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[Greipur]

Yesterday I wrote a text (with the help of input from the team) called Eat Create Sleep's Holiday Retrospective, about the ups and downs of developing Crest and starting an indie studio, and surviving the Indieapocalypse. I thought that the crowd here would find it interesting so I've quoted it in full, please bear in mind that I wrote it for our fans as our audience.

Hello all,

Another year draws to a close, and, as is customary elsewhere this is usually a time to look inwards. Its been a tumultuous year, inside and out of games, the clamor of the so called  “Indieapocalypse” rings still, which has shown all of us that indie development is a tough place to survive in. Since we’re better off since last year we can sit down and reflect and tell you what has happened over the year, and what to expect in the future. We urge you to read this with a pinch of salt, this is not a mopey text about us being martyrs, it merely tries to explain our struggles and successes. To keep the spirit of the season we end on a more positive note on where we’re headed next year!



The Past - Slow Update Rate and Fast Burn Rate

For new and old fans there should be no surprise that our update schedule has been very slow since we launched the game on Early Access back in April, 2015. There’s a plethora of reasons, which we’ve delved into before, but can here be summarised with the addition of hindsight.

When we started with Crest back in September, 2013 it was highly ambitious and we knew that. Having just completed our student project Among Ripples (which launched April, 2014 on Game Jolt and January, 2015 on Steam) on a four people team we thought we had learned by starting small and then go big from there. However, Crest’s scope grew and we also had to start a company, which proved to take more time than what we had planned. In retrospect we probably should’ve started the company, built up a solid foundation with small games and then undertaken Crest later. But, Eat Create Sleep has always been about taking the hard path, a revolution if you will, to see if games can be more than entertainment. It’s not certain that we would’ve kept together for so long if we didn’t have such a strong concept such as Crest to believe in when the going got tough.

Another problem we had was overestimating the market, the potential of crowdfunding and Early Access. We came into it in June, 2014 where many on the internet seemed burned out and cynical after a lot of high profile projects failing or not meeting expectations, a fellow god game among them. Although we got past our minimal target on Indiegogo (a shoutout to the fans who’ve stuck with us since then, you rock!) we didn’t find a good footing, but had to grow awkwardly when we hit Early Access. As such, when we came to Steam we launched too early and had too few testers before hand to do a reality check.

We should’ve probably waited until this year, but we were strapped for cash. Our burn rate in the company being higher than we could’ve imagined,  Having bought into the crowdfunding dream of being fully funded by the community itself we put all our hopes into that, and failed miserably, Early Access and Indiegogo have probably accounted for 10% of the budget so far, which is not much. Where did those other 90% come from? Well, that’s the main reason we’ve been so slow over the years. To cover the costs we’ve had to do work for hire jobs, applying for grants, meeting and talking to Swedish and international investors, yes, even publishers, even though we pride ourselves being independent. This gobbled up a lot of time.

In November, 2015 the core team had been going without wages for 5 months, which, as you can imagine that young developers in the range of 20-30 years have a hard time dealing with. Some of the team left during this time. Since this has been our full-time job since 2014 we were exhausted by such a prolonged time of working for free (loss of talented people). Sadly not unheard of in the industry, if you follow the news just this week there were reports of employees of several groups within a AAA developer/publisher who also hadn’t been paid in months. It can be a rough world.

How could we survive after such a bumbling start? More to follow below.



The Present - The Turning Point

In January, 2016 we met with Swedish investors who invested early (seed) capital into our company finding our energy, spirit and visions of the future inspiring. About 60% of our funding must’ve come this way, which made it possible to keep staff, and grow, to our current 8 people team (which is our golden mean). But, this meant we had to attend a lot of meetings, go to trade shows, countless emails and company profiles and promotion, exhausting work in its own right, but down right terrible when making an ambitious game alongside it. Without a doubt we would not be here today if it wasn’t for the investors, and we have an amiable relationship, they give all the decisions of development to us, as long as we remember them and pay them back when the going gets good.

