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[Alain]

Congratulations! It has been a hard road and you two can be very proud of your work. I played a ton yesterday and left you a lengthy review

[Beastboy]

Congratulations on the release !!!!!!

[Ramos]

Congrats Ramos! Glad to see the early reviews are so positive!

Congratulations! It has been a hard road and you two can be very proud of your work. I played a ton yesterday and left you a lengthy review

Congratulations on the release !!!!!!

Guys thank you so much for your support!!! 

I am sorry for having such low activity here in this period, it is because it is total chaos on my side with the PR but I promise I will post the results soon.

If you need any specific data let me know and I will add it in my next post.

[oldblood]

I am sorry for having such low activity here in this period, it is because it is total chaos on my side with the PR but I promise I will post the results soon.

If you need any specific data let me know and I will add it in my next post.

You've got a good excuse. Hope the release has been relatively stress-free (at least as much as it can be). As far as the results and specific data, I'd just love to hear a good post-mortem on how you felt it all went--good or bad. I'm going to step out on a limb here and say its moved 2,700 - 3,300+ units since launch. If that's the case, I'm guessing you're well on your way to achieving those minimum expectations you hoped you hit for year one. Games with good reviews tend to have long-tails so I'm sure you'll be moving copies for awhile. Pure speculation guess on my part so don't judge me too harshly if I'm way off-base with that haha. Hope its been great for you and your partner!

[Alain]

I'm also looking forward to talk to you when things have calmed down. I keep rooting for you and your programmer!

[Riv_]

Congrats on the Launch!
Any info on how it went, how you did your first days/weeks since launch will be very appreciated.

Hope all the best for your game, you put a lot of work into it, and it shows

[Ramos]

You've got a good excuse. Hope the release has been relatively stress-free (at least as much as it can be). As far as the results and specific data, I'd just love to hear a good post-mortem on how you felt it all went--good or bad. I'm going to step out on a limb here and say its moved 2,700 - 3,300+ units since launch. If that's the case, I'm guessing you're well on your way to achieving those minimum expectations you hoped you hit for year one. Games with good reviews tend to have long-tails so I'm sure you'll be moving copies for awhile. Pure speculation guess on my part so don't judge me too harshly if I'm way off-base with that haha. Hope its been great for you and your partner!

Well now, you are pretty close with the estimation, the first week after release around 2600 units, and yes I am happy with the overall results and I will go full-time indie dev from 1st July. I also am 4 reviews short until I reach the 100 reviews milestone.

I'm also looking forward to talk to you when things have calmed down. I keep rooting for you and your programmer!

Thank you for all your support throughout the development of this project!
And yes it turned out good for us in the end.

Congrats on the Launch!
Any info on how it went, how you did your first days/weeks since launch will be very appreciated.

Hope all the best for your game, you put a lot of work into it, and it shows

Thank you!






-----------------------------------------------------------------------


So, Gentlemen, let's see the results.
Please note that I could write an entire book on this experience and I can only show a small tip of what went behind.


What went bad
Man, there are still so many things that went wrong but I am just trying to highlight the big ones

- BAD TIMING: We had our peek of the Email marketing campaign during the February Steam fest meaning content creators were already having tons of content to choose from
- BAD LUCK: More than 30% of our Wishlist were from people in Russia and we lost them all because at the point of release they could not get money on their Steam wallets to buy the game but the ones who still had funds in wallets they could, still very hard strike for us
- BAD UPDATE: after release, my partner programmer Sadoff made updates each day based on feedback and bug reports we had and during one update he made a mistake so the game did not start anymore, it was maximum stress on our side since negative reviews started coming all of a sudden, we hardly manage to rebalance the situation with fast update fix and PR but it was one of the most stressful moments we had, we almost went to negative rating at that point.
- BAD RESOLUTION: Many streamers did not touch our game because we did not have zoom-in for big-screen resolution, the agony of having a custom game engine and everything is so small on 4k resulted in the loss of many streamer opportunities.


