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[WigglingEyebrows]

From Bum to King is an eyebrow-wiggling simulator during a curse in the fictional Medieval Age with elements of strategy and farce.

From life in a dormitory to a luxurious castle and your own kingdom. Bloody battles, nefarious intrigues, dungeons with treasures, loyal friends, and treacherous enemies await you on this fascinating journey.

What an ideal life to be king - wealth, honor and respect, sumptuous feasts, military campaigns, to punish and pardon with a single wave of your hand. How beautiful it is... it must be so... especially if you start as a beggar tramp. May the road to the throne and greatness begin!

Exalt yourself and your family by rising from the very bottom - from life in a dormitory to a luxurious castle and your own kingdom. Bloody battles, nefarious intrigues, treasure-filled dungeons, loyal friends, treacherous enemies, and more await you on this fascinating journey.

From the beginning, the development was a single person's job. It took a lot of effort and time. And now it is ready for early access. It is time to introduce the game to you and listen to your feedback.
The game is early access and coming soon on Steam. But this is only beginning. Development is continuing.

Genre: RPG, strategy, sandbox.

Gameplay trailer


Steam Early access page Add to your Wishlist
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJF8GtVsM8GnKw3WzH-IJ4w
Indie DB page https://www.indiedb.com/games/from-bum-to-king/images

[WigglingEyebrows]

Hi. This is few screenshots of features.

Character's inventory


Enemy torture


I'll show many features of my game later.

[WigglingEyebrows]

I'll show character face customization today. You can play man or woman. And you can change your portrait. Nose, mouth, hair, beard, eyes, eyebrows and colors can be changed. Children can take facial features from their parents. This is a short demonstration.

[WigglingEyebrows]

You can attack everybody in the world. Casus belli is right to attack other. Insult or assault to you or your family will good casus. Furthermore, you will lose your reputation, if you attack somebody and haven't casus belli. Here is the demonstration of attack to the other lord.

[WigglingEyebrows]

Your family is continuing in your children. They can do that you don't done. Their way is army formation, domain building and empire creation. You will continue your game as your heir after death.
So, let's find a good and right partner, create family. And this is time for some fun Everything is for your family 

[WigglingEyebrows]

My king, the treasury is empty! 
Yes, many things need money in my game. This is weapon, armor, horse, mercenary, titles and other. We have many ways to earn some gold. What can you do to earn money? Well, the bulletin board will help you with this difficult business. Many people add their bulletin to the board. And you can complete it for reward.
Are you bum or king? Doesn't matter. Begging? Why not?! 

[WigglingEyebrows]

Artificial limbs are common in this world. Prosectors are masters of surgery. They are making great limbs, what can be better than natural. Seriously, people remove an own limb and install artificial. 
This is an example, where we go to shop and buy a new limb for our character. Then we remove an old and install a new limb.

[WigglingEyebrows]

Hi. I'm working with world generation now. The world is full random generated in my game. Before start game, you need created new or use already created.
Map - the name of one of prepared  map
World seed - use can repeat the map by using world seed
Total world height - this is the total height of the world. You can choose between flat plains and high mountings. This influence on move speed and domain building opportunity.
Scale of region - this is the size of region. For example, will the forest occupy one tile or half of the map?
Land level influence on land and water level. Do you want more water or flat land?
Saving - I recommend to play without save/load at any moment. Let's save, if you want to turn off game only. It's more hardcore, but this is the challenge. But I leave the opportunity to play save/load style)
Map width/height is the size of the map in tiles.
Domains is the count for cities on the map.
Kingdoms is the union of few domains with the ruler in head. The ruler is king. Or bum. Yes, it can be happened.
Lords on start is the count of lords what will be generated on the start of the game.
Lords appear - Lords can be generated automatically during the game.

This is some information about map generation what I' doing now. There is a little demonstration below. Thanks for your attention)

[WigglingEyebrows]

Hello, everybody.
An interesting work was today. I remade my first gameplay trailer. Many mistakes and wrong texts was in old version. It's fixed now, and you can enjoy the new trailer version! Thanks.

[vivaladav]

Hey, your game seems pretty interesting and original, but if I were you I would wait to build a bit of following before launching (even if it's just EA).

Unless you have a secret mailing list with 10000 emails, looking at your current numbers I think the risk of going unnoticed in 3 weeks is very high and that would be a shame considering you definitely put a lot of work into this!

Good luck with it anyway.

[WigglingEyebrows]

Hello. I am glad to hear your words)
Yes, you are right. I haven't secret mailing. And thinking about replace the release date.
I'm a beginner and only try to promote my game. But results are low now. And you are the first, who answered me here) The game has no big budget. Can you tell me, how I can promote my game? Everything will be useful.
Thanks for your help and advices.

[Phodex Games]

Hello. I am glad to hear your words)
Yes, you are right. I haven't secret mailing. And thinking about replace the release date.
I'm a beginner and only try to promote my game. But results are low now. And you are the first, who answered me here) The game has no big budget. Can you tell me, how I can promote my game? Everything will be useful.
Thanks for your help and advices.

Hey man your game looks pretty cool and interesting, although it's a bit hard to understand what the core game loop will be from the trailer. It looks a bit like Mount & Blade in 2D.

Regarding marketing and promotion, I totally agree with vivladav. I am doing a video devlog on youtube every second week and post screenshots and GIFs of my game three times a week on various social media platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc.). Also contacting press & press releases can be an option. The most important thing you should do is to send your game out to YouTubers, but it is important to approach them correctly. Search the web for tips on that topic. Hope this helped you.