But, we’ve been slow with the updates this year, only having three major updates (City States, Faith and Ancestor Worship) plus 4-5 patches/hot fixes for 12 months, that’s not a lot. We’ve been embarrased by the slow turning of the wheels, we’ve heard your feedback and wanted to implement it immediately, but having to contend with the fact that soon, in a few months it would be out. We would be lying if we say that we’ve always enjoyed working on Crest, not every day is sunshine, for weeks you can slog through without inspiration. But what separates a professional from a happy amateur is the conviction, rather than talent in our opinion. We worked through the slopes, and forcibly if we have to get inspired again.

Seeing you on the forum, lets plays, live streams, articles and general discussion we find that inspiration again, we realise what Crest is and can be, it makes us fall in love with it again, and maybe we become happy amateurs oblivious to the hardships and cynicism for just a little while. It sounds tacky, but you, our fans are one of the main reasons we keep doing this, if nothing else you keep us having a healthy perspective.

If 2015 was the year when our naive way of living crashed into a wall, this year has been a resolute march towards victory. It’s been extremely tough, stressful and taxing on all of us, but we’ve persevered. It might be too early to pat ourselves on the back, but we think that the Ancestor Worship update marks the turning point, when we start to hit development in stride.



The Future - Where No Indie Has Gone Before?

Currently 2017 looks good financially, if we don’t sell a single copy more of Crest in Early Access we can probably survive until the summer next year. We do hope that we sell more of course. And incidentally next summer is our current time frame for full release, when Crest hits version 1.0. We’ve listened to your feedback and looked at Crest critically and our main focus next year is to increase its’ longevity, to make you feel that you can embark on a grand journey of a few hours. Our main modules to address this is the Exploration module (Q1, 2017) and Community module (Q2, 2017), more info on our road map. We’ll also tease more content as it looms closer.

We’ll polish Crest, make it as great as we can before we have to move on. When is that you ask? Hard to say, if Crest sells really well at launch it would be foolish to drop it completely, but if the game doesn’t make us break even then we have to continue, just in order to survive. Post launch ideas that have been kicking around in our heads has been among other things VR support (which we’ve been suggested to pursue, no promises), translations and of course bug fixing and balancing. But, regardless we will probably have to move on before 2017 is over, it would’ve been almost 4 years since we started on Crest by then. There’s a few really fascinating ideas we’ve been thinking about, nothing we’ve worked on of course, but you’ll be the first to know when our next project gets announced!



After this long-winded post we want to assure you that we’re coming out of this stronger and are convinced that 2017 will be a good year for us and for Crest, and hopefully for you too. Also, we’ll take a well earned vacation and be back in the beginning of January.

[JobLeonard]

Frankly, I'm amazed you got your financial situation together with such a niche game

I hope you'll succeed!

[Greipur]

Frankly, I'm amazed you got your financial situation together with such a niche game

I hope you'll succeed!

Well, investors are more interested in your team, past and future rather than a single title. And new markets. So when we presented that "We ask tough questions with our games and let the player explore the answers." and aim for a grownup market, that feels fresh. In a game space where games are often percieved as a mindless (and apolitical) pastime or edutainment (broccoli covered in chocolate) but never neither (the third mythical beast of "art"?). Add to that we've almost had a half million of downloads of Among Ripples on Steam as of now (we still get 7000 downloads per month, almost two years after release).

Angel investors usually invest in say, 5-10 projects and expect 2-3 of them to succeed, very well, and they will make it worth their while. So if a company such as ECS comes along they might think that's it worth to take a gamble, they are often entrepreneurs, or started that way themselves, so they're no stranger to risk or facing big obstacles.

Due to recent successes in the Swedish game scene investors are for the most part very optimistic, so the timing for Eat Create Sleep couldn't be better, and the timing for Crest couldn't been worse. I disagree that it's impossible to survive in the niche, Reus by Abbey Games has sold around 800,000 copies and before Godus turned into universal disappointment they sold fairly well as well.

We survived because we adapted our perception of what indie can mean. Get investors aboard who're mainly interested in getting a return one day, rather than micromanaging your game development? Sure, why not, in a capitalist world that's a lesser evil methinks.  


And thanks, our future no longer depends on Crest. We will make it great, not only because it's a good business move not to piss of your fans but also, if you've spent more than 3 years on it, those years would feel kind of wasted if the end result would suck.

[JobLeonard]

Sounds like a perfectly sensible fusion of values and economical concerns to me, as things should be in an ideal world.

