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[cepnox]

Man, I'm so impressed by your marketing skills. I truly love your systematic approach to it.

[Ramos]

Impressive. I know nothing about marketing, but it was fun to read about it. Got to respect the effort you’ve put into this.

The game looks interesting. There’s definitely no abundance of horror strategy games. At first glance, it reminds me of Darkwood, which makes the game look deceptively a survival game instead of RTS. Not necessarily a bad thing at all.

About the horror aspect: to me, horror and suspense don't arise from battles, but from anticipation of unpredictable events. Prelude maps might be used for this; to give the player a hint of what's coming up without revealing too much. Procedural levels are usually good also. Their challenge is not about HOW you’re going to win the mission, but CAN you win it. In some cases, you just have to give up and pull your troops out.

It’s actually kind of funny how many Lovecraft-themed battle games there are. In Lovecraft’s stories, the monsters are something humans specifically cannot battle with. So panic mode and creatures having psychic effects (as in XCOM-games) suit the theme well. The overlapping texts are a funny way to visualize chaos where everyone is shouting at each other.

Each team member should have a unique personality, traits and attitude towards other members. They could get attached to each other, argue, even hate and refuse to cooperate. Fear should change the character and affect their relationships. This would automatically make a story, and losing a member would always be a loss.

But I’m probably wandering off the point. This dev log was a quite thought-provoking story in itself, and now that I have finally read it through, I’ll be following.

Good luck with the release.

Thank you mobilelast so much for the kind words and constructive criticism.
Fortunately, all you suggested is already in the game absolutely all your points up to a good extent.

I also just checked your blog, very solid concept you have there, +10 points for potential in adiction elements

Hi Ramos!

This is very impressive (I'm referring now to your marketing post). It's nice to see a post about marketing with same detail and focus as about development itself (as marketing IS equally important as development itself).

Cheers for you mate!

Thank you vdapps!

I hope your grind in game dev is going solid.
Nice bumping into you on Gamejolt!

Your marketing progress was a good read as always!

Following

Thank you Alain!

I will admit I made a huge mistake to make the dev page on Steam so late, I probably lost a lot of possible subs.

I like the presskit layout, very clean and informative

Thank you Beastboy!
I tried to make it as user friendly as possible although I think I also should have added publisher/self-publish info, a bit of background from my company, language info, and other small things but nothing critical I hope

Man, I'm so impressed by your marketing skills. I truly love your systematic approach to it.

Thank you cepnox, you are too kind in regards to feedback  


I will post an update soon, now I am a bit tired and much happened since my last post.

Gentlemen, I salute you!  

[Ramos]

So much has happened, I don't even know where to start ...

So I try to stay away from Political topics but unfortunately, some also affect my Game dev career so I will try to describe the events as neutral as possible.

The first event.
Last week my partner Sergey D. decided to quit his main job and go indie developer full-time, he got money for 3 more months but this, in theory, should not be a problem because the game is now finished and the release is just around 25 days away so he should start receiving income from the game sales within a maximum of 3 months and our worst-case scenario on sale projection covered his risk factor.
His worst-case scenario is to make his share around 15.000$ profit within the first year, mainly with all expenses and my share we need to make 50.000$ profit within the first year.
I was so happy for him and I got excited and also started preparing my own job quit moment, I planned main for 22 of May since that is also my b-day even though things are very hard on my day-job I wanted to wait a bit to see the exact release results.
BUT ...
The situation from Ukraine - Russia will affect our situation and we are trying to adapt. Especially since my partner is from Russia and I am from a UN country. Mainly:
1.1 If SWIFT will get banned how the hell can I send him money?
1.2 we discussed a worst-case scenario of him coming to my country to give him cash but then again he cannot take more than 10k $ through Vamal customs + the flights might be banned so he might not be able to come.
1.3 50% of our target audience is from Russia so many of our fans will not be able to use bank aka won't be able to buy the game. How will this affect our game sale projections and estimations?

This is a bad situation for my partner since he got 2 kids to raise and he is the head of the fammily and got nothing to do with the conflict.
After working with him since 2010 on different projects I can clearly say he F***ing deserves to finally get his full-time game dev career independence.
So we keep going forward and see how the situation evolves.



On to the second event.
A few years ago I made a game TAURONOS( https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=59788.0 ) with another programmer from my country Tudor Vaida, we managed to find a Publisher from Ukraine( https://restlesscorp.com/ ) that helped us publish the game on Nintendo Switch and Xbox. He took care of both marketing and the porting process and was very transparent and cooperative so we truly enjoyed working with him. He is one man army, as indie as it gets.
So due to recent Ukraine conflict events, we decided to let him keep all income on Xbox and Switch as effective immediately. He will not be able to make giveaways of our game and porting to PS would require a new contract but with all the income TAURONOS makes on Switch and Xbox he will keep it non-recoupable.