What went good

- COMMUNITY: we implemented a Discord button in the game's main menu and added achievements with rewards including one that gives extra new game ammunition if players join our discord, I do not know exactly if this was the reason why they joined but many joined our Discord community and the activity was tripled. Having a solid community will be a critical element for our future releases. Long-term benefits. (remind me to show you guys my DIscord LVL up the internal template for community management)

- SOCIAL MEDIA: The social media campaign started in 1st March and was active with daily posts until March 28
A. Facebook: here I posted again only in specific target audience groups and I got a lot of support, by this time many admins were already familiar with me, and some of them pinned my posts. I also made an event for my friends and contact with the release date countdown and constant posting in key places(to much to explain) results were good I also managed to get few of my posts viral again.


B. Twitter & Gamejolt: they both have a somehow similar system so I used very similar content in my MK campaign.
1. GAMEJOLT & ITCH.io:
On Gamejolt we had some posts featured in some communities and had good results but we also had constant engagements. most translated into wishlist aditions on Steam. We also released a free Short version of the game a few days before the main Steam release, this was a nice move, it did not generate many downloads & results but still, a spark of magic was added.
Here are a few examples of posts from Gamejolt that got Featured:
https://gamejolt.com/p/mixing-real-time-strategy-elements-with-horror-elements-is-a-bit-ha-ty3aqfqp
https://gamejolt.com/p/do-you-think-zombies-are-dangerous-no-we-promised-lovecraftian-lo-dutxtany
https://gamejolt.com/p/yes-we-are-fans-of-carpenter-creations-screenshotsaturday-strate-inhzbzzj

2. TWITTER. Long story short: we did not get many Wishlists from Twitter but we got a lot of networking with content creators and media and even Branding, this was also a very good long-term investment. Feel free to scroll on our Twitter wall and see what types of posts we made and what engagements we had: https://twitter.com/16bitnights

- TEAM SYNCHRONIZATION: as some of you know I only work in teams 1+1, and TBH I think it is the best amount. So our sync was going perfect, my partner Sadoff was making updates each day after the release and he was responsible for bug reports topics, while I was responsible for PR on email(I also should make a different topic just for this alone), discord community, and additional Steam community. Also having an already fan base of testers helpt a lot in identifying new bugs fast that was caused by additional updates.

- RELEASE DAY: We wanted Splattercat to make a release video but we thought that he already made an exclusive Beta video on our game so we did not want to be insistent since he seems to like to always have fresh content.
But we got Mr. Falcon to make a video review on our game and he synchronized perfectly on the exact release day:




- ORGANIC MARKETING: this was probably the best result ever for me. We invested a lot in having high re-playability with 30% RNG content, multiple paths, multiple ways to play, and multiple endings and this paid off big time, just go on youtube and search for "Chromosome Evil", a huge amount of players that brought the game made videos not to mention I saw it streamed on some Discord rooms.

- CONTACTS/NETWORKING: Having been doing games for 10 years got me some nice connections and most of them were very supportive. Here is an example from the Mud & Blood community, as a bonus we both share a similar audience of top-down tactical games audience. I have full respect for them, and I hope one day I can return the favor.


- EXCLUSIVITY: the exclusivity marketing approach opened some extra doors for us

And so much more things that I am just too tired to talk about and probably best to keep a few things in mystery

OK let's move on to the final chapter of results.


Steam Release Results

1. Before the release, we got featured in "Popular upcoming releases". At this point we had I think around 8k-9k Wishlists and growing ultra-fast



2. After the release we got featured in New & Trending / Popular new releases








Flow:

24 March (few hours before the release )
Steam wishlist - 9800
Steam followers - 1455
Gamejolt followers - 267  / Gamejolt demo downloads: 57
Discord - 434
Twitter - 1456
Itch.io demo downloads - 48
-------------------------------------------
25 March (1 day after release )
Steam wishlist - 12.700
Steam followers - 1986
Gamejolt followers - 267  / Gamejolt demo downloads: 65
Discord - 468
Twitter - 1456
Itch.io demo downloads - 73
units sold on steam - 1093 (half were from Wishlist)
--------------------------------------------
31 March (final release discount day/1 week after release )
Steam wishlist - 20.700
Steam followers - 2728
Gamejolt followers - 276  / Gamejolt demo downloads: 96
Discord - 534
Twitter - 1462
Itch.io demo downloads - 124
units sold on steam - around 2550



Our priorities now are:
- Consolidation of our fan base on Discord
- Consolidation of reviews & steam rating
- Consolidation of our personal contacts

All of these tasks are aimed at the long-term.

