Tag «Desura»

TRI Post Mortem

TRI is a game with a long story, so I won't even attempt to remember every detail. Instead, I will write down what comes into my mind. This way the following article might be a bit inconsistent; I hope it's still an interesting read.

TRI

The story begins in April 2011, when I participate for the first time in a big Ludum Dare event. It was the 20th Ludum Dare, with the theme "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this!" (a quote from Zelda) – but the theme didn't really matter, as I got the idea for my entry the evening before. I was inspired by working with 3D modeling software, where you create and manipulate polygons, and I thought: how could I use that for a game? Good thing the eventual Ludum Dare theme kinda fit – I just equipped the player with a "Tri Force Field Gun" (the "this" for the theme), and TRI was born, where all you do is creating triangles to walk and jump on them, and solve a few puzzles.

The Olde TRI

My entry was kinda successful: I submitted it to the Compo, but eventually switched to Jam, because I copied a character controller from the Unify wiki (as Unity's inbuilt one was too wonky). The Jam worked a bit differently back then, so my entry didn't receive any ratings. But PoV featured TRI in the results announcement post, and people who played the game (the community of Ludum Dare, and players on Kongregate) liked it well and some even asked for more levels.
A few months later, in October 2011, we were searching for a cool new project. Somehow we convinced ourselves that we could create a full version of TRI within a few months, which of course was very naive. We actually already made two commercial games back then, but as those were done in a much shorter timeframe and were for mobile only we still underestimated how hard it is to make a full-blown game with individually designed levels, somewhat complex gameplay, physics and a story-line. Also – and this was the worst part – a lack of clear direction (due to missing experience) hindered a straight development, and so we changed the design several times before TRI became the game you can see and play nowadays. Of course, we learned a lot during these three years, but I often wish we would have learned this stuff faster.

Soon!

TRI was made by Jana and me, Friedrich. Jana created the visuals and most 3D models, while I programmed in Unity/C# and also made the GUI. We both created the levels and searched for and worked on the sounds. The music was composed by my brother Ludwig.

It is still funny for me how each department is received extremely differently by different people: some love the graphics, some find them bland. Some adore the gameplay, some think it's clunky or just headache-inducing. Some bought the soundtrack, some just found it repetitive. I know that tastes differ, but as most feedback nowadays comes from official reviews, it's just silly how one piece of opinion claims that our levels are "not convincing" while the other describes them as highly genius.

Scribbles

But yeah. A lot of reviews miss the "polish of Portal" in TRI, and I can't do anything else than concur. We are a two-man team, still learning, with a fraction of the budget of Portal. I guess the secret of success is to hide such facts as well as possible, but I don't know how. So the biggest learning for us: we won't do anything this big again soon. At least we shouldn't.

We even had to take breaks during the years, because of interfering contract work, or just because we had to take some time off. Both didn't make development any shorter, and if Rising Star wouldn't have approached us to give us some funding and a deadline to kick our asses, we probably would still work on TRI (or having a break from it).

In reality, TRI was a good project for a small team, as the game has a narrow scope: the main gameplay is about creating triangles, and almost all of the other mechanics somehow work with this mechanic. For example, there are light rays, and you can reflect them – with the triangles. And you can walk on the walls and the ceilings – thanks to the triangles. There are also some basic physics puzzles (dropping crates on platforms and so on), but the physics are built into Unity. So how did TRI become a "too big game"?

By not being absolutely clear about the game's direction.

TRI, V2

One indication for this is the game's story. We wanted a background story from the beginning; the original TRI has one, although fairly simple and only communicated via texts on walls. And yet it added a big portion to the package – so we still think some kind of narrative is necessary as a hook. Just think of how showing triangles would be boring for reviewers and YouTubers. This is why we needed some characters in the game. Unfortunately our story changed a lot during the development, or rather: the whole design and with it the story. From a sci-fi setting with a mad professor and a fantasy story with an alchemist, to the now present fable about a Monk and a Fox. This last iteration of TRI's plot feels a bit tackled on sometimes, and really you can still complete the game (hopefully) even when you skip all story bits (hopefully not). So it's there to entertain, but the narrative sadly isn't an integral part of TRI.

