What changed
0 fixes2 additions3 changes0 removals
addedWith the end of Next Fest, it is time to take a look at how things went. Overall, it did not go well. In addition to this being Next Fest having a lot more submissions than normal, and a lot of AI slop that turned many people away, we did not have the initial following and marketing to draw attention to our game. The first 2 days matter the most to feed the algorithm, and we did not do enough to promote the game to a wide enough audience in advance of Next Fest. Our capsule art and trailers were also not that good. We know that marketing is an important part of releasing a game, but we were so focused on the game, that we did not do enough to promote it in advance. We spent much of Next Fest trying to catch up with our marketing. We worked on new trailers. We redid our capsule art. We made changes to the demo. All of this helped, and we did get more attention from it, but it was too late to appease the Next Fest algorithm, and much of the attention the game received was directly from those outside sources, not Next Fest. We have learned a lot on the marketing side from taking part in Next Fest, but as a way to promote the game, we largely wasted the opportunity.
changedWe also have acknowledged that the demo is lacking. We tried to take much of the early game and use that for the demo, with the plan being that a later demo save might be able to be used in the full game. Unfortunately, the way the game progresses there is so much more the further you go. Right now we are thinking of redoing the demo so that you have several points where you skip ahead, allowing players to more quickly get to later parts of the game to be able to interact with some of the gameplay mechanics that only have an effect later on.
changedSomething we have been discussing is to break up the intro sequence into a skipable prologue, and shorter intro for the main game. Those who want the extra story can go through the prologue, while those who want action sooner can get into things faster. This will also allow us to expand the story a bit with things we left out to keep the length down. We are thinking of setting it up so you can play as each member of the party, and see things from their point of view. There is some debate on having this prologue allow free roaming of the town to interact with NPCs. With this split, we would likely start the main game with you talking to Leader Leo, but it will be on the next morning, skipping all of the in-town interactions, which would be in the prologue only. You get the quick story intro and then head out.
changedThese are some of our thoughts right now. We clearly need to make some changes and invest more of our time into the marketing/promotion end of things. We need a better demo, and need to find some streamers to play that demo. We will continue to work on the game, but may have fewer releases in the near future as we sort things out and try to make something that will better draw the attention we need to succeed.
addedThank you to everyone who has shown interest in our game already! If you have any feedback, please feel free to reach out. We are still learning how to make and release a good game. We have learned so much in the past year, and continue to learn many new things. Feedback from other devs and players has greatly helped us, and is very much appreciated.
Hungry For Loot changes
addedWith the end of Next Fest, it is time to take a look at how things went. Overall, it did not go well. In addition to this being Next Fest having a lot more submissions than normal, and a lot of AI slop that turned many people away, we did not have the initial following and marketing to draw attention to our game. The first 2 days matter the most to feed the algorithm, and we did not do enough to promote the game to a wide enough audience in advance of Next Fest. Our capsule art and trailers were also not that good. We know that marketing is an important part of releasing a game, but we were so focused on the game, that we did not do enough to promote it in advance. We spent much of Next Fest trying to catch up with our marketing. We worked on new trailers. We redid our capsule art. We made changes to the demo. All of this helped, and we did get more attention from it, but it was too late to appease the Next Fest algorithm, and much of the attention the game received was directly from those outside sources, not Next Fest. We have learned a lot on the marketing side from taking part in Next Fest, but as a way to promote the game, we largely wasted the opportunity.
changedWe also have acknowledged that the demo is lacking. We tried to take much of the early game and use that for the demo, with the plan being that a later demo save might be able to be used in the full game. Unfortunately, the way the game progresses there is so much more the further you go. Right now we are thinking of redoing the demo so that you have several points where you skip ahead, allowing players to more quickly get to later parts of the game to be able to interact with some of the gameplay mechanics that only have an effect later on.
