It's been six full months since we went into Early Access on May 26th.
This is the first time we publish a title on Steam and the first time we sell a game AND develop it simultaneously. We have made 34 updates since our Early Access launch, averaging 5.6 updates per month.
Let us start by giving a summary of our major updates in the past 6 months.
5/26 – Early Access Launch with new cards and monsters (compared to the amount in Beta)
5/29 – Added "Ineffective Card Notification"
6/2 – Adjusted monster level growth to ease the difficulty curve
6/6 – Improved buff/debuff visual effects
6/9 – Can forfeit card selection after battles and acquire gold instead
6/12 – Added merchant tutorial, and revamped battle victory UI for a faster flow
6/20 – Added 5 new cards and adjusted deity abilities
6/24 – Added Monster Info/Intention panel
7/4 – Added Expedition Summary screen
7/13 – Added Campaign Progression Panel
7/15 – Deity Info now sorted by levels, and optimized debuff trigger notifications
7/20 – Added 6 new cards
7/21 – Added more detailed information for the save files
7/30 – Added new battle music and auto-save notifications
8/6 – Added Loading screen transition, remade the End Turn button
8/20 – Re-distributed deity ability growth to give more distinct differences amongst the same deity types
8/30 – Added Chaos Orbs, so players can start saving them for the future Artifact Upgrades. Also added the ability to view the Draw Pile and the Discard Pile
9/3 – Added Campaign Summary
9/9 – Added tooltips for cards
9/17 – Added selections for the Altar
9/23 – Added Difficulty Selection screen, in addition to Very Easy and Easy Mode
10/5 – Added 48 Steam Achievements
10/27 – Added the Compendium, with Deity and Card unlocks
10/30 – Added Artifact and Monster unlocks in the Compendium
While the team is proud of the footprints we have made above, we have also learned quite a few things in the past 6 months.
1. We thought that if we focus on improving the game features and its quality, the sales numbers will go up automatically. Yep, that was way too naive. Focusing on development and lacking proper marketing, the exposure will only go into a downward spiral. We have learned the hard way that this is no longer an "improve a game, and it will automatically sell better" era. Publishers, advertisers, streamers, and platform algorithms have a bigger impact on the sales numbers than the core gameplay.
2. During Early Access, wishlist numbers go up, but the actual sales numbers do not go up proportionally.
3. We have also found out that players actually delete wishlists, especially during major seasonal sales. Darn.
4. We have fixed most issues mentioned in the negative reviews in a matter of hours or days. But the negative reviews will be there to stay - potentially misleading new players to believe that the issues still exist and there's not much we can do about it.
5. Based on our data, some players have played more than 20 or even 30 hours. But the ratio of these hardcore players recommending our game is actually very low.
6. The reaction of new players is very direct and quick - if they think the game is too hard, they immediately refund the game. If they encounter a bug, they immediately refund the game. Every time we update a new patch, we get really nervous and refresh the sales page every few hours to see the refund data or the message boards to see any bugs that we didn't find out during our testing.
7. We also found out that we could not make everyone happy - some think our game is too easy, while some think it is too hard. Some appreciate our cartoonish art style, while some think it looks like it's made for children.
8. Our foolproof mechanisms were nowhere near ready when we first launched the game into Early Access 6 months ago. We have seen streamers using all kinds of wrong ways to play the game - for example, using Ares to play Chain Lightning. Then they criticized our design based on that result (the damage numbers are too low and the game is too tedious). Some of them even believed that switching Zeus back and forth to repeatedly gain "Leading the Charge" buff was a bug, while it was actually an intended design. We have spent at least a third of our time since the EA launch trying to plug the holes that might have caused players to misunderstand the intended gameplay design.
9. We have also underestimated the "education cost" for gameplay that is actually attempting to be innovative. Some players suggested that our game "should have done this or that as other roguelite deckbuilders do."
10. We have also learned that, based on social media comments, even though we are making this game with only 3 devs, many players would still compare our game content/features with similar games made by teams 4-6 times our size. We have to admit that the lack of development staff is no longer a valid reason to make players more forgiving to us - that is, if we want to ship a game, we need to be ready to survive against games made by many more developers.
It may sound like just another familiar story that an indie dev team is trying to survive against all odds, but we have poured our heart and soul into this game, and we hope more players would get to know the fun of the gameplay. We will do our best to complete the base game and end EA early next year.
Our next targets, before the game's full launch, are to complete the following content.
-Artifact Upgrades (it's almost complete and under testing)
-Bonus Points (where you can spend at the beginning of New Game+ to power up the playthrough)
-Hard, Nightmare, and Hell Mode (new monster abilities and card counters)
While we're at it, here's a sneak preview of the upcoming Artifact Upgrade (with revamped Artifact Equipment UI). Basically, we have re-done the whole Artifacts framework for this one.
We will also make the free Chinese Myth DLC available as soon as we can. The artwork for the Chinese Myth is almost complete. However, the abilities of Chinese Deities, Monsters, and Artifacts still require more time to implement. Our only programmer on the team is already working around the clock, and we really need him to stay healthy to complete the game.
That's about it, our Devlog #1. We want to share with our community where we stand right now and where we are heading. If you approve of our hard work, please share, leave a review, or simply say something nice. Thank you all!