[vivaladav]

Yes, you are right. I haven't secret mailing. And thinking about replace the release date.
I'm a beginner and only try to promote my game. But results are low now. And you are the first, who answered me here) The game has no big budget. Can you tell me, how I can promote my game? Everything will be useful.
Thanks for your help and advices.

I wish I could explain you in one forum post how to be successful at marketing, but unfortunately it's not that simple

Phodex Games gave you some good pointers and on top of those I could add a few.

1) Push your release date by at least 2 months, then start your marketing campaign.
If you change the release date in the middle of it, it's going to be very bad.

2) Search all youtubers, websites, reviewers, etc... that usually cover/play games like yours and contact them directly. Always include a Steam key when you contact them.
Stay focused. Contacting 1000 people that play other games is worth 0.

3) Start a public beta of your game on Steam.

4) Find online communities where people can be interested in your game and invite them to try it.

5) Try different things. In some communities people like GIFs, in others they like to read tech details, in others they want screenshots and so on...

It's going to be a lot of work, but it's the only way to not end up with 0 reviews at your launch.

Good luck.

[WigglingEyebrows]

Hey man your game looks pretty cool and interesting, although it's a bit hard to understand what the core game loop will be from the trailer. It looks a bit like Mount & Blade in 2D.

I have another trailer for this case)



Yeah, it's like Mount and Blade. But with many features:
- fight other lords, explore dungeons, travel and meet events
- the deadly curse Tlen kills characters meantime
- you must find the partner, seduce, create an own family and play as your child after players death
- build and destroy factories and cities
- other)
Thank you, Phodex Games.

vivaladav

Thank you very much for you. I thought everything alright before your post. I planned to send the build to curators and streamers before release. Furthermore, I thought it will be enough for a good start. But your post has opened my eyes. I understand, what not a lot of people knows about the game now.
I'm polishing my build now and readying to send it to streamers.
Start to post info on Twitter, Reddit. FaceBook will be today.
https://twitter.com/WigglingE
https://www.reddit.com/r/indiegames/comments/m3exa2/i_want_to_tell_you_about_from_bum_to_king_it_was/
And yes, many works is ahead. And the result will be great.
And I'll be glad for any advices)

Thanks, vivaladav, for your help and support.

[vivaladav]

Nice, glad I could help!

I have also wishlisted your game and I know it's not going to make much difference, but it's still 1 more than before. 

[WigglingEyebrows]

Question about Twitter - I heard, if I create more than 1 twit per day, tags in other twits doesn't work during 1 day. Or something like this. I'm a Twitter beginner, is it true?
Thanks for help. Everything is important)
The way of one million steps can't begin without the first step. Somebody smart said, probably)

[Phodex Games]

Question about Twitter - I heard, if I create more than 1 twit per day, tags in other twits doesn't work during 1 day. Or something like this. I'm a Twitter beginner, is it true?
Thanks for help. Everything is important)
The way of one million steps can't begin without the first step. Somebody smart said, probably)

I can't answer your particular question, but I wanted to provide you with some very useful resources I have used myself recently to learn more about marketing.

• How to explain your game to press & customers (shop description, press release etc)
• Press release template
• Site to publish your press release
• Tips to contact content creators
• How to approach Streams and YouTubers:
  
  
• Essential things you need for successful marketing:
  
  

1) Push your release date by at least 2 months, then start your marketing campaign.
If you change the release date in the middle of it, it's going to be very bad.

Regarding this, I would say you should even push it by at least 3 months.

Lastly, I want to warn you. I have done active marketing for my game, for nearly two YEARS now and also have some experience as I already launched two commercial games. Still, I haven't build a massive following and my game still can be a flop, when I release it. I have done everything possible and still, I can fail. You need to keep that in mind and honestly, if this is your first game, it would be pure luck if you directly make a financially successful game. That's the bitter truth.

By the way, my message is not meant to discourage you, but to tell you to keep going. You probably need to make 3 maybe even 5 games to finally breakthrough. Of course, you can always be lucky and make it with the first one, but I think you get my point.

[WigglingEyebrows]

Phodex Games

Thank you. Your information is very useful for me. When I read

How to explain your game to press & customers (shop description, press release etc)

I understood, info about my game was not so good! It doesn't explain my game, it was a few abstract sentences. And I rewrote the description, there is the new version. What do you think about this?


And one more time thanks for support and hints on this difficult way)

[Phodex Games]

Phodex Games

Thank you. Your information is very useful for me. When I read

How to explain your game to press & customers (shop description, press release etc)

I understood, info about my game was not so good! It doesn't explain my game, it was a few abstract sentences. And I rewrote the description, there is the new version. What do you think about this?

And one more time thanks for support and hints on this difficult way)

From my experience, also from my personal one, people don't really like to read. Make it sweet and simple. Less is more in this case. You can check out my shop page as inspiration if you want. I have put a lot of effort into it:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1546090/RAIDBORN/

I would recommend adding some more descriptive adjectives to your text, to only present the really important points and to add GIFs and images to your description. I maybe would remove some points and leave them out, or replace them with a gif (like for example the "Eyebrow Wiggling" part) Quotes of your game are also a nice thing you can add, like the ones I have at the top of my description.

[WigglingEyebrows]

Your Steam page looks awesome. There is no too much text and good gif and pictures. Yes, this page is the great source of impression and inspiration.
I have a lot of features in my game. And I thought to tell about all, but it's really too big. I'm working for the new description version.
I have a question. I see, Steam page visits are growing, and viewing are lower. Is Steam have help for beginner pages help? Or something like this? I released my page 19 Feb. and after 12 Mar. visits are lower.
Thanks a lot for your help and advice.

P.S. I changed the first gameplay trailer. There was the first 15 sec. only 3 pics and no gameplay or something interesting. I fixed it, and you can watch the result)