Stayed up until 5am working on the game. Preparing it for release.
Woke up at 8 am, kept on working. Everything just to be on time for 6pm!
Of course I missed it, it wouldn't be a Rarykos project if it was on time :D
42 months ago, TODAY, on May 8th 2019 I had an idea to create a simple strategy game spoofing Game of Thrones. Their defence of Winterfell was weak, I could do better.
That little toy turned out to be fun, and so the 2nd version was made. This time with intent to release it as a Full Game.
Just so you know I'm serious, here's a graph, before you read anything.
The Beginning
If you can remember, in May 2019 Winter Falling started as a silly little game about Game of Thrones!
Used Unity to make a quick game in 3 months.
It's not on the graph, no Steam page yet.
Can you defend Winterfell better than GoT screenwriters?
Results:
50k plays here on Newgrounds
75k plays on itch.io
Quite popular, some people loved it, joined the discord to give their ideas.
I decided to make it a full game.
Second Prototype
Took a year to make the second prototype. Expanded the core concept, I think I made it better.
Web prototype had a link to the Steam page. Some people clicked it!
I created a Steam page with GOD-AWFUL assets to gather wishlists. Low effort.
You have to pay Steam $100 for the privilage.
Results:
36k plays here on Newgrounds
48k plays on itch
86k plays on Armor Games
+1000 wishlists.
+1000 discord members. Same number, it's a coincidence , I know.
Youtube
Because the game was popular, Nookrium made a video. That's the second spike.
Very grateful for it. Had a chance to watch someone actually play the game and see what they think.
I make games on my own. Good to see a youtuber's thought process.
Despair
Then for 2 years the discord community was shrinking as I was rewriting the game from the ground up.
Huge mistake.
I experimented with A LOT OF STUPID MECHANICS.
Wasted so much time. The community had nothing to play for more than a year.
All that time I was extremely embarrassed of the slow progress and thought the game was really bad.
Eventually I updated the art assets on the Steam page. They look a bit better and the arrow shows a slight uptick in wishlists.
SteamNext Festival
October 3rd. I was late. The game was buggy. Had very little content.
For some reason people liked it!
Everything I had to do was to tick a box to be a part of it. And build a demo.
My favourite feedback!
Result:
3k demo plays
+1000 wishlists.
Retromation makes a video. Bonus boost during the festival.
I didn't contact any youtubers. Was scared the game was bad and not ready for the spotlight...
Money?
5000 wishlists. Theory says: 20% should convert first week. That gives 1000 sales first week. 3000 first year.
Steam takes 35%. I need to play taxes. Every copy is $10. I get $5. That means the game SHOULD give me $15 000 in 12 months. You might think it's a lot, but it's laughably small for a programmer.
Good news- that's good money in my poor region in eastern Poland on the border with Ukraine.
I can continue the development in the next year.
If the theory holds I won't have to look for a job next year!
Conclusion:
That's where we're at today. 3 years later. Polishing, making a new campaign and trying to be on time for the release.
I need to write these updates so people remember the game, I get asked often "what happened". Now you know!
When you're making your game prepare for despair.
It always starts hopeful and then you doubt your skills.
But the entire process is very simple these days.
And maybe someone will appreciate your game, like some people like Winter Falling.
There's a lot to draw during the development so I thought I'd record some of it.
Hope it's interesting to someone!
The process is really - how to go from terrible sketch to passable town :D
I know it might not be my best work, but it's okay, sorry for any unprofessional issues, it's my first time.
So the game will come out November 8th. Finally... After 3 years!
Still working on content, but the alpha version should be done soon. Then I can upload it here and everyone can say what to add/change for the final release.
I've been working hard on Winter Falling: Prototype Three and it's final version for Steam.
10 hours 7 days a week was a bit too much, turns out. My right hand started hurting a month ago. Thought it'd pass on its own. It didn't. Now my doctor says I can't use my right hand this month anymore. Cold compresses and frozen peas.
I'm forced to take some time off.
Don't know how big of a delay this is going to create.
What really sucks is I can't even play games to relax now. :<
Moral of the story - you shouldn't spend your whole days in front of a pc/laptop/console.
Second big news:
Mars Power Industries is free this weekend!
You claim it, it's yours forever. I've talked a lot about this game, the community here really helped its success. I'm grateful to you all, I hope you have fun with the game! :D
The team was 4 people, me doing the design and soundscape. The game started as a jam project, we decided to continue the development. Was a pretty good idea overall.
So you know I worked on Mars Power Industries for a long time.
We begun in January 2018 on Global Game Jam, released on Steam in November 2019.
2 updates later, it's finally finished. I'm not updating it anymore. The Final Update has released!
I'm really sick and tired of this game haha...
What is this?
There was one thing I always wanted to try in the game. And that's actually building houses in a game about building a colony. I knew I couldn't make a big update out of it. So here we are, a little standalone puzzle. With a different system. A pleasant little thing to finish the whole Mars journey. 2.5 years of development... MY GOD! I'm so tired of this.
It's just 20 levels, I'm not sure there's even space for more. I think it's all that I could come up with.
We were thinking about making a sequel for Mars Power Industries, but this house building idea doesn't really offer enough design space. :(
Let me get this straight. So your algorithm thinks my game violates "a policy" but you won't tell me which one.
-Sir, please step out of the vehicle. Do you know why I stopped you?
