This week has been an interesting one... I'm starting to hit a point where I think I want to discuss marketing for the game and my fears of general interest.  But before we get into that, let's just cover the usual developments.

Art

Ref has continued trucking along, and we wrapped up all of the enemies in the game! In that sense the game is complete and ready to go! The last remaining thing is elites and bosses, which he has also made some progress on.

This monster will fires lasers in all directions and blocks off routes that may have been previously open to the player.  He is a terror when looking for an escape.

This creature works similar to the laser shaman on level 4, except with the number of eyes he has, he actually fires 3.  This blocks off more paths and makes it hard for the player to get away.

We have also created the first elite for level 3.  This creature is a giant rat that seems to have stuck his hands into a bit of bait and is unable to free himself.  he's a stinky boy, and attacks like a wet dog by shaking his hide and having globules of disease fire out.  He's slow moving but fires quite the barrage.

Music

Juan has also been working on the level 3 sound track and finally brought it to life.  I have added it to the level, which now feels truly complete! It's cool to hear the chaos of the track which he mixes with diegetic sounds of animals to sell the burning farm aesthetic of the level.  Very cool!

Programming

Honestly, not much in this track... Most of my work has been in marketing the game and brining it to life, which I would like to talk about.

Marketing and Reception

The demo has been out for 2 weeks now, and the reception has not been what I expected.  I have a couple of theories why, but interest in the game seems to be lacking to say the least :(  As of right now the Demo on steam have 60 wish lists, which although not bad for passive accrual, is no where near as good as I was hoping for.  I had a suspicion something was wrong when engagement on itch was low, but I suspected it was because itch is where we go to find unique and outlandish games.  I thought it would resonate harder with a steam audience, but especially after the positive reception it got from my playtests.  

So far I have tried marketing on reddit.  Not aggressively, but I hit all of the basic indie game channels, got verified and posted.  Now I know people are looking at the game and scrolling over it because I see thousands of views on my posts, but no one seems to be liking or commenting.  Truthfully, the only comments I got were from people who took the time to tell me it was bad, which doesn't bother me, I was always braced for criticism, but what worries me is not a single person took the time to say it was good... this suggests to me that it's being received with complete indifference.

So, what is going on? Well, I suspect that maybe the game is pretty good IF you sit down and play it.  I still truly believe that.  But what I'm seeing is nothing is pushing people through the door to try it out.  The first and biggest problem I've identified is the trailer and screenshots on my page.  I made these quickly in hopes of getting the page up ASAP.  I've been speaking to editors and trying to secure one to craft a trailer that will look far more enticing.  I am not going to give up or get demoralized until I fix these things.  I'm just going to assume there is something good under the hood, and wait until the page improves and I can hopefully try to get people funneling in.

Buuuuuuut, the other problem is the other half of the coin.  The game is Pretty Good in a really crowded market.  I think there's a chance that it gets drowned out because mechanically it's fine, but not doing anything special.  I REALLY have been going back and forth on this because I see other games, such as Nimrods https://store.steampowered.com/app/2086430/NIMRODS/ which also look Pretty Good, but are and have been since their inception doing SPECTACULARLY WELL.  Do they have something Bloodmoon doesn't? Maybe I'm too close to the project, but I truly can't tell.  I worry that this game might simply might not have "the magic" which drives people to love these games.  

So, the question comes, when should I cut my loses and move on? Well, I don't think putting more bosses into the game will make it more appealing, this is something I've been realizing.  However, I have a vision of how big I want this game to be, even if it doesn't draw in a single other player.  I've been working on it for 3 years, and want to finish saying "yes, that was truly all I could give to the title" I did the same for Frisbros, and even though it did not perform well financially, I am absolutely proud of that game. I want the same thing for this one :)

At the same time though, I do want to be done with it if nothing is going to come of it.  This is a hobby, sure, but it's much MUCH easier to do a thing while people are telling you it's exciting and want more of it.  I think no matter what I'm going to power through this game, giving it my all and learning what I can, and then change up how I develop for the next title.  No more going into full production, until I get positive feedback.  Lesson learned.

Next Week

Anyway, sorry this dev log was kind of bleak, but I think it's important to say these things out loud. These are lessons, neither good or bad to me, and I want to document them as part of the process.  If everything is always going great, then there's not much reason for recording my journey.  Someone once said complaining is a sign that you are not accepting the world for what it is and instead getting hung up on how you wish it would be.  That resonates with me a lot, and I don't want to get "stuck" on a reality I don't like.  So level setting my expectations, I will continue to make this game until I think it's great, no matter what it means for popularity.  Then I'll take the lessons I learned and for my next game I will hopefully something that others love just as much as I do.

Till next time!