Reading

The most problematic thing was that Jana and I never fought over what TRI actually should be – at least there never was a clear winner. Jana was all for making a game about atmosphere and looking at nice architecture. I on the other side was totally focused on the gameplay, and how there should be a lot of puzzles, because I feared people would be bored otherwise.
This way TRI became a game with two souls – there are parts that are mostly about the design, and parts that contain a lot of riddles and obstacles. Thankfully it doesn't feel too much like a game with multiple personalities because Jana added her personal touch to each level after they were done by adding the textures and decorations. And fortunately the Monk and Fox also help to string them together, at least in my opinion.

Puzzles

Nobody ever complained about the sound design – apart from our very own voices for the climbing. Still, this fact is kinda great because although we actually tried to hire someone to make sound effects, the deal didn't come to place and we found our best partner in freesound.org – really a great resource for indie developers. Most of the sounds actually were done within a few days. Sound design may be something that we still neglect, but TRI didn't focus on sounds anyway, even though we wish we had time to create atmospheric "sound carpets" for each level, because sometimes everything is silent and nothing happens, and it then feels a bit too lifeless.

Screenshot 1

Although we normally tell everyone that the game was released on 9th October 2014, we actually put TRI online for the first time in June 2012, as a "pre-alpha", which was a stupid description. We renamed it quickly to "alpha", and a bit later I also tried to get rid off the version numbers (like 0.3.0) which always were low and unattractive, by replacing them with something cooler: code names! The next version was then "MagicalMonk", which sounds much more confident.
These early-access versions (purchasable via our website and Desura) were not very successful in terms of sales, but we actually never did much marketing for them. We rather tried to get feedback from people interested in the concept and art style, by pre-selling the game for a low price and adding a survey at the end of the game. The later versions even included the possibility to give direct feedback via an inbuilt form. (Thanks to Jedi for the idea!) This was great, because people could send us bug reports or suggestions together with a game save. And it was a solution for our QA problem – every game needs testers, and this way everybody can be one!

Grid

In October 2013 we submitted TRI to Steam Greenlight, and some months later it was finally approved by Valve. It also made a lot more people aware of our game. But unfortunately Greenlight was a better marketing tool when it started in 2012. While the first batches of greenlit games were celebrated by the press, this effect became non-existent, thanks to the countless, bi-monthly batches with 100 titles approved at once – and TRI was part of one of these, in February 2014.

It was like winning $20 – nice, but absolutely underwhelming. On the other hand we're a bit proud of being greenlit before TRI even reached the Top 100, although I am not sure what exactly that means.

Thank you!

Anyway, at least we're on Steam – and as the saying goes: “be on Steam, or don't be”. A little anecdote: to be visible to curators (the new thing on Steam) we had to rename TRI, as the name was too common (think “Counterstrike”) for the search form to work, as it relied on auto-completion only. This is why TRI is now called “TRI: Of Friendship and Madness” (Jana's idea) almost everywhere.

Thanks to Rising Star Games we're also on GOG. GOG was great regarding the release, as they wrote a very cool release article. And you can also get our game directly on the HumbleStore, too!

Overall we are happy with the reception of TRI: more reviewers than I would have expected like or even love the game, and our Steam user score is pretty high – as of writing we have 30 positive and only 2 negative reviews, resulting in 93%. Yet, the game is still missing visibility – Steam, Greenlight and reviews alone don't do that for you (anymore). We need more YouTubers with a high amount of subscribers, playing the game on their channels. And probably some sensible discounts, as it seems a lot of potential buyers are just waiting for the inevitable XY% off sale. I can't even blame them: with so many games on my backlog, I do the same with most new titles.

