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[thatjustinng]

Stifled

is a Mic-Enabled Sound-Based Survival Thriller, where sound is the only way you see and the enemies HEAR your fear.

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We at Gattai Games have been working on Stifled for close to 2 years but are only just starting this devlog largely due to procrastination. So with our shame out of the way, let’s talk about the game! (Justin here btw, Design + Business Guy at Gattai Games, and the lazy fella that is to blame)

In Stifled, the sounds made by your in-game character and yourself through microphone input reveal the otherwise hidden world through ‘echolocation’. However, undue noise will attract the attention of creatures lurking in the darkness. To survive, you will have to tread the line between making sounds to see, and staying quiet to stay hidden.

We mentioned the microphone input, so here’s a video of me demonstrating it using a bit of Andre's level. Pretty apparent that Youtubing/Twitch streaming will not be a viable career path.

Stifled is the spiritual successor to our award winning student project, Lurking. And with Stifled, we tried to focus more on narrative (really hoping we are doing this right!) and yeah would love to know what you guys think about it!

P.S. we know Perception and Blind are conceptually similar, and we can’t wait to see what they do!

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[thatjustinng]

This update is event-related, first for Casual Connect, and second for E3!

Casual Connect Asia

About a month back Casual Connect rolled into our hometown of Singapore! It's not the most relevant show for Stifled, but since it was in Singapore, we decided to submit for their Indie Prize competition and got picked for the showcase! So, armed with our Indie-As-Hell isolation chamber, we went hunting for squeals and awards.

Gattai Games' Indie-As-Hell isolation chamber.

Looks terrible, but works great as an attention grabber! (Highly recommended behaviour if it makes sense for your game! )

Unfortunately, we only picked up nominations at the award show. One for Most Innovative game and another for Best Game Design. Slightly disappointed but hey, we got them squeals from the box and this.

No pressure guys, no pressure.

It made our day.

E3!

Woo! We got picked for The MIX at E3! And yes we'll (by that I mean I, myself, alone, oh I'm so dead) be bringing our cheapass isolation box to it! So, if you're in town, come say hi and be prepared to scream! (If you can't make it to the MIX, let me know so we can figure it out! )

Also, Thread bump!

[Michael Klier]

This "sounds" like really cool concept (pun intended ). Unfortunately the demo video appears to be set to private. Well, I'm gonna play "Lurking" for now .

[michelmohr]

Wow. This looks really intense.

One little comment I have is that the stylization of the character at the end of the trailer feels like it's just too different from the screenshot you posted. It feels too smooth.

[thatjustinng]

This "sounds" like really cool concept (pun intended ). Unfortunately the demo video appears to be set to private. Well, I'm gonna play "Lurking" for now .

Let us know what you think about Lurking! Yeah, I'll be replacing the video soon!

[thatjustinng]

Wow. This looks really intense.

One little comment I have is that the stylization of the character at the end of the trailer feels like it's just too different from the screenshot you posted. It feels too smooth.

Sorry, I don't fully understand what your comment meant. But I'm guessing the graphics between the trailer and screenshot is very different?

[thatjustinng]

So, Stifled's Greenlight launched yesterday to a decent bit of press and I thought it might be a good idea to post about our journey day by day here on TIG.

Not too sure if we as a community we'll gain any insights by the end of our greenlight, but I'm hoping all of us will glean something from the day-by-day numbers I'll be posting. (Oh, and please feel free to reply if you have insights on your own and questions!)

Lesson learnt from the first day

Press is important, attend events if you can and build relationships over the net.
Most of these following writeups were the results of showing the press Stifled in-person from E3 2016 last month.

• DreadCentral
• Famitsu
• GamerAnx
• RelyOnHorror
• Techraptor
• Destructoid
• GameAxis
• HardcoreGamer

Newsletter subscribers convert quite well!.
We have around 300 subscribers right now, by having it on our site and asking for signups at events, of which about 10% clicked-through into the Greenlight page. (It's not a lot, but it helps)

Your launch/leading trailer is what people will see.
Not too sure if Youtube clocks the views from Steam, but if it does your Launch (and first) video is INCREDIBLY important. We have (at the time of writing) 377 views on the leading Narrative trailer and only 82 views on the Microphone Demo trailer. This is including a bunch of sites that used the Narrative Trailer on their writeups.

