Starward Rogue 1.0 is now live! (Also: trailer!)

[Breach]

Wow, where'd this one come from?! Flew completely under my radar, but looks great.  I'm especially interested in the potentials for custom content.

Congratulations on another release Arcen!

[x4000]

I'm checking on the mouse issue -- sorry about that. I was fixing one issue last night, and apparently introduced another.

[mrhanman]

Awesome release guys!  I've been playing all day, even though I've already put lots of hours into the alpha.  It's changed so much, it's hardly recognizable from where you started.  I hope it brings Arcen as much success as it deserves!

[Matruchus]

Congratulations on the release guys. Definitely a game that has pulled me in more then any other game in a long time. I guess 14 hours in two days since I jumped in to beta testing says it all. Will definitely buy for support.

[x4000]

Thank you so much everyone!  And if you love it and have not given a steam review, PLEASE do so, because that can absolutely make or break a game in its early timeframe.

---

Also version 1.001 is now out.  It re-plumbs a huge amount of the mouse handling for the menus, a lot of that dating back to 2010 (no joke).  So fingers crossed no more bugs from that.  I wound up causing THIS issue (but only for some specific people evidently) by fixing the virtual gamepad support for some OTHER people (using a PS1 controller through magic-box or somesuch).  All outlier types of hardware (evidently??), but that's why nobody who was on our staff or in the tester pool giving feedback all day caught it.

Anyhow!  Restart steam and hopefully that fixes it.  In the meantime, if anyone has anything urgent to tell me over the weekend, I suggest emailing me at chrispark7 at gmail, or PMing me.  Josh is going to be keeping an eye out for serious bugs, but otherwise in the main I plan to try to take the weekend completely off for once.  My wife and son are very excited about it.

[nas1m]

Thank you so much everyone!  And if you love it and have not given a steam review, PLEASE do so, because that can absolutely make or break a game in its early timeframe.

---

Also version 1.001 is now out.  It re-plumbs a huge amount of the mouse handling for the menus, a lot of that dating back to 2010 (no joke).  So fingers crossed no more bugs from that.  I wound up causing THIS issue (but only for some specific people evidently) by fixing the virtual gamepad support for some OTHER people (using a PS1 controller through magic-box or somesuch).  All outlier types of hardware (evidently??), but that's why nobody who was on our staff or in the tester pool giving feedback all day caught it.

Anyhow!  Restart steam and hopefully that fixes it.  In the meantime, if anyone has anything urgent to tell me over the weekend, I suggest emailing me at chrispark7 at gmail, or PMing me.  Josh is going to be keeping an eye out for serious bugs, but otherwise in the main I plan to try to take the weekend completely off for once.  My wife and son are very excited about it.

Thanks, and - have a great weekend !

[Tolc]

Josh is going to be keeping an eye out for serious bugs, but otherwise in the main I plan to try to take the weekend completely off for once.  My wife and son are very excited about it.

Congrats on the launch and take your well-deserved break already! 

[crazyroosterman]

enjoy your break also Id like to ask if you don't mind how well is it selling so far?.

[x4000]

Thanks guys!  And yeah, I am taking a break for sure.

So far the early response is enthusiastic... but from a very miniscule set of people.  The word is just not getting out there yet.  The store ecosystems are all so different now what with so many games and the different methods of discoverability, etc.  This is definitely not flying to the top of the charts like some of our past games have, for whatever reasons.  That said, on youtube and press it's only starting to get its momentum, and there's a big wave of stuff to come from Humble what with the offer they have going on, so the prospects are there for an extremely good week.  Thus far?  The needle is not really moving, honestly.  But this is our most enthusiastic early response we've ever had in terms of people who actually play a game, so I'm hoping that word of mouth will spread.

[Captain Jack]

Thanks guys!  And yeah, I am taking a break for sure.

So far the early response is enthusiastic... but from a very miniscule set of people.  The word is just not getting out there yet.  The store ecosystems are all so different now what with so many games and the different methods of discoverability, etc.  This is definitely not flying to the top of the charts like some of our past games have, for whatever reasons.  That said, on youtube and press it's only starting to get its momentum, and there's a big wave of stuff to come from Humble what with the offer they have going on, so the prospects are there for an extremely good week.  Thus far?  The needle is not really moving, honestly.  But this is our most enthusiastic early response we've ever had in terms of people who actually play a game, so I'm hoping that word of mouth will spread.

I think this is what you're seeing. There's more content on Steam than anyone could hope to play in a lifetime, and more being added all the time. Even if 90% of them are terrible, that's still a lot of compelling and high quality software in competition for mindspace. Arcen's got the advantage of having a good reputation and a number of high profile releases, but you can't leverage that without preparing the audience. Like that PCinvasion article pointed out, this wasn't on most people's radar, so of course it's going to start small. Thanks to the WoM being so good, the more you push it now the more it should start getting around, but you HAVE to keep giving those mouths material to talk about.

[x4000]

Oh yeah, for sure.  Believe, me I started small with AI War and it grew from there because of what I kept adding.  First two weeks: 0 sales.  First month after that: a few thousand dollars.  End of the first year: top rated list on metacritic and $70k.  Five years later?   Modern classic and $1m.  So I've been on this ride before.  In many ways, the modern ecosystem is more similar to the original one than it has been for years, except that the vectors for spreading word of mouth are so much better now.

[crazyroosterman]

Oh yeah, for sure.  Believe, me I started small with AI War and it grew from there because of what I kept adding.  First two weeks: 0 sales.  First month after that: a few thousand dollars.  End of the first year: top rated list on metacritic and $70k.  Five years later?   Modern classic and $1m.  So I've been on this ride before.  In many ways, the modern ecosystem is more similar to the original one than it has been for years, except that the vectors for spreading word of mouth are so much better now.

thanks I worry way to much about things like this.

[Cyborg]

I have found myself checking the charts also but probably in a more crude way than Chris is doing. Really cheering for you all, this is great work. I feel strongly about this effort.

My new top 4:
AI war
Tidalis
Starward Rogue
Last Federation

[BobTheJanitor]

Every time I get out, they keep pulling me back in. (Hi, all)

Congrats on the new release!

I don't know if this is important enough to count as a suggestion or not, but I found the abrupt ending to the tutorial kind of confusing. I actually restarted it (twice!) thinking that I was somehow killing myself with the bouncing bullets, instead of just finishing the level. The 'congratulations, you are now qualified to go die' text isn't exactly clear, either. Maybe I'm just being incredibly dense here (always a possibility), but a 'Tutorial Complete!' heading over that text wouldn't go amiss...

[Misery]

Oh yeah, for sure.  Believe, me I started small with AI War and it grew from there because of what I kept adding.  First two weeks: 0 sales.  First month after that: a few thousand dollars.  End of the first year: top rated list on metacritic and $70k.  Five years later?   Modern classic and $1m.  So I've been on this ride before.  In many ways, the modern ecosystem is more similar to the original one than it has been for years, except that the vectors for spreading word of mouth are so much better now.

thanks I worry way to much about things like this.

Same here, haha.   Every time one of these games comes out.

But I'll agree that the response from players looks just super right now.  The Steam forums for the game have started moving (naturally, I am watching them) and aside from technical questions and such there's been no negativity there.  It's all positive so far.  There's also a lack of anyone yelling at anyone else, which is always good when it comes to Steam forums.   And 17 reviews up at the moment, all positive so far, yay.   I havent actually gone and read them yet myself but I will in a bit.