It’s been a long time since I’ve posted any updates on my website, but the game is still very much alive. I’ve been steadily chipping away at it and have started the process to distribute it on steam. It’s likely that there will be no new demo’s but there have been a lot of features added as I polish the game for release. I will also have to go through some bug testing and figure that it might be a bit rocky at release.
Right now I’m primarily working on building out the stages which comes in 5 passes to get a stage completed.
Pass 1 - basic landscape work
Pass 2 - blending textures and creating movement zones
Pass 3 - adding enemies to the stage
Pass 4 - creating dialogue and naming cities
Pass 5 - play testing
I have 28/30 stages basic landscapes built because I’ll be going back to create the first 2 stages last. That’s a developer tool that Miyamoto talks about. Developing the first stages last to make sure that they will teach the player how to play the game. I’m going to focus on the first couple of stages likely releasing the first 7 or 10 stages. The plan is to have a price point of $20 on steam which will increase to $25 once the full game with all the stages is released. If someone purchases the game at $20 they will not have to pay for anything after that. This will be an incentive for early adopters.
Setting up a business and figuring out what the math behind the project sales has been interesting to say the least. As some of you may know Steam takes 30% of the profit from game sales unless you sell more than 1 million units. Add to that the corporate taxation and when I get the money out of the project I will only earn about $7 for each $20 sale. This is due to the way that I’ll be declaring my company which will mean that I’ll be getting double taxed. I didn’t make this decision lightly. I did a lot of research and although I could have had more pass through money per sale my personal assets would not be protected which is very important to me as a single parent. I hope that you the consumer will understand and find enough value in my game to purchase it and enjoy it.
I’ll be looking for additional distribution through other entities like Humble Bundle as well which could give me some better margins.
I’m very excited to finally release a game that I’ve been working on for so long and I hope that you will enjoy it too.