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[Ramos]

Your creations start to receive more life. 
I wait with enthusiasm for the moment of visual polish and the moment of the first combat scene

[vivaladav]

I never realized that some of your mountains are black. Sorry if you explained it already, but I'm curious what this is about.

In Virtueror the Fog of War is permanent, which means that things are visible only when one of your units or cells is nearby.

Visited scene elements and structures stay visible after you move your units away, but they turn dark.

For example, if you check the second screenshot in my initial post you will see a darkened material generator at the top of the map.

I hope this clarifies things, but feel free to ask more if anything is not clear. 

[vivaladav]

Your creations start to receive more life. 
I wait with enthusiasm for the moment of visual polish and the moment of the first combat scene

I will send you a message in a year or something... 

Nah, hopefully I will be able to show you something cool in 1-2 months!

[Alain]

In Virtueror the Fog of War is permanent, which means that things are visible only when one of your units or cells is nearby.

Visited scene elements and structures stay visible after you move your units away, but they turn dark.

For example, if you check the second screenshot in my initial post you will see a darkened material generator at the top of the map.

I see, that makes sense, thanks for clearing that up!

[vivaladav]

As a solo indie developer I have to do more than coding and designing game mechanics and new graphics, I also have to take care of production and marketing.

Recently I focused especially on these other sides of game development and I wanted to share with you a couple of important results from my efforts.

Regarding the production department, I am happy to announce that I am now registered as Steamworks partner.
That means that I can finally start to work on the Steam page of Virtueror!

At the moment my goal is to have a page up by the end of May, but I'll try my best to get it done even before that. Considering the short time frame, I doubt I will have a trailer since day 1, but nothing is sure yet.

I also achieved a minor victory in the marketing department.
Since yesterday my YouTube channel, where I post all my video dev logs, passed the first meaningful mark: 100 subs.

I know that's far from impressive, but considering that is all organic traffic and that my game is still in very early stage I am pretty happy with it.
If you want to support and follow my development you can subscribe to my channel and help me to push that number even higher.

[Ramos]

Congratulations!
And Welcome to Steamworks Vivaladev !!!

I am happy to see you grow more and more each day into this industry 

[Alain]

Nice, congratulations! Don't sell yourself short: You have a most solid approach to making your game and marketing it. You are doing a great job, keep them updates coming!

[vivaladav]

Congratulations!
And Welcome to Steamworks Vivaladev !!!

I am happy to see you grow more and more each day into this industry 

Thanks man, the end still feels like centuries away from now, but at least it is a little step forward.

[vivaladav]

Nice, congratulations! Don't sell yourself short: You have a most solid approach to making your game and marketing it. You are doing a great job, keep them updates coming!

Oh thanks Alain, where can I find 10,000 more of you?

[vivaladav]

I always planned to involve gamers in the development of Virtueror and that's why I created a Discord server and invited a few people I know when I started to work on this game.

Now I am getting to the stage where I can finally open the doors to even more people!

If you like Real Time Strategy games and if you would like to influence the development of Virtueror, you can join me in this journey by signing up here.

After doing that you will receive an email with an invite to join the Discord server (check your spam folder if you don't receive anything within 5 minutes).

There you will be able to:

• vote development choices
• suggest new features and changes
• propose ideas and discuss them with other members
• get exclusive updates before they are shared on social media and forums
• get access to the design document and task tracker to always know the current status of development
• enjoy all the memes shared in the #off-topic channel

All that in preparation for the first alpha build that will be available only to Discord members in early June.

Make sure to sign up soon as tomorrow (Friday 30) we are going to vote for the initial Steam capsule and that will be your first chance to influence the destiny of Virtueror!

[Ramos]

Very good marketing approach!
You not only gain an audience in the Discord room but you also start building the email list + by having this email sub you make sure only true fans follow the process so you start your community with hardcore fans.
I want to do the same now but I already threw my invite all over the web
Also + 1 point for community management by having them involved in the development

Can you by any chance also share some information about how you did the most exposure campaign for your Discord and what results you had?

[Alain]

Cool, I'm a fan of your project as you know. Joined

[vivaladav]

Sorry for the slow reply, but I have been busy with the game and some real life stuff (unbelievable, right?).

Very good marketing approach!
You not only gain an audience in the Discord room but you also start building the email list + by having this email sub you make sure only true fans follow the process so you start your community with hardcore fans.
I want to do the same now but I already threw my invite all over the web
Also + 1 point for community management by having them involved in the development

Can you by any chance also share some information about how you did the most exposure campaign for your Discord and what results you had?

So far I didn't really run any marketing campaign, I just posted this message here, on the itch.io forum and on my Twitter and LinkedIn pages.
I am planning to go for something more serious at the end of May, when I will have more content to show.

I'll let you know in 2 months how it goes.

Cool, I'm a fan of your project as you know. Joined

Thanks Alain, you're my favorite fan!

[vivaladav]

It took me a while, but I set up a traditional web blog for Virtueror.

I am planning to use it for posting monthly updates about all the changes and new features I worked on during each month, but also to post major news and events related to my game.

The other day I published a first post that highlights all the main development news for the month of April.

People who have been following me here and on YouTube are probably already aware of a good half of what is in that post, but there are also new features like for example the introduction of map scrolling:

I am also revealing the "bug of the month", which I won't spoil you here, but you can find at the end of my post, so happy reading.

[Alain]

Congratulations on setting up the blog! I like the idea of the bug of the month

[Ramos]

Congratulations sir, the blog looks very clean and user-friendly!

The new scrolling mechanic brings your game build closer to a solid RTS.

I also must share with you my first impression when I saw that "bug of the month" screenshot, I first believed its ORE resources from Red Alert spammed across the map but then I remembered you are into spice/Dune, not red alert so I looked again he he

[vivaladav]

Congratulations on setting up the blog! I like the idea of the bug of the month

Yeah me too... cause it's fair to show things are not always perfect. We are humans after all!

Congratulations sir, the blog looks very clean and user-friendly!

The new scrolling mechanic brings your game build closer to a solid RTS.

I also must share with you my first impression when I saw that "bug of the month" screenshot, I first believed its ORE resources from Red Alert spammed across the map but then I remembered you are into spice/Dune, not red alert so I looked again he he

Thanks Ramos, glad you liked it!

No Red Alert references in my game for now, but you never know... 

[vivaladav]

To celebrate the first 100 subs of my YouTube channel I recorded a short video where I play my game Virtueror on a very big touch screen:





Nothing too serious, it's just for fun, but I wanted to do something different for once. I hope you will enjoy it!

[Alain]

Cool, it was fun to watch you play on this enormous screen. The touchscreen controls fit the abstract high tech vibe of virtueror. I could imagine Mr. Spock playing virtueror instead of 3D chess

My favorite part of the video was this:

"This is another type of special material. It is called Blobs. You find it and use it for special stuff."...

[Ramos]

I wanted to say "wtf did you changed the visual style?" then I saw it was posted by Alain )))

I watched the video, good material, I can almost visualize the combat mechanics. Also, I am glad you decided to make it so that players can upg walls with turrets and awesomeness. Just a bit more!