[Slick2d] Retro-Pixel Castles > Now on Steam! <

Good to see your hard work will be be enjoyed by many people!


http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/34/33713/auto/59b494bca22f08adc38ee949c8f59fa4_large.png1414361835

Steam Store: http://store.steampowered.com/app/328080/
^ Shameless plug FTW!

Congrats man!

I am a little hesitant to buy at the moment though and don’t take this personally but I have bought one to many “Early Access” games over the past year or 2 that have well, not went anywhere :(.

From what the video shows, it looks like a very well polished tech demo (EDIT : I am aware it is a tech demo video :stuck_out_tongue: I am merely stating it looks good). That might re-direct a lot of peoples attention away, it did for me I am afraid.

Hope that didn’t sound offensive :s you’ve got more to show for than what I have :s lol.

What!!? how dare you say such mean things! … … (sarcasm!) :stuck_out_tongue:

Oh, it’s no problem if you don’t want to buy now, I make it really clear in my store page to not buy the game yet looking for a finished project, but rather buy it if you’re interested in following and interacting with the development. I’d actually rather lose sales now by being honest than get a ton of angry players asking why they wasted $15. :wink:

Ha yeah, good luck with that :smiley: You will still get idiots buying it without reading. I’ve had some really bad luck with Early Access games, one of them was Stomping Land. Terrible devs, terrible game.

You have dedication, willpower and knowledge so yeah, this project is not going to fall through unless you let it to be honest.

Oh yeah, I already had one of those. My one and only bad review on the game for example. He goes on forever about what the game is missing, and it’s like “uh, hey dude? Did you forget what Early Access is? Did you read the InDev paragraph warning you the game isn’t even a game yet?”

He even went as far as complaining I have no development plan, even though I constantly share what I am doing all over my website and on twitter. Guess it wasn’t good enough for him. :stuck_out_tongue:

Developer doesn’t share their plan -> People complain that they have no plan.
Developer shares plan and later changes it -> People complain that they didn’t do what they “promised” to.

Developer makes frequent updates -> People complain that it keeps breaking or they lose their saves.
Developer makes less frequent updates -> People complain that development is too slow.

Developer spends long time in early access -> People complain that they’re never going to finish the game.
Developer releases game quickly -> People complain that they released the game unfinished.

People are just stupid.

Hell is other people.

@HeroesGraveDev:
There’s still the option not to talk about the game before it is ready, although we all know what that leads to.

When you’re trying to market a game that’s usually suicide though, you have to have some people behind you when you push to Greenlight/Kickstarter. Even great projects can fall flat without some base fans. :confused:

The review says, that the game is far to early for an early access, but isn’t that what an early access should be?
As much as i understood an early access is here to give an impression what the game can and will become, not to make lots of fun and entertain you for hours/days.
In my opinion the game has gone pretty far, i mean your first post was in may of this year and you are only one developer.
Another thing i want to say is, that i really like the way you deal with reviews like that. Many other people would ignore it or become angry, but you stayed nice and shared your thougths in a very sympathetic way :slight_smile:
Respect for that and again good luck with the project!

I’ve decided to simplify the game versioning system, making is a lot easier for people to identify what version is what, and it also helps me talk about upcoming updates a bit clearer. With the old system I could talk about “the upcoming update”, but because version numbers were assigned based on the date released I couldn’t say “The 11-5-2014 update” or something to that effect, because I would have no idea what the release date actually was. The new system will be a lot more clear for everyone.

As I said previously, the original system was done by release date. Meaning the official current version is “InDev 10-31-2014”, released October 31st 2014. I’ve decided to go with a much more simple system, where stable releases are just going to be numbered, the first version being InDev 1, then InDev 2 and so forth with hot fixes or minor revisions being listed as InDev 2b, 2c and so on. One we move into deeper phases of development it’ll reset back to Alpha 1, Alpha 2 then to Beta 1, Beta 2 then to Release 1 and so forth.

As for unstable builds, they will be marked as something along the lines of “InDev 10 U1” for “InDev 10, Unstable Release 1”. But currently I do not have a system in place to give you direct access to these unstable builds, but I’ll probably set something up in the future so that all Steam users can access the bleeding-edge versions just to toy around with them and find bugs. Keep in mind most unstable builds have serious flaws and many half coded elements in the game. It is a very bad idea to any serious gaming with them.

I’ve gone back down the history of past builds and put together where we should be based on this new system. So here’s the conversion chart if anyone is interested;

InDev 6-21-2014 is now, Indev 1.
InDev 6-21-2014b is now, Indev 1b.
InDev 6-21-2014c is now, Indev 1c.
InDev 6-22-2014 is now, Indev 2.
InDev 7-10-2014 is now, Indev 3.
InDev 7-17-2014 is now, Indev 4.
InDev 9-22-2014 is now, Indev 5.
InDev 10-14-2014 is now, Indev 6.
InDev 10-14-2014b is now, Indev 6b.
InDev 10-26-2014 is now, Indev 7. (Note: This was the first Steam Release)
InDev 10-28-2014 is now, Indev 8.
InDev 10-28-2014b is now, Indev 8b.
InDev 10-31-2014 is now, Indev 9. (Note: The version you’re on now)

and finally, this all means the upcoming version I am working on will now be referred to InDev 10. :slight_smile:

Wouldn’t it make more since to number the other builds like InDev 6-21-2014b as something like ‘Indev 1.1’ for example?

Seems more ‘proper’ IMO.

  • Jev

Personally if it was me I would be doing something like release, update patch.

Indev v9.2.11 etc.

That’s fine when your target audience is primarily other developers, but for the general public something without so many dots is much much more comprehensible.

Terraria seems to handle the endless number of dots pretty well.

  • Jev

Do you guys seriously think any user ever looks at a version number? Maybe a handful of modders, otherwise nobody cares :wink:

Yeah what this guy said tbh.

Have 2 versions mate.

LATEST, STABLE. Sorted.

I’ve decided to put together a curator page for SixtyGig Games. If you’re interested in seeing games I’ve played, and that probably have inspired development aspects of Retro-Pixel Castles in one way or another, follow it!

This page is mostly about finding developers who are releasing quality games that follow my philosophy of what a game dev should be. I’d love to get a fan base going so we can all share in the great indie community, and weed out all those nasty cash grabs. So come support my new curator page, and in turn, support the honest developers out there that need your support!

Also, don’t forget to recommend some games you feel follow the SixtyGig philosophy and I’ll go check them out. :slight_smile:

Just a friendly reminder to fans everywhere, Retro-Pixel Castles is now on sale during the length of the Steam Autumn sale! If you’ve been eyeballing the game but haven’t decided if you want to fetch it, now is the time!

Already own a copy? Go convert-- err tell your friends!