-No...?
-Me neither, here's 200 pages of bullshit legalese, find something.
I LOVE their solution to this problem. Actually got a mail saying:
"Fix whatever violates any policy and upload the game under new name, obviously your earnings are gone."
Dude, maybe take some responsibility, you're taking 30% of my earnings, can I at least talk to a fucking person?
Fuck man, just when we were done with the game, preparing a final free update that's about to go live in 2 weeks, just commissioned an artist for an awesome banner and life... just fucking... gets me again. :(
Here I was writing a postmortem about Mars. About to tell you that this year I'd be able to sustain myself from the game. Interesting projects could be made on time. I have Winter Falling to finish and if I can work on it fulltime I should be done THIS YEAR.
Don't know what I'll do now. Probably work on Winter Falling until my savings run out and starve to death.
Just felt an immense urge to tell you this story, in case you needed a reason to hate giant corporations.
In other news: the Chinese got me, I'm sick and hiding from my discord community until I feel better. :<
That's all. Just some wishes. Hope you have a good time today/tomorrow!
This year was very interesting and exhausting for me but most importantly very fruitful. Worked on some games, finished some games, did some client work, didn't die of starvation. Now that I know what a year like this feels like I'd wish you all a nice fruitful year that you can be proud of!
Just PM me for a key and I'll give you one Mars Power Industries Deluxe. Let's be honest I hate these forced interactions like "write something and then maybe you'll get it". And I can't just put keys here because someone claims them all on a shitty key-seling site like g2a and then nobody gets the free key and I have to pay Steam additionally for fees. :<
So I'm currently spending time with family. Going back to work on Winter Falling, should be done in January. A new update for Mars. Back to Workidle. It should be a good year next year!
Took 2 years to get to this point, to make a playable puzzle game and an expanded deluxe edition for Steam. I said I'd share some numbers so here we are.
Over the last year since release this is what Mars earned on mobile:
This is what the sales are on Google Play. A little over $1k over the year.
This is for Apple. We got featured a couple of times and got Game of the Day. And because of this human curation we earned 17 time more than on Google Play.
When we're talking about expectations for Steam....
This is what 600 wishlists look like, that means Mars should sell 300 copies in the first week and 2400 copies over the first year. Pretty humble. But in all these cases the amount of work that goes is way over the result. Sometimes you get lucky and get featured, but usually the effort is a dud.
For context, all these numbers are to be split 4-ways. So for me, for designing, scoring and leading the team, I'll get $5k. For 2 years of work. And it is unpredictable, annoying work very often that makes you work late in the night.
Okay, so much for complaining!
I hope you enjoy the game and you can check out the DELUXE edition here on Steam:
Perhaps I could completely sell out and promote the Switch version done by another publisher based on our game, but honestly, I can't give their version my seal of approval. Sometimes you get a good deal from a publisher and sometimes the publisher is an amateurish irresponsible prick. I just think it needs to be said. Too many people shy away from saying the truth, in case somebody gets insulted and a bridge in the industry might be burned, but screw that! :<
If you have any questions, I'm all ears, although I'm going on holidays with my family now to finally RELAX!
January 2018, me and my 3 friends got together for a Global Game Jam. The goal - learn Unity, try to make something. Made a tiny puzzle game. Fast forward 20 months, the game grew to 97 levels, 5 hours of gameplay. We got a publisher for Switch, we're releasing on Steam ourselves. Failed on Google Play. Featured and Game of The Day on Apple. What a rollercoaster!
Let's talk how we got here!
Learning Unity is a pain. I'm an artist/programmer. I don't care for clean code. I care for results. In 72h during the jam we made a barebones puzzle game. Puzzle games are easiest to make (hint). So we had me as designer, our friend who made pixel art and our 2 programmer friends. Collaborating in Unity is terrible. Knowing what I know now, you shouldn't have more than 2 programmers on a team, simply because communication takes more time than developments at that point. Making interfaces in Unity..... AH.... The jam was a success. But it was a bad game.
Worked for a year to make a game out of it.
We made our first "complete" version in like 10 months. Working after hours. It was okay. 40 levels. 1 hour to finish. Put it on iTunes. Featured. Put it on Google Play. Flopped completely. We've been expanding it over the next 10 months to make a better version of it.
Got contacted by a publisher.
Said they wanted to port it to Switch. Okay. Here's a lesson. Read the contract thoroughly. My friends in the industry learned this the hard way. Make sure there are penalty fees if the publisher is late or doesn't deliver what they promised. Most publishers these days want to scam you. Take a slice of revenue, never invest their money. Don't trust most publishers. Better take a PR guy or an agency, we live in the times when customers decide what's popular not publishers or journalists. You need someone who can do marketing and SEO, who can prepare actual promotional assets. Not just talk about it. Not just promise to hire someone.
After 2 years of hard work, the game is finally finished. The DELUXE edition with more levels and music etc. is coming to STEAM and Switch. Steam releases on November 4th. Switch releases on Christmas.
How much have we earned?
I'll let you know in 2 weeks when I've compiled all the data.
For now, I can tell you that over the year the iOS version sold 25k copies.
Roughly $17k revenue. Divide by 4 people. Kinda bad. But other channels are more interesting!
I'd like to thank you, many people in this community helped me test Mars and provided valuable feedback. You've also played my other games and kept me going through really bad times. Thank you!