Title

What can TRI offer you? It has 16 levels created by our hands, 5 different "worlds" each with a different background music and a new look, two animated NPCs, all degrees of freedom, and unlimited triangles. You conjure these to overcome abysses, to block and reflect light rays and lasers, and to walk on the walls and the ceilings. A lot of areas can be approached differently, depending on your own play style. Even some of the puzzles have more than one solution, and I sometimes see people solving them in a new, unique way. There are very open levels where you can fall into the void, and levels with a lot of narrow hallways. You can jump, crouch, climb, run, carry crates around and use levers.

TRI is a bit about celebrating freedom and possibilities, and we hoped that a lot of people would love that. For now, we still have to find out how to reach them.

Trailer

If you enjoyed reading this, you might want to have a look at our Making-of video series, our the rest of our blog.

Screenshot 2

We have a date!

ReleaseDateAnnounce_1

Dear readers, players and friends of the TRI!

We have a date! Fox and Monk are prettily dressed and ready to show you the world they lived in for two and a half years now. We from Rat King are extremely psyched that we made it this far after all the problems and highlights we had while making the game.

TRI will be available for Windows, Linux and Mac. You will be able to get the game on Steam, IndieGameStand, Humble Store and itch.io, with hopefully more platforms to be announced soon.

In other news:

3663-shot0

  • Friedrich made a new small game for Ludum Dare  #30 within 48 hours and called it > Continue. It's a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure where you can read and continue several stories, or start your own from the starting situation as shown in the picture above. Go here to explore what already happened.
  • Moreover did Friedrich start a little blog on his daily work and updates for the game. He also writes about games he likes or events we are attending. Take a look at THE APE TRIBE.
  • Remember our last news about Desura? If you bought the game there you can get your personal Steam keys now.

Some new screenshots of TRI:

tri2_screen_september_04 tri2_screen_september_01 tri2_screen_september_02 tri2_screen_september_03

TRI pulled from Desura

Sad news: TRI won't be purchasable through Desura anymore. Due to some unforeseeable circumstances, we've had to ask them to pull the game from the store. It is now set to "Invite Only".

Basically this means the following:

  • we will not update the game on Desura anymore.
  • everybody who bought the game via Desura will still have the game in their collection. There they can automatically receive a Steam key by clicking on it. Please write me if Steam is not acceptable for you, and we will find another solution. Send your Desura receipt as proof of ownership.
  • everybody who bought/got the game via HumbleStore (ie. our website) or IndieGameStand will automatically get a Steam key on the respective back-ends. This will hopefully happen pretty soon, but those sites also offer a DRM-free version of TRI anyway.
  • everybody who got the game via a Desura promo/prize code unfortunately will not get a notification via mail or so and has to write us directly. Tell us the Desura code / receipt you got as proof of ownership, and we will sort this out together, probably with a Steam key. We hope we can reach all the people in question via Facebook, Twitter or our newsletter.
  • if you're press - just contact Rising Star Games or write us!
  • in the future, you will be able to get TRI at least on our website, Steam, IndieGameStand and itch.io. Of course, on these platforms we will continue to update the game.

We cannot stress out enough how much we're sorry for this situation, especially as we still love Desura and want to be part of it. And we still are, for example with our roguelike Pitman.

Update for TRI, Making-Of 2, Game Jams, Presskit

TRI

We finally could release a new version of TRI - after "ObliviousFox" comes "OptimusFox" (or in numbers: the game has now version 0.4.1)! Here are the most important changes:

  • Fixed missing collision geometry in level "Tower of Nowhere"
  • Hidden stone parts now save and load their position correctly
  • Kami part of Level "Prisons" is now beatable
  • Changed level info in the pause screen
  • Loading screen can't appear anymore when loading right after death

Level 16

If you got the game via any platform (Desura, our own website, IndieGameStand, GamersGate) we recommend you download the new version as soon as possible, as you can't complete the game otherwise. (Sorry for that!) While we're at it, we'd also like to mention that TRI is now also on itch.io.

      Making-Of, Part 2!

We filmed the second installment of our TRI Making-of series! Have a look:


(YouTube videos try to set cookies and contact Third Party servers!)

You can find the first part on YouTube.

      Game Jams!

