Arcen Games
General Category => Bionic Dues => Topic started by: nas1m on October 11, 2013, 02:47:22 pm
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I noticed that bionic at least stayed in the Top 100 on steam until sometime today? Was it enough to pay for itself or at least to be a on track to do so?
Just being curious... and *really* itching to see this game idea of yours expanded :D.
I really hope this one goes stellar for you over time - it definitely has the legs, press and appeal (at least to those that played it) to do so!
*crosses fingers*
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It's not been a "flew like a barrel of bricks" situation like Tidalis or Shattered Haven but it's barely beating what AIW did during the VotM launch, and is nowhere near Skyward or AVWW's launch. It's beating Valley2's launch, though that's more an indicator of how Valley2 did :)
Overall I'm ok with it, but in the larger picture of what Arcen needs to continue as it has Bionic isn't doing what we need it to.
But it's not so low that expansions are necessarily out of the question. More a question of when, there.
I definitely want to keep expanding it too :)
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Will there be a post release support time for bionic 1.0 at all (given all the other projects mentioned by the sidebar) then? I am just asking to know whether it makes sense to continue to report issues and suggestions for bionic at the moment? There are certain things i have in mind ;D...
Also, how is Chris? I noticed he has made himself unusually sparse the last few days (and the launch seemed like quite the blow to him). He okay?
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We've done some post-release changes already but in general we usually let a release sit for a week or so to make sure any critical bugs are caught before we start shaking things up again.
In this case I don't think there'll be a huge amount of post-release work in the near future partly because the launch version has so much more polish and such than our releases normally do.
That said, I have put in several hours into a more-or-less complete rework of the Customization/inventory/part-picking thing because that's the #1 complaint area. It just didn't get to the level of polish that the rest of the game got, so I'm trying to fix that :)
That said, we're definitely in full production on Starport 28 now, so that's taking most of my programming time.
And Chris is doing ok from what I can tell. Releases are always a challenge for someone in the project-leader role (especially when they're also CEO), and it's always harder when revenue isn't where it needs to be, etc. So a person in that kind of situation needs to limit their stressors for a while, etc.
There's also the matter that he's on calls with one or more of us pretty much _all the time_ during the prototyping phase of Starport 28, currently ;)
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Will there be a post release support time for bionic 1.0 at all (given all the other projects mentioned by the sidebar) then? I am just asking to know whether it makes sense to continue to report issues and suggestions for bionic at the moment? There are certain things i have in mind ;D...
Also, how is Chris? I noticed he has made himself unusually sparse the last few days (and the launch seemed like quite the blow to him). He okay?
Always feel free to report issues you find. We're not done supporting this one.
I don't like speaking for Chris, but, he's ok. He's spent almost literally all day on Skype with various folks on the team working on the next game, so he's active, just not so much on the forums at the moment.
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That's good to hear. Please give him my best wishes then!
Also looking forward to whatever you are able to put into bionic and also to starport (although I am not sure yet whether this one will be my thing - maybe i will be the one giving the sceptic during that alpha ;)...).
Keep it up folks! There is no crew i wish to be successful more.
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and also to starport (although I am not sure yet whether this one will be my thing - maybe i will be the one giving the sceptic during that alpha ;)...).
We always need a wide range of testers! :) Obviously we couldn't design Bionic around a crowd of people who don't like roguelikes, and we can't design Starport around a crowd of people who don't like sim games, but in either case it's not a good idea to only have people who love every single game in the same genre, etc.
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I hope the latest "Wot I Think" (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/10/11/wot-i-think-bionic-dues/) opinion piece by RPS will raise awareness somewhat.
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I hope the latest "Wot I Think" (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/10/11/wot-i-think-bionic-dues/) opinion piece by RPS will raise awareness somewhat.
They reviewed it? Fondly?! Sweet :D!
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I am suprised not any of the youtube channels that I watch like TB and Northernlion didn't cover this game.
