The Internet Played My Game (and it did not go well)

I presented my open world game called night stones at Steam nextfest and it did not go so great but I've licked my wounds cried in the shower and I'm ready to move on with my life let's talk about what happened and how I'm fixing it this is night Stones dead Vlog number 10 let's [Music] [Applause] [Music] rage if you don't know what nextfest is it's a week long event that showcases new games that will be released in the next 3 months there are thousands of demos to play and millions of hours of live streams to watch and I was feeling pretty confident before the show I had 13,000 wish lists and night Stones was also included in the official trailer of nextfest that's rad right then the show started and I realized those 13,000 wish lists I had worked so hard for ranked me 150th in the most wishlisted games I don't mean 150th in like all of steam I mean 150th in games just being shown at nextfest just the games released in the next 3 months it was at this moment that I realized that 13,000 wish list just is not that many this was a terrible and rude awakening for me oh no with a ranking that low there was no way I was going to get much of any organic traffic at the show let's do a quick reality check I get that 13,000 wish list is a big number and it's a dream come true for a lot of Indie devs and if this was some weekend side hustle or a hobby I'd be slapping hands with the best of them but I have a full-time job I have two little kids I work nights I work weekends it's stressful I'm tired w w w poor me but I don't need any more Hobbies I would like this to become a business but this business is not going to work if I'm the 150th most popular game to be released in just the next 3 months fortunately steam allows each developer two 1hour live stream sessions and during those 1hour time periods night Stones would be at the very top of nextfest I did my first live stream on the second day of the show and was able to keep about 600 concurrent viewers watching the live stream during that time that day I acquired 575 wish lists the most wish list I've ever had in a single day I did my second live stream on day five of the show but by that point steam had already removed their nextfest coverage from the homepage which is something I didn't know they would do so I was only able to keep about 100 concurrent viewers during my second live stream during all of nextfest I was able to acquire another 2,500 wish lists which is awesome but it's just nowhere near what I was hoping for so what did I learn and what am I doing about it well the first thing I learned is that I need to expand the audience for my game and I've begun posting more regularly on other social media like Tik Tok Reddit and Twitter oh I mean X I've also begun to reach out to streamers to try to get them to play the demo and you know you can play the demo for free right I'd love it if you checked it out there's a steam Link in the description if I can get streamers to play the game it's a great opportunity for me to introduce night stones to new audiences some amazing streamers have already started playing the game like the amazing Buckeye Bunny listen to the [Music] music now listen what happens when I stop swimming ah so this is cool so she's actually figured out no one ever notices this but the music actually responds to your movement do you hear the difference I hear the difference I think anyone else did see she'll start moving the music changes yeah no one cares about that but she does and the Slick speaking hawu I like this guy this is a cool cat I love that treasure chest okay so it's not three in every everyone okay I left that Treasure Chest I was hoping people go get get after it and get get killed by that thing swear the next chest has one coin in it you first just like his voice you could tell if you met this guy out in the street just be like the best interaction ever he's like such a nice guy okay let's get back to my poor performance at steam nextfest something else I learned is there were some definite issues in the game itself let's talk about what's new in the demo you can play now versus the demo that was available at nextfest the issue that came up more than anything was that a single button was us used for interact and jump this was a choice by me to make the game more approachable and easy to play but it's clear I made a bad decision here I mean two buttons doesn't seem overwhelming and it eliminates that annoying issue where you go to jump a gap and instead you start talking to an NPC so the demo uses two buttons now I also got a lot of feedback about destroying enemies players felt it was slow and cumbersome to dispatch enemies the same way you talk to NPCs so I added what is essentially a sword to the game and when I say sword I mean stick but this is something you will be able to upgrade as the game progresses I get that I'm the guy that said there's no combat at night stones but I'm not trying to make my dream game I'm trying to make yours and if you want to go full speed through the Oracle cave destroying Fang weeds then who am I to stop you the treasure system has also been revamped because I Wasing doing stupid things like putting two coins on a treasure chest which was just unfulfilling to players and I get that so treasure chests still exist in the game but they're special they are hard to get and offer big rewards if you do open them for all the smaller Treasures I've sprinkled them around the world this is cool because it forces you to always be on the lookout while you are exploring and I can tease you with treasures in the trees for example which you can't get until you acquire the stick yeah boy you show that tree who's boss let's see how the alpha testers are doing with this release these are the brave souls finding my bugs so that you don't have to all right so this Alpha said he can get somewhere that he shouldn't be able to get to and I don't believe him cuz I never believe any of these alphas and they then they always do it anyway they don't care that I that I think it's impossible so okay so he he's going to get this Treasure Chest that's fine you can see I put a treasure chest there there you go five coins so I know you can get there but oh he's going to all right what's this guy do nice all right see I didn't believe him but he's right so let's talk about why I'm freaking out here there's a major character in the game that I show on the title screen and if she's not needed in the game I leave her in this position because no one can get here well this Savvy Alpha tester is closing in on her position and if he can get to her he can interact with her and learn some things I don't want him learning yet stop I don't want anyone see this all right bye Alphas you're amazing thanks for helping me solve so many issues let's get back to Game Dev another bit of feedback I heard a lot was that players were becoming motion sick while playing I also saw some complaints about players falling off Bridges because the camera is constantly moving I control the camera while you explore the world because I'm intentionally trying to show you points of interest in the game but it's obvious now I was just moving the camera way too much so I've really limited the amount of camera movement in the game I'm still showing off the world but with less of a flight simulator feel players also felt that the Oracle cave was too boring and too easy this was another mistake of mine so I've added new mechanics to the cave to make it more challenging and fun I've added these electric switches that turn floor planel on or off this brings a layer of complexity to what I'm calling puzzle combat as you'll need to figure out what switches should be active to make forward progress I've also added moving platforms to the cave I showed this mechanic off in a previous devlog but I've modified it slightly if you pass through a moving platform's trail that turns off the switch if you don't want that to happen you can always jump over the trail but I'll make you love to hate this mechanic in the next cave which will have moving enemies okay anyone notice all those rad new particle effects that cool animation when you swing the stick the impact particles when you take down a Fang weed the electricity in the platform switches the days effects when a player is poisoned well those were all made by the one the only The Talented cartoon coffee in public apology time but this dude made this rad video about night Stones 3 months ago and I didn't even see it till this week cartoon coffee I'm sorry dude I love that video even though you drew me as a 1ot tall baby but I admit I did dig the backwards hat anyway this guy's particle effects are all over night stones and a big reason why the game looks so rad if you want to use these particles in your game please check out his amazing VFX assets and if you want to watch how amazing art gets made please check out his YouTube channel I've left links in the description that's all I have for today if you like to have fun for free please check out the night Stones demo on Steam and wish list the game while you're there if you have any ideas about how to make the game better let me know in the comments below thanks awesome [Music] peeps

Channel: advancenine

Views: 179,646

Keywords: indiedev, #indiedev, indiedev documentary, indie dev, indie devlog, indie game dev, indie gamedev, black indie dev, indie, indie developer, indie game devlog, indie game developer, indie game development, indie game, indie news, indiegame, indie games, indie game developer tips, indie studio, gamedev, game dev, indie video game documentary, dev, #gamedev, steam, steam deck, advanced9, advancednine, advanced nine, advanced 9

Id: XiyVOavrM04

Length: 9min 26sec (566 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 27 2024