And here is something I want to share with you, maybe it seems like a cliche but for me it's deep:
This is EXACTLY HOW I FELT!
The gladiator: my partner programmer, he does not talk much but gets the s**t done.
The old man: me
The colosseum: Steam
The Crowd: the Players

Releasing a game feels like a gladiator entering the Arena. BEAUTIFUL S**T! I will admit I had some tears in my eyes on the release day.    

[oldblood]

Well now, you are pretty close with the estimation, the first week after release around 2600 units, and yes I am happy with the overall results and I will go full-time indie dev from 1st July. I also am 4 reviews short until I reach the 100 reviews milestone.

Ayyyeee. I was pretty close! Congrats! Glad to see its found success and that you and your partner are happy with the early results. Given what its done in its first few weeks and the number of wishlists, positive reviews, etc. I think this project is going to continue doing great. With all the marketing effort you put into this in the final month, I'm not surprised. Really happy for you!

Really appreciate the transparency of your post-mortem. This is all very interesting and gives me a lot to think about as I progress forward with my own project. You guys going to take a breather once the build is stable? Or at least once the 'consolidation' you mentioned is complete. Hopefully so. You've earned some time off. Looking forward to hearing to what all comes next.

[cepnox]

We were also solving an issue with the scaling on 4K displays some time ago.
We managed to tackle it (for now on windows) by having a manifest that is disabling the scaling configured in windows - based on http://community.monogame.net/t/solved-display-resolution-on-windows-10/9273/3 (manifest should work also for unmanaged apps - e.g. sdl).

That gave us an option to scale everything by ourselves.
We are doing it by creating a view transformation matrix.
Thanks to that we have this scaling done on a single place - in camera implementation and it looks like this:

public Matrix BuildViewMatrix(float parallaxValue)
{
    var transf = Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(-mRenderPosition * parallaxValue + mHalfSize, 0.0f));
    if (!FloatHelper.NearEq(mRenderZoom, 1.0f) || !FloatHelper.NearEq(mCurrentDisplayMode.PixelScale, 1.0f))
    {
        float scale = mRenderZoom * mCurrentDisplayMode.PixelScale;
        transf *= Matrix.CreateScale(scale, scale, 1);
    }
    if (FloatHelper.NotNearZero(mViewportOrigin.X) || FloatHelper.NotNearZero(mViewportOrigin.Y))
    {
        transf *= Matrix.CreateTranslation(mViewportOrigin.X, mViewportOrigin.Y, 0);
    }

    return transf;
}

You could maybe try something similar.

[mobilelast]

Congratulations! I really appreciate the honest post-mortem you’ve shared for us others to learn.

[Beastboy]

I think i followed your progress for more than a year and it is womderfull to see it grow and finished.

Congratulations!

[Alain]

That was wonderful to read, big congratulations! I know you and Sadoff are working incredibly hard, please make sure he also gets our congratulations And thank you for sharing your data with us, that is not taken for granted.

The best news for me is to hear you can go full time indie dev soon, especially because I know your day job is bone breaking.

[SADoff]

Most of fixes and notes are finished, So now i have some time to communicate.
On release date we was exhasted. But on next we had a tons of feedback, bug reports, glitches, minor improvements, ballanse suggestions and so on. I maded updates every day , except 2 sundays. That was pretty nervious, especially when 1 of updates was absolutely unstable ( pressing new game caused crush).
But there were many usefull advises; for example sighn location , which were visited; or confirmation screen on dismiss button.
There were much changes during these days. And we get pretty solid concept of first DLC after feedback. Our discord community really helps to gather fast notes and hot fixes. We consulted with fans , what to add in DLC, it was little chaotic, but useful.
 Unfortunately we promised them to make it free )
So... No rest... We already start work on DLC. It will have new inventory and very interesting and unique mechanic of upgrades.
I think , soon we will post here some updates. I need to consult with Popa, maybe we will make a new thread.
Also I thank all of you for support! Without your help our release would be not so good.

