Fursan al-Aqsa Dev Blog #11 - Maps Showcase - Camp Filon
Click here to see more Screenshots:
https://www.indiedb.com/games/fursan-al-aqsa-knights-of-al-aqsa-mosque/imagesClick here to see the Video Showcase of this environment, without gameplay (to avoid spoilers :D):
https://www.indiedb.com/games/fursan-al-aqsa-knights-of-al-aqsa-mosque/videos/27-fursan-al-aqsa-camp-filon-showcaseHello my friends!
Sorry for the looooong delay without posting updates. Even though I did not post here on the forums, however, I am very active on twitter, and most important, I have been working VERY HARD on this game, and will show you now some important updates and informations.
First of all, I want to apologize about the release date for Episode 1 of my game. I was planning to release on may 10th because I want to send my game to Brazil Independent Games Festival (BIG), and it had a deadline for sending the game until may 11th, so I was decided to release the game one day before it, on its current state.
As everyone knows, because Coronavirus, all the major gaming events were cancelled, and the same with BIG Festival. Now the deadline was extended until November.
So I continued to develop my game, and build the maps (the last step on my game dev workflow). I spent the last year of 2019 working on the programming and characters animations, and from since 2018 I did not build a new map for my game (I was only building small testmaps for testing the programming and animations). So I began to build this map, Camp Filon, and I have done an upgrade on my maps building workflow, and I was able to build this map under 10 days. Because this I realized that in one month I can complete, finish designing 3 maps, which means, 3 missions (for the campaign mode), and also some extra missions using these same maps with some time of day variations.
Then I came to the conclusion that would be a lot unfair from my part to release this game with only 1 map when I can add more content to make this game more playable and enjoyable by the community.
For all these reasons, I decided to delay the release of this game a bit more, maybe one month, or two (no more than this), for the sake of polishing this game, adding more content, and raising the overal quality, so Fursan al-Aqsa will live up to all this hype and the community expectations, maybe this can be one of the Best Indie Games of 2020
I think I am not harming anyone with this delay, because I did not make any kind of pre-order (or the like).
I am very happy with the results, and this new map which shows the final game quality, is by far the best map I ever created in Unreal Engine 3, and the next maps will be even better.
Also another update, I did a complete revamp of the game`s website, made it very professional, with complete informations about the game, specs, features, and so on:
https://www.fursanaqsa.com/
About the release itself, after thinking a lot, searching and re-searching, analysing various factors, I decided to go on my own even on the releasing and distribution of my game.
I will be skipping marketplaces like Steam, Itch.io, and other sites and will release it on my own website, a small ecommerce system I developed with PHP Cake Framework, integrated with Paypal IPN Payments (I am a web developers with +10 years of experience creating sites and e-commerces arround the web).
This is the virtual store for my game (you can`t purchase yet):
https://store.fursanaqsa.com/
The reason is simple: Reduce my costs!
Steam is very expensive, 30% of revenue share, added to this, is the USA Government Withdrawal whenever Steam sends money from USA to my Bank Account in Brazil, that can reach more 30% (there is no Agreement between Brazil and USA regarding this fee). Last, but not least, is the Brazillian government`s fee for receiving money from outside brazil, which can reach from 5% to 10%. And adding to this problem, is the currency conversion, which today, 1 USD is almost 6 BRL!!!
So as you can see, Steam is no way for me. The only difference from Itch.io, is that their revenue share can be as low as 0%. Even then, there is still the 30% of Withdrawal and the Brazillian Fee (also the currency conversion).
For all these reasons, I decided to sell my own game on my own website. This site is 100% safe, as it uses SSL Encryption by Let's Encrypt and the payments are processed by Paypal. The purchase process is very simple, there is no need to even register on this website. Just click on the buy now button and you will be redirected to Paypal Checkout Page. You login to your paypal account and make the payment. After the payment is completed, you will receive on your email (registered at Paypal) a download link for the game you purchased. This link is temporary, and expires after 3 download attempts, or after 24 hours.
I know you can`t avoid piracy, and whoever wants to pirate my game will do it, regardless where I release it. It`s very easy to buy a game on steam, then just change some files and configurations, make this game a non steam game and distribute it free arround the web. I mean, steam does not avoid piracy. I personally don`t worry about piracy, because I know here on this community are awesome people who are going to support me by purchasing my game (it will be VERY CHEAP :D).
So, there is no reason for me paying all these fees to steam, whenever I can pay only 5% for paypal for selling my game, and nothing more.
Sorry for this long post, however, I hope you all understand me and stay HYPED with my game :D :D :D
Cheers and until next update (Jenin, the Camp of Resistance).
Community