Its a great game and I think not many people now about it. If i didn't play AI war I wouldnt knew about it
either
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I hope the latest "Wot I Think" (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/10/11/wot-i-think-bionic-dues/) opinion piece by RPS will raise awareness somewhat.
They reviewed it? Fondly?! Sweet :D!
About as fondly as I ever see from them, yes :)
I think it will help down the road, in terms of getting promotions.
In case you're curious, even super-big-name glowing-reviews generally only affect the sales graph for a few hours, if at all, and generally by at most 2x during that time.
But this will help overall :)
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Some big youtubers have expressed great interest and have a copy of the game... so I'm not sure what's up. Scheduling, I guess. Hopefully stuff will be popping up over the next weeks.
Keith and Josh are kind to spare my personal melodrama, but I am much better now. ;) And yeah, I have been just constantly on skype these days with staff. Which is not a bad thing, it's all been design-related stuff on Starport for the most part, and a bit on the game after that and the game after that.
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Hmm, did RPS even DO a "Wot I Think" or review for Skyward Collapse? I dont recall seeing one from them.
Still, while I quite enjoyed the Valley games (and would like to see more at some point) and Shattered Haven, I think this and other reviews do show that you guys really are at your best when you're making things of a strategic nature, which is a thought I share as well. I played the heck outta the Valley games in particular, but Skyward and BD are the best ones yet to me, and already a couple of my favorite strategic titles, period. And I play alot of these sorts of games.
The lower sales definitely bug me though. Like Skyward this is pretty much getting all praise, but.... feeehhh. The lower sales just dont make sense to me. Granted, I'm not exactly a publishing scientist, so I dont really know how all that works, but still.
Definitely hoping for an expansion for this one. Even more enemy types in particular would be pretty great, they are to me the standout feature of this game and a big part of what makes the strategic bits all click together so nicely. Even if the damn GaffeBots wont just hold the hell still already.
I'm curious though, what's next for you guys? An expansion for something? Or is it all working on Starport for now? .....not that the holiday seasons are really a good time to release anything ANYWAY though.
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I'm curious though, what's next for you guys? An expansion for something? Or is it all working on Starport for now? .....not that the holiday seasons are really a good time to release anything ANYWAY though.
Starport :) Though the actual release timing on that one depends on more than just getting it done. As you say, November/December isn't a great time to release new products (for us, anyhow).
Both an AIW expansion and a BD expansion are on the table; it's mainly a question of timing, etc.
But for now, Starport.
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That's what I'd figured. I'll be interested to see what that game is like; it sure sounds neat, at least.
The holiday season though.... ehhhh. It's not just you guys, I think it's a bad time for most developers to release anything, period. Ugh, particularly with the upcoming consoles.....
Bah. That'll be a really boring season, more so than usual, this year as far as releases go, wont it.... at least there'll be Steam sales. .....of games I likely already have. Joy.
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at least there'll be Steam sales. .....of games I likely already have. Joy.
Haha, yea, that's one trouble with the "move gazillions of units" approach to profitability: the number of unique games being made can't keep up with the number of unique games some of us are buying.
Sometimes there's like 3 or 4 days straight in the middle of a big steam sale where nothing in the "big front page deals" actually interests me (at any price) that I haven't already picked up in a 5-for-1-dollar deal from Humble Bundle or whatever.
But I think we may be able to contribute to your meeting your input-device-disaster quota :)
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Well, bear in mind that "no plan survives contact with the enemy," right? So we adapt to the situation as it changes around us.
Right now we are working pretty exclusively on Starport 28, with some side work of course maintaining the few things that need tidying on Bionic. Though honestly the exhaustive work everyone in the alpha did with us really made this our most polished launch of a game ever, by far.
Fun fact: after getting out of prototyping, Bionic Dues took us one month of pre-alpha and one month of alpha, and that month of alpha felt a bit leisurely and generous honestly (which is the way to do it). And that was with Keith being pretty much out for most of 2 weeks in there. So this was basically a two-month project. As was Skyward 1.0, although since I did not have Keith it was more of a frantic rush and it was not as polished at launch. Having the full team on a project clearly matters.