Two weeks ago, the 7-Day-Roguelike Challenge 2014 started. Tradition demanded that we should participate, and so we did. Unfortunately our ideas didn't trigger the right motivation, and in the end I (Friedrich) started on Friday alone, with only 2.5 days left, to make a small game named Variablo that already got a bit of nice press coverage. In Variablo you have to not only walk through a dungeon and kill monsters, but also move parts of the dungeon around like in a sliding puzzle. It's inspired by the board game Master Mind. It's fairly short.

7drl2014-08

But wait, there's more - this Saturday, Mini Ludum Dare 50 starts - and I am the host! I had several ideas in mind for the theme, but ultimately decided to please the fans and announced that participants need to make a Demake.

miniLD50

Demakes are remakes of already existing games that use a "less advanced" technology - like going from 3D graphics to 2D - or they only present a subset of the original gameplay. Officially the MiniLD starts Saturday and ends Monday, but you can create and upload the game until end of March.

      EGX Rezzed

We changed our plans and decided to fly to Birmingham, UK, the next week, to visit the EGX Rezzed. So if you're around from Friday to Saturday (28th - 30th), and want to have a chat, we will be near the Leftfield Collection (where they exhibit TRI) from time to time! Hope to see you there!

Of course, we will still visit the A MAZE. / Berlin in April. Phew, a lot of traveling around in such a short time frame!

      Presskit

Last but not least Jana took the time to create a new presskit for not only TRI but also about us and our company. She used the excellent presskit() by Rami Ismail. We also have subpages for Pitman, Tumblox and our game jam games now, complete with descriptions, screenshots and videos.

That's it for today! Thanks for reading!

Indie Distribution Platforms that are not Steam

(The original posting is in German, on Indie-Inside.)

Foreword - Sale Week

Last week (March 10th to 18th) the annual 7-Day-Roguelike Challenge took place – the event for which Pitman was developed last year. That's why our yellow dwarf celebrated his birthday that week, and because the 7DRL Challenge always gets some attention, we decided to link it together to a sale.

Our roguelike is available at four PC distribution platforms: Indievania, IndieCity, LittleIndie and Desura (+ the AppStore). So we reduced the price to $0.95 / €0.79 every day at one or two sites for three days each. We also offered a few goodies or articles on our website daily.

In retrospect this sale was not only a good marketing campaign, but also very helpful to find out about the strengths and weaknesses of our four platforms.

Of course it would have been great to have self-distribution on our own website additionally (as it was indeed the place we referenced most times in our sale), but unfortunately this is planned for our web relaunch in the near future and wasn't available yet.

Indie Distribution

The four platforms are characterized mainly by low barriers for an entry; i.e. you send in a game, it gets checked and reviewed, and often it goes straight to the market with no major problems (except for Desura, where we had minor troubles with the file upload).

So if the splendid Steam Store is denied to you or you like to put smaller titles (e.g. jam games) outside of your own website or offer your product indie-compatible – you hit the right spot here.

Of course, Steam is the largest provider and has the advantage of a high number of users. However, most indie platforms – like many indie developers as well – often only have other developers or the not-so-big indie scene as players and multiplicators. Platform owners often expect that the developers bring the players (aka buyers) already with them and thereby keep the cash flowing. Thus, the scene just fertilizes itself and the few larger indie platforms remain hidden from the "normal" players.

Desura might be known by linking up with the Indie Royale bundles, since you can load their games with Desura keys. But for most games Steam keys are also available ...

In the future it would be nice other platforms having a chance next to Steam, as in my eyes monopolies are never positive. While Steam guarantees a high quality, the reviewing process is too opaque for many developers. Desura or IndieCity for example also allow the presentation of a different kind of games that would get (even) less attention.

Okay, enough about my plea to not only promote Steam, but to aim for at least another platform. However, you have to be aware that the effort you put into marketing for a platform does not always bring about the expected profit.

I was wondering what is used by other developers and what platforms do not work (anymore)?

E.g. Play Greenhouse by Penny Arcade has folded, unfortunately: "Apologies for the inconvenience, but Greenhouse is temporarily offline for some ... upgrades. We'll be back soon! " – the last Twitter entry is from 2010.