And the third and final event
Marketing, lots of emails sent lots of work I don't feel capable of doing a constructive post about this now, I am exhausted.
But as a small side-event my partner finally made a social media account on Twitter if anyone wants to drop him a follow https://twitter.com/DovganovskiyS

I don't know what the hell will happen now with this worldwide situation and how will this affect our release and game dev career, I will admit I am a bit scared.



Gentlemen, I salute you!  

[cabalistik]

Game looks good! Are you planning on releasing a demo at some point?

[cepnox]

Sorry to hear that. I wish you the best of luck.
Sadly it will be most likelly hard to get to a normal state from this situation for ordinary people .
I'm from Slovakia (neighbor country of Ukraine). It is predicted that our economy will be hit relatively hard (I'm impressed that it can be worse after the whole Corona crisis), and then there will remain the constant insecurity.

[Alain]

Damn, I did not know the political situation would affect you and your programmer, Ramos. The whole situation is terrible. I hope you can find solutions and also wish you cepnox the best for the future.

[Ramos]

Game looks good! Are you planning on releasing a demo at some point?

Hey cabalistik,
Thank you for the kind words!
We did an exclusivity marketing approach so the public demo will only be available 3 days before the main Steam release + high-level people from our Discord community already have private access to it

Sorry to hear that. I wish you the best of luck.
Sadly it will be most likelly hard to get to a normal state from this situation for ordinary people .
I'm from Slovakia (neighbor country of Ukraine). It is predicted that our economy will be hit relatively hard (I'm impressed that it can be worse after the whole Corona crisis), and then there will remain the constant insecurity.

So true Cepnox, so true, but we must adapt and think with a few moves ahead like in chess.

Damn, I did not know the political situation would affect you and your programmer, Ramos. The whole situation is terrible. I hope you can find solutions and also wish you cepnox the best for the future.

Thank you for your support Alain!


I am now concentrating all my efforts on my release marketing campaign so my dev entries are a bit rare during this period, I don't even know how heavy will this world situation affect my release but it is too late now, I must deal with what I got.

[mobilelast]

Very sad to hear this.

It is a sickening situation. Especially for Ukrainians, naturally, but I'm afraid that the world-wide effects are only beginning to take place. Things hardly get normalized in a long time, but hopefully there will be peace soon and things start at least getting better.

Best luck for the future!

[oldblood]

Really sorry to hear about that, Ramos. The entire Ukraine war is so pointless and infuriating, but its frustrating to hear its also bleeding into you and your partners work. Its a complicated situation that I don't see resolving anytime too soon. Hoping you two will be able to find some solutions. Best of luck with your marketing preparations.

[logophil]

Very sorry to hear this, and wish you all the best as you and your partner navigate through this latest crisis!

Though it is not the same as your situation, I think this Russia situation will affect very many of us here on Tigsource in a smaller way, given that over 10% of Steam users are (or were until recently) Russian. I feel sorry for the many ordinary Russians who never voted for a war, and are now being affected by the sanctions in so many ways.

Regarding SWIFT, it seems to me quite likely that there will continue to be some way of making personal payments to individuals Russia, though it may take some research to find them. SWIFT is just the international standard system that makes such payments easier, and payments are technically possible outside SWIFT. As far as I know it is currently up to individual companies, and the Russian government whether they offer such payments as a service. Many western companies such as Paypal are stopping such services currently, but I am hopeful for your sake that there will be other smaller companies that continue to offer personal transfer payments, perhaps these might be Russian companies?

[Ramos]

Very sad to hear this.

It is a sickening situation. Especially for Ukrainians, naturally, but I'm afraid that the world-wide effects are only beginning to take place. Things hardly get normalized in a long time, but hopefully there will be peace soon and things start at least getting better.

Best luck for the future!

Yes, the situation is out of our control, we can only adapt.
Thank you!

Really sorry to hear about that, Ramos. The entire Ukraine war is so pointless and infuriating, but its frustrating to hear its also bleeding into you and your partners work. Its a complicated situation that I don't see resolving anytime too soon. Hoping you two will be able to find some solutions. Best of luck with your marketing preparations.

I try to stay away from politics but yes the situation affects us no matter what we do.
I am already preparing for the worst-case scenario for a new career:


I must keep a sense of humor or il go nuts )

Very sorry to hear this, and wish you all the best as you and your partner navigate through this latest crisis!

Though it is not the same as your situation, I think this Russia situation will affect very many of us here on Tigsource in a smaller way, given that over 10% of Steam users are (or were until recently) Russian. I feel sorry for the many ordinary Russians who never voted for a war, and are now being affected by the sanctions in so many ways.

Regarding SWIFT, it seems to me quite likely that there will continue to be some way of making personal payments to individuals Russia, though it may take some research to find them. SWIFT is just the international standard system that makes such payments easier, and payments are technically possible outside SWIFT. As far as I know it is currently up to individual companies, and the Russian government whether they offer such payments as a service. Many western companies such as Paypal are stopping such services currently, but I am hopeful for your sake that there will be other smaller companies that continue to offer personal transfer payments, perhaps these might be Russian companies?