[TheWanderingBen]

Fantastic insights! It sounds like you did most things the right way on Crest, and I hope it succeeds!

I would love to read a post-mortem after launch, whether it's financially profitable or not. Much of the time we only read about the games that triumph, especially if they succeed quickly. It's sobering to see the reality of running a multi-person game studio. Thanks for your honesty!

Good luck

[Greipur]

Sounds like a perfectly sensible fusion of values and economical concerns to me, as things should be in an ideal world.

Yup, it took time for us to become sensible. And even though we've had rough times bootstrapping and crowdfunding ourselves I think we have a stronger voice than if we'd started with the usual startup route directly. We already have users (which is key to investors, they want to see traction), and in most IT startups that's actually a huge obstacle, but the game ecosystem thanks to things like free sites such as Game Jolt, Indie DB and the Greenlight process on Steam you can quickly gain some users. You might not be self-sufficient on your first game, but I think most talented game startups can at least get a few hundred or thousand users in a year.

Fantastic insights! It sounds like you did most things the right way on Crest, and I hope it succeeds!

I would love to read a post-mortem after launch, whether it's financially profitable or not. Much of the time we only read about the games that triumph, especially if they succeed quickly. It's sobering to see the reality of running a multi-person game studio. Thanks for your honesty!

Good luck

I'm glad you like it. I agree that we probably did most things right, the timing was abyssmal as I've said, but that's hard to know beforehand. Temporary crowdfunding fatigue (just 2 years after its initial burst), Early Access burnout, the rapid growth of indie games on Steam and the vitriol surrounding Godus, those are hard things to predict, at least if you're just starting out. I think our biggest failing was that we didn't build a big enough community before the crowdfunding, nowadays I think most people who succeed are the ones who've managed to reach out the best.


I assure you we'll do a post mortem later, in the meantime you can watch this one year old video if you'd like.








Also, thanks!  

[Mclrn]

Awesome idea,this will be big

[Greipur]

Back again! We've been at it since the second January, but been busy with business tasks and planning our next step. Here's a little summation for the Exploration module.



Exploration Module - Q1, 2017
Several islands that your followers can settle on and travel between (with boat). We will also improve heavily on the ecology and animal simulation. Because of these changes you'll have a much more varied game world where a city's location will have a big effect on how they prosper.


1. Islands
In this exploration module we will have more islands that the followers can migrate to. It will grant followers the possibility to travel across potentially dangerous waters and give the ocean more life. Followers will be able to go fishing in order to get more food.


2. Ecology
We want to improve upon the ecology system where the player can see the consequences of their followers have on nature. For instance, hunting too much will create an imbalance with the holy trinity of Crest (animals/followers/nature). We will also add a few more biomes that will give more variety to the islands.


3. Polish existing features
Thanks to our players and let’s players, we have seen where we need to make things better, and improve on the feedback. This is important to do in order to make Crest better. Some of the features that needs to be polished are war, trading and word combinations for commandments.


4. Animals
There will be more animals in the next update. In order to create a more vibrant world we will increase the variety of the animals. They will also bear offspring, similar to how the followers now work.


5. Bells and Whistles
We will improve upon some of the things that we already have in Crest and also add some more flavour to the island. For instance beaches, cliffs and maybe even height differences.



I'll be posting quite a bit of concept art soon. 

[JobLeonard]

Looking forward to the in-depth explanations!

[Greipur]

Looking forward to the in-depth explanations!

Sure, I'll try and explain as we go along. Here's a deluge of concept art!


---


Concept Art - New World

We're creating more biomes for Crest in order to make it more varied, bot visually but also mechanically. The intention is that each island will have different biomes, depending on how the world progress (interference) and procedural generation.

Red earth - not a real biome per say, more of an indicator where the followers has been cutting up the land, for example resource deposits will be hard to mine in a thick jungle. As the people are doing some basic terraforming you'll see how the ground bleeds, as it were. I think the red earth that you can see in some parts of the African continent is very beautiful and is something I've wanted to implement for some time.

Dry forest or jungle, a lesser form of jungle from the current thick jungle, easier to mine in, but carries less water.

Volcanic ground, pretty barren but you can find obsidian deposits there (new luxury resource).

Redesign of old resources, and adding gold and obsidian as well.