changedSomething we have been discussing is to break up the intro sequence into a skipable prologue, and shorter intro for the main game. Those who want the extra story can go through the prologue, while those who want action sooner can get into things faster. This will also allow us to expand the story a bit with things we left out to keep the length down. We are thinking of setting it up so you can play as each member of the party, and see things from their point of view. There is some debate on having this prologue allow free roaming of the town to interact with NPCs. With this split, we would likely start the main game with you talking to Leader Leo, but it will be on the next morning, skipping all of the in-town interactions, which would be in the prologue only. You get the quick story intro and then head out.
changedThese are some of our thoughts right now. We clearly need to make some changes and invest more of our time into the marketing/promotion end of things. We need a better demo, and need to find some streamers to play that demo. We will continue to work on the game, but may have fewer releases in the near future as we sort things out and try to make something that will better draw the attention we need to succeed.
addedThank you to everyone who has shown interest in our game already! If you have any feedback, please feel free to reach out. We are still learning how to make and release a good game. We have learned so much in the past year, and continue to learn many new things. Feedback from other devs and players has greatly helped us, and is very much appreciated.
With the end of Next Fest, it is time to take a look at how things went. Overall, it did not go well. In addition to this being Next Fest having a lot more submissions than normal, and a lot of AI slop that turned many people away, we did not have the initial following and marketing to draw attention to our game. The first 2 days matter the most to feed the algorithm, and we did not do enough to promote the game to a wide enough audience in advance of Next Fest. Our capsule art and trailers were also not that good. We know that marketing is an important part of releasing a game, but we were so focused on the game, that we did not do enough to promote it in advance. We spent much of Next Fest trying to catch up with our marketing. We worked on new trailers. We redid our capsule art. We made changes to the demo. All of this helped, and we did get more attention from it, but it was too late to appease the Next Fest algorithm, and much of the attention the game received was directly from those outside sources, not Next Fest. We have learned a lot on the marketing side from taking part in Next Fest, but as a way to promote the game, we largely wasted the opportunity.
So where does this leave us? Well, we are exhausted. We spent many long stressful days working on things we don't like to do, and are not that good at. We've certainly leveled up our skills, but are also feeling burnt out from it. We are going to take some time to rest. Then we are going to review everything and see how best to move forward. We still plan to release Hungry For Loot, but we are rethinking our timeline. The plan was to release in Early Access next month. Without enough of a following, that will likely have the same problem as Next Fest, where the algorithm decides our game is not popular enough and it gets lost among all the better promoted content out there. We are going to need to do more to promote the game before we can reasonably release in Early Access, and especially before a full release. We are tentatively looking at pushing Early Access back a month into August, but it will depend on how things go.
We also have acknowledged that the demo is lacking. We tried to take much of the early game and use that for the demo, with the plan being that a later demo save might be able to be used in the full game. Unfortunately, the way the game progresses there is so much more the further you go. Right now we are thinking of redoing the demo so that you have several points where you skip ahead, allowing players to more quickly get to later parts of the game to be able to interact with some of the gameplay mechanics that only have an effect later on.
Something we have been discussing is to break up the intro sequence into a skipable prologue, and shorter intro for the main game. Those who want the extra story can go through the prologue, while those who want action sooner can get into things faster. This will also allow us to expand the story a bit with things we left out to keep the length down. We are thinking of setting it up so you can play as each member of the party, and see things from their point of view. There is some debate on having this prologue allow free roaming of the town to interact with NPCs. With this split, we would likely start the main game with you talking to Leader Leo, but it will be on the next morning, skipping all of the in-town interactions, which would be in the prologue only. You get the quick story intro and then head out.
We are also thinking of taking this longer prologue and using it for some of the marketing. Instead of needing to play through what is mostly just dialog, we may do some short videos so people can see the story before deciding if they want to play.
These are some of our thoughts right now. We clearly need to make some changes and invest more of our time into the marketing/promotion end of things. We need a better demo, and need to find some streamers to play that demo. We will continue to work on the game, but may have fewer releases in the near future as we sort things out and try to make something that will better draw the attention we need to succeed.
Thank you to everyone who has shown interest in our game already! If you have any feedback, please feel free to reach out. We are still learning how to make and release a good game. We have learned so much in the past year, and continue to learn many new things. Feedback from other devs and players has greatly helped us, and is very much appreciated.