Anyway, so we're focused on Starport 28 pretty exclusively right now, although I am also working on designing the next and next next games behind that one. Starport should be ready for private alpha testing of the style Bionic had starting in November sometime. Normally we would be able to comfortably release in December just based on our own schedule, but of course with the holidays that would be stupid. So the expectation is January.
Meanwhile we'll still be working on the next project after Starport during that otherwise-too-long wait until January (we have to keep busy somehow, eh?), and so the second game should be into private alpha by January and released in February.
The game after that is a little more of a question mark, because in Jan/Feb we will probably take some time off to do expansions. Ideally one for Bionic and one for AI War both, to come out in Feb/Mar (or so). The presence of those two expansions probably will not derail the next next game from being in April anyway, because that one is extremely light on programming and heavy on design and art and writing, while the expansions both involve programming more than anything else. So it's a good division of time at that point.
Then after that, everyone back together for the next title, hopefully ready for June I guess. Something like that.
The crazy thing is, we were never rushing around with Bionic, and the only bits of rush on Skyward were because we split the team (and even there it wasn't so bad). Making games of the scale of these two, it seems like two months with one being heavy alpha-style playertesting polish, is about the natural pace for the Arcen staff. Partly because of the size of the staff, partly because of the experience of the staff, partly because of the huge levels of engine and code assets we have from past games, and partly because we're able to come up with very diverse creative ideas quickly and then refine them into something you actually want to play.
Some of us are a little leery of what people are going to think when we keep cranking out games like this, but my hope is that as long as they are awesome, people won't care. I mean, we'll take the amount of time on a game that it requires, but with 7 people on a project that is really a lot of manpower for an indie project so long as the project is managed well.
The non-music parts of AI War were done alone by me in 7 months. The non-music production work parts of Bionic were done by about 4.5 people in 2 months. In man-months, Bionic took 9 whereas AI War took 7. And that was with more specialized staff (part of my time with AI War was faffing with graphics and such, which I had no business in), and with lots of prior-code assets (a big part of AI War's time was just coming up with more of the engine at all). If you take out those extraneous things, Bionic took almost twice as many hours to make as AI War... just compressed into less than half the calendar time.
And then, of course, all of the other elements with project management, QA, and PR/marketing have a lot more support so that I don't get bogged down in all that and thus delay the next project for weeks or months. That lets us go straight from project to project rather than having big gaps in the middle where the production team is trying to get the word out.
That's the magical thing about teams of about this size. You add many more people, and that sort of synergy starts to break down. If you have a team of 100 or 200 people, forget about it -- that's "steering a battleship" for you. You drop too much below this size, and suddenly things start to slow down much more substantially, too.
It's a funny thing we've discovered by accident.
EDIT: Ninja'd thrice over.
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at least there'll be Steam sales. .....of games I likely already have. Joy.
On the plus side, there's always the Starport 28 alpha, so if it grabs you then there will be that for the holidays. :)
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The RPS review came across on my feed, and I immediately paused my show and opened it up. My heart kind of sank with the first few lines, then he said he stayed up all night playing and I quite literally cheered. My girlfriend gave me the strangest look, and I had a hard time explaining why I was so happy a game I enjoy got a good review. :P
Great job, y'all. I'm raising my coffee cup in salute and playing one more round. Well... at least one more.
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What's a Starport 28? That sounds pretty exciting.
I was hoping the sales would pick up now that it's featured on the steam frontpage.
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I was hoping the sales would pick up now that it's featured on the steam frontpage.
The section with the little icons helps, but it's the big rotator thing above that that really matters, in our experience. Generally good for a 2x or 3x sustained difference.
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I was hoping the sales would pick up now that it's featured on the steam frontpage.
The section with the little icons helps, but it's the big rotator thing above that that really matters, in our experience. Generally good for a 2x or 3x sustained difference.
