Hello,

Bezier on Steam Greenlight - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=386868501

Back story: Son of a games programmer. Basic-1981. 6502-1984. 68000-1989. After University worked for SCEE, Gremlin, Deep Red & Argonaut before leaving industry in 2005. In 2008 I started my first game...

Bezier is a sci-fi dual stick blaster. The engine I wrote renders everything as curves formed by particles, so it has got a pretty crazy look. I've spent eight years making it. I'm quite proud of it, but I quickly found I made a terrible error. During development I never really told anyone about it. I also put Bezier on Greenlight and didn't polish the page for a few days, not realising the approaching traffic cliff. Now I'm struggling getting visitors to the page. I know Steam isn't everything, but it does feel like the major game in town. I am selling Bezier on my official page, itch.io and Desura. When I do get coverage I'm quite happy with what is written. Eurogamer this week and Indie Games last week. And the response from players, particularly fans of the genre has been great. It is just a struggle getting the word out. It now feels like I'm floundering around emailing everyone and pushing water uphill.

Of course, I see lots of lessons to learn and the next game will be completely different. But I'm not ready to give up on this one yet. I feel I owe it to my family. So, what are the best ways you have found to get traffic to your site? Greenlight in particular.

Thanks so much for reading and thanks in advance for any advice.

A shooter game with a strong 'love' motif? Sounds like a severe case of ludonarrative dissonance to me, but I haven't played or even seen the game so I can't say for sure. I'm inclined to assume that you are creating this dissonance intentionally based on what little information you have given. Sounds like it could be interesting.

I had not heard of ludonarrative dissonance before. It's not something I set out to do. That's got me thinking now.

I'm coming to the end of development on my first game (only six years) and have spent a lot of time wrangling with 'storytelling through game play'. It is a simple blaster with my own story but to emphasize the strong motif of 'love' in each Zone (there are 15) I took a different romantic play of Shakespeare and used it as the template for the enemies.

So characters enter and exit based roughly on the text. At one point I had the enemies blurt out random lines but it was just too distracting. However using these plays as a backbone subtext driving through the whole game, it really helped tell my story on top. Of course there's a lot more to it than just that: what I ask the player to do in each zone, the order wasn't random and there are twists along the way. The cost was all the research and meticulous scripting involved.

Will anybody ever notice? Maybe not. But I'm glad I did it.

I've used EastWest / Quantum Leap for years but starting to look at CineSamples after they recently released an impressive entry-level library.

The percussion he adds in

of theirs I found really inspiring.

Hello.
My name is Phil.
I grew up with a games programmer for a dad.
So I stood no chance of escape.
I finally came to realise this when I was 34.



I grew up in games.
Spent a good 10 years in the 'proper' industry after University.
For the last six years I've been writing my own game.
I like to think of it as my first.
I have eight more games to make before I die.

Thanks for having me.

Here is the trailer for my first game -


Here is a free open beta for my first game - http://www.desura.com/games/niinegamesbezier
Here is my website - http://niinegames.com
Here is my twitter - https://twitter.com/niinegames