search results.

• AdjustedMINORChanged the way Search Box text is shown so if there's no name/nickname it only shows the ID once instead of "ID (ID)".
• AdjustedMINORReduced the volume of the Corporate Pop music tracks to better match the PogoChamp BGM volume.
• AdjustedMINORReduced the time between HAE-gent automatic associations from 2s -> 1.5s.

• MINOR: Change time slider multiplier from 200x -> 240x.

The only somewhat major issue that I noticed people run into is that Chromium-based applications can't use Game Capture in OBS, which meant that a lot of streamers spent the first 30 seconds of their stream going "Oh this is one of those games where Game Capture doesn't work, guess I need to use Window Capture." That's not a big deal, but is a little annoying. Unfortunately according to OBS and Electron, this is effectively unsolvable, so there's nothing I can really do about it.

The Reception

In terms of player sentiment about the game, I really couldn't be happier. I got a bunch of positive and encouraging messages, and the core idea really seemed to resonate with people. Here are some quotes:

• "just wanted to say that this is my favorite nextfest participant and a contender for my goty from the demo alone, keep up the great work"

• "Just played the demo and had an absolute blast playing it. ... I hope your game sells well, it deserves it."

• "I have just finished the demo. Your game is incredible."

• "heyo, loved this game and am really excited to see where it goes!"

• "First off, amazing work on this game that wonderfully shows how anonymous data can still be tracked"

• "HAE Stack is scarier than any horror game I’ve sampled this Next Fest."

• “This is the most well-made fake OS I've ever seen.”

• "HAE Stack is fucking diabolical"

I'm not sure what I expected, but I kind of regret not allowing Steam reviews on the demo during Next Fest. A bunch of positive user reviews might have helped encourage people to try it.

The Numbers

"Daily Average Wishlist Additions vs previous period": +1866%

Before Next Fest, I had around 100 wishlists, gaining something like 2 per day on average. During Next Fest, I averaged 51 new wishlists per day, bringing the total up to just above 450.

It's not the huge numbers of some of the "major" games with tens of thousands, but for a weird, not particularly "mass market" game with barely any social media presence I'm not complaining.

In terms of media coverage, I'm aware of 5 Twitch streams of the demo, and 4 Youtube videos that mention it. Not a ton, but they were a lot of fun to watch.

Marketing

Marketing has always been- and likely will always be- my least favorite part of making something. I made a Bluesky account for the game pretty much right at the beginning of Next Fest, and posted a couple dozen times during it. I mostly just searched for "Next Fest", and when someone asked for games to play I'd respond with mine. This actually did get at least a few people to check it out that otherwise wouldn't have know about it. None of that resulted in "explosive growth" or anything, but you have to start somewhere I guess.

Conclusion

I think this Next Fest was the right time to make the game public. The game was in a great spot, and the small but highly positive reception has been super encouraging. I joke sometimes that "everything I make is for an audience of like 5 people, but those people are going to be SUPER into it", and it was encouraging to see so many more people than that excited about the game.

Could i have done more or better marketing? Absolutely. Am I disappointed that HAE Stack didn't end up "above the fold" in the Puzzle category on Next Fest? Sure. Did the results exceed my expectations? Definitely.

Thank you Steam for hosting.