Hi everyone!
Today marks one week after the release our debut game, The Tragedy at Deer Creek! I want to show our gratitude as well as the upcoming plans for Deer Creek as well as our studio Sparrowland.
First, I want to thank everyone who supported us by buying the game, writing a review, leaving a bug report or said hello over at our Discord. I truly appreciate you all.
Lets have a look at what went well:
Popular New Releases! The day after the release I was browsing Steam's homepage and got a wonderful surprise - we actually made the Steam first page on the Popular New Releases section! Thank you so much for your support! Mind. Blown.
Community! We've had wonderful people joining our Discord, as well as commenting at our Social media channels. I love talking to everyone - be it on the Discord, YouTube comments or the Community Hub here on Steam. I respond to as much as I can, and if I miss anything, just tag me on Discord!
Reception! Deer Creek might not be a game that fits the modern landscape of games with it being slow paced, with a core story that requires the player to really pay attention to detail as not everything is presented by default and other various variables, the reception have been overwhelmingly positive.
Technical stuff! Considering Deer Creek is our debut game, with no prior experience in game development, I must consider the launch a technical success. While some minor stuff popped up - as they always do - the game worked well both on desktop and the Steam Deck.
What didn't go exactly as planned then?
Time. At times some bugs had to linger a couple of hours too long to what I wanted. However, being a dad (it's a good thing!) and having a side-job (it's bad but a necessity!) eats time that could have been spent on fixing bugs more quickly. I've learned a lot of what not to do for our next launch though!
Visibility. We hopped onboard the social media wheel way too late, resulting in that maybe not being "out there" before launching. Another lesson learnt!
So, what's next?
While Deer Creek is now out, the work doesn't stop here.
Here's the updates in the near future:
Minor typos throughout the game
Some peculiar bugs in the forest maze in relation to the Inspect function
Minor audio fixes
Quality of Life on a few Interactions
A bit further down the road:
Hint-system. It's coming along quite well and should be ready to ship in a couple of weeks. The system uses multi-layered hints for some of the more difficult puzzles, while the more straight forward ones will have one hint only.
Translations. Thanks to our lovely community, we will have The Tragedy at Deer Creek in Spanish and German before the end of the year. You guys are the best!
That's it for now. Again, thank you so much for your support. It's been a terrifying yet absolutely wonderful week!
//Micke @ Sparrowland