True, true, and let`s not forget the situation is still unstable so we don't know what will come next.
I will try to adjust along the way.
I also try to ignore all political aspects but at the end of the day it affects me directly like this:
- My console publisher is from Ukraine
- My programmer partner is from Russia
- Minimum 30% of my audience is from Russia & Ukraine (Hardcore RTS players)



Just 2 weeks away from the release and all my estimations suddenly are inaccurate.

Guys, I truly don't know what to expect, I hope I did not waste 4 years of my life and my partner's life to lose it all in one move.

 

[oldblood]

Just 2 weeks away from the release and all my estimations suddenly are inaccurate.

Guys, I truly don't know what to expect, I hope I did not waste 4 years of my life and my partner's life to lose it all in one move.

Not sure if this is financially feasible, but is it worth holding back to the release for a bit and hoping the situation improves? Of course, it could not improve (or even degrade further), so it's a risk--but you do only get one shot at releasing a game. I've had similar feelings of doubt in all this, I'm currently throwing a lot of savings at an already risk project (a visual novel) and the looming threat of escalating global conflict makes me question if now is the time to take this leap.

Day one buyer here, so you know regardless of what you do that you've got 1 sale in the books. 

[Alain]

Damn, this is a tough situation you were pushed into, Ramos. I was wondering the same as oldblood, maybe changing the timeline is an option? On the other hand, you have already announced the release date and the question is if delaying would maybe do more harm than good.

[Beastboy]

I am sorry you are in a dificult situation and i wish you the best of luck with the release.

[bryku]

I try to stay away from politics but yes the situation affects us no matter what we do.
I am already preparing for the worst-case scenario for a new career:


I must keep a sense of humor or il go nuts )

"Welcome to McDonalds, can I take your order? Oh, and do you want a copy of my game as well? It comes on a fancy pendrive!"

Jokes aside, I agree that the current situation is getting more and more f*cked up. Keeping my fingers crossed!

[Ramos]

Not sure if this is financially feasible, but is it worth holding back to the release for a bit and hoping the situation improves? Of course, it could not improve (or even degrade further), so it's a risk--but you do only get one shot at releasing a game. I've had similar feelings of doubt in all this, I'm currently throwing a lot of savings at an already risk project (a visual novel) and the looming threat of escalating global conflict makes me question if now is the time to take this leap.

Day one buyer here, so you know regardless of what you do that you've got 1 sale in the books. 

Thank you for the kind words and support oldblood!

As for the release delay, It is out of the question unfortunately, I cannot afford to pay accountant services if I delay + I will lose a lot of credibility on the media & fans if I change the release date in the last few days + as you said, it is possible that the situation will get worst.

Damn, this is a tough situation you were pushed into, Ramos. I was wondering the same as oldblood, maybe changing the timeline is an option? On the other hand, you have already announced the release date and the question is if delaying would maybe do more harm than good.

Yes Alain it is indeed a delicate situation but as I said to oldblood, delaying the release is out of the question

I am sorry you are in a dificult situation and i wish you the best of luck with the release.

Thank you!

"Welcome to McDonalds, can I take your order? Oh, and do you want a copy of my game as well? It comes on a fancy pendrive!"

Jokes aside, I agree that the current situation is getting more and more f*cked up. Keeping my fingers crossed!

AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA !!! Yes, and for some extra nuggets you can get a free DLC 

Thank you for your support bryku!



Today I also released a free demo/vertical slice on Itch.io and Gamejolt if anyone wants to check it out before the full release next week.
I must add that Gamejolt store is very interesting combo of Twitter & Discord

Gamejolt:
https://gamejolt.com/games/chromosomeevil/439251

Itch.io:
https://16bitnights.itch.io/chromosome-evil

[oldblood]

Thank you for the kind words and support oldblood!

As for the release delay, It is out of the question unfortunately, I cannot afford to pay accountant services if I delay + I will lose a lot of credibility on the media & fans if I change the release date in the last few days + as you said, it is possible that the situation will get worst.

Ah, I figured as much but thought I'd mention it. I will say I'm not sure about you 'losing credibility with fans/media' given the current global situation, I think you'd find people quite understanding, especially if you positioned it around how its impacting your two man dev team, but I hear what you're saying and it doesn't sound financially feasible. Either way, best of luck with the launch in a few days. Got it queued up to snag my copy. Looking forward to playing!

[Alain]

I think it is a great that you release your demos on different platforms leading up to the release. Only 3 more days to go!

[Ramos]

Thank you, everybody, thank you all the wonderful developers from Tigsource that supported me in the last 4 years, I am so happy at this moment I have tears in my eyes, we finally finished and released the game!

Its been a hard trip, for me at least it flips between passion for the art of creation and actual obsession to make a game that I would like to play

I must also say a big Thank you to my partner Sadoff for not going crazy in working with me and bringing my concept & art to life!



If any of you cares to help out with some honest review and help me with the Steam algorithm id highly appreciate it!


I salute you gentlemen! 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1035660/Chromosome_Evil/

[oldblood]

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