Indie distribution compared

Little Indie

little indie screen

- since August 2011
- 13 games + 3 new releases soon
- wide price range and very different genres
- DRM or DRM-free / client
- Little Indie highly values achievements
- Cloud-functions, matchmaking, multiplayer, lobbying (direct server selection) are planned
- regular news on Facebook and Twitter about new features on the client and current titles and sales
- bank transfer, Paypal

- from the review of the game until the start: a few days
- contract
- upload via SVN / SSH
- demo on the platform
- sales and updates are set by operator
- revenue share is negotiable
- payout: quarterly from € 20

Pros:

- close contact with the operator, responds quickly
- you don't go down in the masses of games yet
- individual compilation, bundles, Alpha Funding, Keys
- Forums, blogs are available
- Support Center (client-> developers) for bugs / problems

Cons:

- very low popularity
- the project, images, demos, page texts can not be adjusted by oneself via an interface
- Windows-only
- only rudimentary backend for developers (sales / hits)

little indie backend

Indie City

indie city screen

- in planning since 2010, started publicly since 2011
- >140 Games
- most expensive game: Cardinal Quest € 10.00
- very different, small, cheap games
- DRM / client
- regular news on Facebook and Twitter about new features on the client and current titles and sales (a Twitter account for players and developers each)

- there is no payout yet (tax law issues are being resolved)
- revenue share: 25% to platform (currently); with integration of achievements / leaderboard system only 15%

Pros:

- adaptive recommendation system in the client
- very good support, chat (IRC) and forums
- edit everything through the backend: project settings, updates, pricing, etc.
- do occasional promotions for developers (marketing week, pimp-up-your-media week)
- Tweeting and blogging very often
- relatively simple upload system: upload one EXE file together with game data in a ZIP, gets automatically wrapped into an installer
- Demo upload possible

Cons:

- many features are still in beta or not available at all (but marked with some yellow post-its)
- low popularity
- Windows-only
- payment via Credit Card only
- Annoying limitation of size (and number) of the images when setting up the project
- very simple statistics, no breakdown

indie city backend

Indievania

indievania screen

- since 2011
- >250 Games
- extremely diverse genres, quality and prices
- DRM-free / direct download
- regular news on Facebook and Twitter about current titles and sales
- payment via PayPal

- authorization of the game: only a few days
- upload through Amazon S3, no restriction on upload format
- money is transferred immediately after purchasing to the developer (no platform costs)
- responded late to the announcement of the sales, but then we were listed in“featured” and “specials”

Pros:

- download games without client
- Very good back-end, relatively detailed statistics
- customers may pay more; pledge, pay-what-you-want
- bundles, keys
- sale section for special sales in the backend + Twitter announcement (at least in the case of Pitman)
- Windows / Mac / Linux / Android / PSP / keys for Steam

Cons:

- relatively low level of publicity (during our sales week we got some more buyers, though)
- Paypal costs way too much for cheap games, when the micropayment option isn't used / cannot be used
- no demo upload to the platform

Desura

desura screen

- since 2009
- from very cheap to expensive higher-quality games
- DRM / client
- regular news on Facebook and Twitter on current titles and sales
- Paypal, Visa, MasterCard

- transfer from €500 (minus fees)
- platform fee: 30%
- sales must be requested

Pros:

- substantial increased sales opportunities by IndieDB connection
- biggest indie sales platform (after Steam)
- very good connection to the devlog system IndieDB and modding counterpart ModDB
- linked to Indie Royale
- Alpha funding possible, in own category
- Demo can be uploaded
- Windows / Mac (limited) / Linux
- very detailed backend, with very good statistics
- referrer bonus as soon as buyers come from your own website

Cons:

- 30% share / payout with minimum of €500 is a hurdle for smaller games
- relatively complicated upload system for Mac and Windows: Windows / Mac / demo must be uploaded in two versions (I.e. 6 different files that need to be uploaded when doing an update of the game); purchase link in the demo must lead to Desura

desura backend