Think about the game you are making, and direct your trailer to generate interest and convey what the game is about succinctly. In our case, we wanted to tease the game's narrative and showcase the echolocation mechanic. We found the balance with a phone call with voice acting that hinted at the narrative while serving as a sound source for the pulses. We kept imagery to be quite passive yet (hopefully) suggestive, leaving space for viewers to draw their own conclusions.

What we could have done better

Build relationships earlier
The earlier the relationship is established, the longer he/she will remember your game and be willing to help you out during the launch.

Build your email subscribers early!
We should have built our email subscription before Pewdiepie played Lurking, because we would have captured people who came to our site based on his Let's play.

Use the demo trailer earlier
We could definitely have used the Microphone Demonstration trailer wayyyy earlier on social media and with press to start garnering interest.

[thatjustinng]

Hey guys!

Sorry I didn't update over the weekend! Family was a thing, and I was busy packing for Radius Festival at Vienna! Let me know if you guys will be there!

So here's just a long post of the stats for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday!

Short summary
We got to top 100 at the end of the first day, and it has been a slow climb upwards.
Approval ratings also fell over time.
First 3 days of Greenlight seems really important. Will report back once we get more info

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

[thatjustinng]

Day 8 on Steam Greenlight. (Sorry we I skipped a few days, I'm currently in Vienna for Radius Festival on behalf of the team and jetlag + procrastination (more of the latter) is proving a pretty big problem!

But yeah, our growth has slowed significantly after hitting the top 100 (We did this in 3 days) but are slowing pushing our way up the charts every day. There are no images to show, but we are moving up at a steady 5-10 spots a day which is nice.

Really hoped we would have got greenlit faster, but lesson learnt, we will probably need to queue up even more press for the game's actual launch. I will try to get back to a more regular posting until the end of the week when I fly back to Singapore (and to more jetlag).

[Xblade724]

This is super interesting with the stats -- that standstill to giant mountain on greenlight tho

[io3 creations]

For the last few months, games have been greenlit twice a month: a few days before the middle and end of the month - and even then it is spread over a few days.  So, even if your numbers are good, you still have to wait for one of those times - which should be coming up in a few days.

[thatjustinng]

This is super interesting with the stats -- that standstill to giant mountain on greenlight tho

Yea, we were really excited for the spike, but the fall has been a bit demoralizing. Lesson learnt, queue up even more press before you launch!

[thatjustinng]

For the last few months, games have been greenlit twice a month: a few days before the middle and end of the month - and even then it is spread over a few days.  So, even if your numbers are good, you still have to wait for one of those times - which should be coming up in a few days.

Ahhh, TIL. Thanks for the info! I'll try to keep updating the thing day by day until the end of the month and see if that holds true!

[thatjustinng]

Day 9!

As expected, still a slow climb up the charts. Also, it's SDDC week, so I'd only imagine it'll get worse.

Surprisingly, getting a small article on Bloody-Disgusting wasn't as much of a boost as I thought it would have been, which could mean dedicated gaming sites will still make more sense.

[thestrangers]

Congrats on the Greenlight! Following your thread and supporting as I have a lot of friends who love games like these. The day-by-day Greenlight progress is interesting to see.

How are you handling the article writeups? Cold call/emails + press release, or event networking?

[thatjustinng]

Congrats on the Greenlight! Following your thread and supporting as I have a lot of friends who love games like these. The day-by-day Greenlight progress is interesting to see.

How are you handling the article writeups? Cold call/emails + press release, or event networking?

Thanks! Do get them to drop us an Yes vote if it makes sense!

It's a combination of all there, with event networking being the best, cold emails second and press release last. Sidenote: traveling from Asia to Western show means networking gets really expensive, really fast.

[thatjustinng]

Day 10.

Nothing new, just a bit of a small climb. We did get a tweet from Rami at Radius though!

[thatjustinng]

Day 11.

We fell down a spot! Feels like we will just be stradling the 30s for a while. The hype is insufficient!

[zacx_z]

Congrats on Greenlight! We are also doing Greenlight and this is great to read!

[thatjustinng]

Day 12!

Tiny climb up the charts, but our approval ratings seem to be hovering around 60%, down from the 70%-ish we started with earlier in the Greenlight. The Steam community has some discerning tastes! Taking note of this to see how these trends might correlate to the actual release.