Just redesigning the clouds for more variants.

Cities will have harbours in the future.


---

Concept Art - Filler Animals

These have no mechanical effect, apart from the fish which is a new food resource. Whales and seagulls are merely decoration.

---

Concept Art - Characters etc.

Terraformers will be able to cut down jungles and plant new ones.

Each army will be led by a general.

New boats, different design depending on what they're used for.



---


That's it for now, more art to follow soon.

[JobLeonard]

That is a lot of new content, as well as implications for the gameplay

[Greipur]

That is a lot of new content, as well as implications for the gameplay

Yup, finally shaking things up a bit more. Here's some more implications.

Designs for how the coasts will look like - rocky, sandy beaches or cliffs.

The people in Crest will hold a festival each cycle, the more they love you the more people will be there.

[TheWanderingBen]

"Personally I'm kind of tired of all the games that don't really have anything to say. They're often sanitised so they don't offend anyone. I'm not even that old yet, but as a 27 year old I'm tired of shooting people for no reason other than not getting killed. I think that demonstrates how far big budget games are estranged from the real world."

This quote (including the age!) is exactly how I feel. Excellent piece guys!

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-01-16-im-tired-of-shooting-people-for-no-reason-other-than-not-getting-killed

[JobLeonard]

Very nice article indeed!

[Greipur]

Thanks! I really enjoyed participating in the interview, I guess that shows in how honest I was. Dan Pearson from GamesIndustry actually contacted us through the Slush matchmaking service. That trade expo proved to be really advantageous for us, we found an investor, press and also a new audio designer since Roland has moved on (due to personal reasons).


---


I'm here for your help, we're redesigning the diplomacy relations in Crest, and the interface too. It's tricky, there's a few 4X games that have diplomacy such as Civilization, Galactic Civilizations, Endless Space/Legend etc. But most games present what relationship the AI has with the player, and not what only AIs think of each other. Understandably we're trying to invent a new little wheel here. Here's a couple of mockups, and I would be really grateful if you could tell me which one is the least clunky and easiest to understand?

[JobLeonard]

I'm here for your help, we're redesigning the diplomacy relations in Crest, and the interface too. It's tricky, there's a few 4X games that have diplomacy such as Civilization, Galactic Civilizations, Endless Space/Legend etc. But most games present what relationship the AI has with the player, and not what only AIs think of each other. Understandably we're trying to invent a new little wheel here.

In b4 someone tries to apply Realpolitik in Crest

I kind of like using lines, although not straight like that - I prefer ballistic arches. What if you used arrows combined with other visual cues like colour to indicate relationships?

↚
↛
↮
⇆
→|←

The last one could be a stalemate - you could even have it off-center to show which one is more dominant?

http://xahlee.info/comp/unicode_arrows.html

[Greipur]

Thanks for the feedback, Job! We also threw the question out on Twitter and got a few pointers. Here's our new mockup.

---



Tomas is currently implementing a rudimentary version of fish schools and fishing, mostly placeholder stuff.

[JobLeonard]

Nice! One more thing: if the final version has some shading or maybe an outline, it will help some of the less contrasty-colours to stand out from the background.

[Greipur]

Sure, we're on it.


Here's some new concept art, from Josefine and I, for new animals in Crest - hippo, leopard and zebra.

[Greipur]

Before leaving for a relaxing weekend here's some more concept art and mockups!

Filler animals in the jungle

Trying out different height differences, Josefine will make a mockup in Blender with her sketches in mind.

A rough mockup for the new Expertise buildings, inspired by wonder buildings in the later Civilization games. A city won't be able to have them all at once.

City state border mockup, this is for the player so they can understand why they might be fighting over land. Also inspired by Civilization.

Christoffer has been giving part of the GUI an overhaul, basically we've conceded that we can't have a mostly HUD-less GUI for this game (when you don't have the tablets up). The bar in the upper right corner is inspired by Civilization 5, we wanted to expose the Faith resource better, and also found a good solution for collecting some other old, and new buttons.

Here's a closeup. The buttons are: diplomacy, advisors, chronicler, settings and the calendar.

Mostly done with concept art now, so graphic production starts next week. Johannes is still writing code to generate several islands and that the game actually recognise them as entities. Stay tuned.