Yes, I see it's up there now! That was actually how I noticed Skyward was out, because the picture you had up for that one was really lovely and interest-provoking.
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I was hoping the sales would pick up now that it's featured on the steam frontpage.
The section with the little icons helps, but it's the big rotator thing above that that really matters, in our experience. Generally good for a 2x or 3x sustained difference.
Yes, I see it's up there now! That was actually how I noticed Skyward was out, because the picture you had up for that one was really lovely and interest-provoking.
Wait what? Could you post a screenshot of what you mean?
I've checked the entire rotator rotation twice now thinking maybe they'd put it up there, because of you ;)
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I think means its on the Indie section rotator. At least i have Seen it there just now ;)...
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Sure! Does this work?
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Cool stuff! But why haven't i seen it ??? ?
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I think means its on the Indie section rotator. At least i have Seen it there just now ;)...
Ah, right. Yea, that's not bad but I mean the main page. From what we've seen apparently very few people really look at the category-specific spots.
@yllamana: huh? That's the main page rotator, alright, and that's our game, alright... but I don't see it in the rotator from where I am. Maybe it's a different set because you're on a mac and it doesn't show you non-mac stuff? Thanks for the screenshot, either way :)
Is anyone else seeing Bionic in the main page rotator? If so, what OS are you running?
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I just double checked. Its not there for me using iOS...
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I just double checked. Its not there for me using iOS...
Hmm.
Maybe it's a regional thing?
Anyway, won't worry about it. Doesn't appear to be impacting sales, whatever slice of the steam folks are actually seeing it. But I think if we got a main spot for real that'd help a fair bit :) Dunno if it'd be decisive, we don't have that much data, but it's helped a ton in the past.
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Okay. I booted into Windows (albeit on another machine) and it's not in the large, scrolling display there. So it seems it's on the large scrolling thing if you view it from a Mac, but not otherwise.
It's in the small "featured PC games" section, but not in the "featured Mac games" section or the "featured Linux games" section. I wonder if it's on the large Linux scroller, if there is one?
But either way, there you go.
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I wonder if it's on the large Linux scroller, if there is one?
Yes, it was on the Linux scroll this afternoon.
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It must be taunting us ;)
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at least there'll be Steam sales. .....of games I likely already have. Joy.
On the plus side, there's always the Starport 28 alpha, so if it grabs you then there will be that for the holidays. :)
Huh, I had originally had this idea that the alpha for that wasnt going to start until after New Years. ....not that I know where I got that idea from.
But yes, I'll jump on that. The concept sounds great.
Be good to have during the holidays, too. Typically I just dont buy much during that period. Not really into the new consoles either. Probably the first time where I actually dont intend on buying them. I tell ya, consoles just arent quite what they used to be. Back in my day.... *ceaseless rambling*
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I've seen it a couple of times on the Linux scroller. It's there now.
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It must be taunting us ;)
Matt's email very clearly told us: main rotator on OSX and Linux, the PC featured games (smaller thing) on windows. ;)
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Hmmm, sim game for next?
Well, as far as markets go, sim I find the greatest example of feast-or-famine. If you manage to get a good release, you can rack in money for a long time, if not...you find yourself in the bin.
Good luck!
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It must be taunting us ;)
Matt's email very clearly told us: main rotator on OSX and Linux, the PC featured games (smaller thing) on windows. ;)
Ah, ok. I had totally missed the bit about the OSX/Linux rotator :)
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Hmmm, sim game for next?
Well, as far as markets go, sim I find the greatest example of feast-or-famine. If you manage to get a good release, you can rack in money for a long time, if not...you find yourself in the bin.
Good luck!
There is actually some solid strategy to it as well, so that should help. The subject matter here seems to intrigue people a lot, so should have a good shot. I feel like many sim games pick subject matter that almost nobody is interested in, and this which have to carry the torch based on gameplay alone in spite of that. A great sim game can make anything fun, don't get me wrong. But the ones that are merely good and which are trading on a pretty meh central concept really do have a tough sell.