[Alain]

Good to hear from you, Sadoff! I hope after these busy weeks you can return to a more healthy work schedule. Great to hear you are already planning a DLC!

[SADoff]

Good to hear from you, Sadoff! I hope after these busy weeks you can return to a more healthy work schedule. Great to hear you are already planning a DLC!

We have a plan! I hope? Popa will post it soon 

[SADoff]

While Popa is busy with new inventory desighn, I have some spare time to polish game. I noticed , that people doesn't feel , that enemies are burning... Only popUp is too boring. So i added some smoke and flames.

[logophil]

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party here, but many congrats from me too - and also for reaching the 100 reviews milestone! Really interesting to read the detailed stats of the launch, you got some really good visibility there!

[Beastboy]

While Popa is busy with new inventory desighn, I have some spare time to polish game. I noticed , that people doesn't feel , that enemies are burning... Only popUp is too boring. So i added some smoke and flames.

The smoke trail is nice and gives a plus to the visual dinamics but I cannot see any flames. If i zoom i can only see a few sparks.

[Ramos]

Ayyyeee. I was pretty close! Congrats! Glad to see its found success and that you and your partner are happy with the early results. Given what its done in its first few weeks and the number of wishlists, positive reviews, etc. I think this project is going to continue doing great. With all the marketing effort you put into this in the final month, I'm not surprised. Really happy for you!

Really appreciate the transparency of your post-mortem. This is all very interesting and gives me a lot to think about as I progress forward with my own project. You guys going to take a breather once the build is stable? Or at least once the 'consolidation' you mentioned is complete. Hopefully so. You've earned some time off. Looking forward to hearing to what all comes next.

Thank you oldblood!
And I don't know about any pause, right now SADoff is full-time indie dev and I still have a day job until 1 July, I am afraid I won't have any time for a vacation this year.
After the consolidation tasks, we must consider starting a new project ASAP and also take into consideration the February-March release period so It will be either an 8-month project or a 1 year and a half project + I might take some extra PR commissions to boost some income & extra networking. We will try to adapt along the way since going indie full time is a new experience for us and we must only have calculated risk at the begninin.

We were also solving an issue with the scaling on 4K displays some time ago.
We managed to tackle it (for now on windows) by having a manifest that is disabling the scaling configured in windows - based on http://community.monogame.net/t/solved-display-resolution-on-windows-10/9273/3 (manifest should work also for unmanaged apps - e.g. sdl).

Sounds good, unfortunately, this is not so easy for us since my partner made a custom engine, and adding a zoom-in function would be too much time-consuming, I mean a lot of time.

Congratulations! I really appreciate the honest post-mortem you’ve shared for us others to learn.

Thank you so much for the kind words!
Glad it helps, it is the least I can do for all the support I got from the Tigsource community

I think i followed your progress for more than a year and it is womderfull to see it grow and finished.

Congratulations!

Thank you Beastboy!
I hope the wait was worth it

That was wonderful to read, big congratulations! I know you and Sadoff are working incredibly hard, please make sure he also gets our congratulations And thank you for sharing your data with us, that is not taken for granted.

The best news for me is to hear you can go full time indie dev soon, especially because I know your day job is bone breaking.

Thank you, Alain!
As you can see I managed to convince SADoff to use these forums a bit, don't know how long the social aspect will take but I am glad he is here too

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party here, but many congrats from me too - and also for reaching the 100 reviews milestone! Really interesting to read the detailed stats of the launch, you got some really good visibility there!

Hey Logophil and thank you!





--------------------------

I will try to recoup today for my low inactivity time and check all your blogs.

Until 1 July I will probably keep having low activity since I still have a day job and additional tasks for DLC, before the release I had the same situation but I was motivated highly to be more active and after the release, it's like my brain is yelling "PAUSE MODE" so I try to concentrate the little energy I got left only on critical parts.
Hopefully maybe my partner Sadoff will take it from here.


Good day Gentelman  

[Ramos]

Work on the first DLC.
Here is a preview.
We plan on making an entirely new system for inventory/crafting