Catch Up
Posted by DanielWe’re deep into development of our next game. Dialogue is being written, maps are being made and so on. This is when things are calm. After a game release, things are pretty crazy. It’s hard to get enough time to do any real work. Then things start to settle down and we get back into development mode. Everything starts to slow down, kind of like going to sleep.
There’s still the occasional problem that interrupts my work. Today I’ve got some guy hacking open our games and giving away the contents. But other than that, things are going smoothly.
Jack of All Worlds has been doing quite well. It’s very unlikely that we’ll do any more with the series. It was always intended as a one off. We have other ideas for smaller games that we’d like to try later on. Jack of All Worlds wasn’t a very efficient game to make. The battles, menus and other new features took far too long to make in comparison to the rest of the game. Oh well, we’ll add those to the lessons we learned from Dawn’s Light and Lilly and Sasha.
We’re looking forward to sharing some info and screens from our new game. I’m just waiting for some art to be ready so it will be a more exciting reveal.
The Lilly and Sasha guide did really well, much better than I expected. A few guides for other games have come out since. I downloaded a few to see if there was anything we could learn from them but I was underwhelmed. So I went and bought some guides for console games and now I’ve got a lot of ideas.
I’m considering new delivery methods for future guides. The PDF download has caused a few problems. Plimus only lets you download your purchase for a limited time. There’s instructions in the purchase email for how to download the guide but instructions are boring and most people don’t read them.
I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with our site. I made the original site with just Dawn’s Light in mind. We’re almost ready for a new site, probably after two more games. I’ve never liked making websites but after looking at some of the fancy frameworks that are available, that may change. I’m excited to start the new site and that’s a first for me.
The site you did for Lilly and Sasha is very nice, and I think you should do something like that as your main page.
Just a suggestion!
Can’t wait for the next game! It really seems like the forums have been very active lately with some new faces. Maybe BigFish helped? Anyways, part of business is presenting your product in the right way. I think that a new website could really spice things up a bit, but don’t make it to wild. Sometimes sites can be a little too much, if you know what I mean. Oh and stupid hackers doing illegal and disrespectful crap
!!
In the same vein as sites, just curious about what might have or still is being planned for the Extras tab at the top…
any news as to when the next lily and sasha will be out there are some others around but just not as good as yours. right now am doing last heros 3 which is pretty cute i liked playing jack as he was different keep up the good work and i like your site because it is easy to get answers when you need them and must not hunt all over the place for them
Right now I just have a few ideas for a new site. I’m hoping by the time I have to start doing serious planning for it, I’ll already have a lot of ideas. Still haven’t decided whether to sell other games than ours.
I needed to have 5 tabs across the top for it to fill the width of the site so I added extras.
I kind of planned to put something in there but at the same time I knew I never would.
I really like the Lilly and Sasha site too. The background was so good that I wanted to use it at a bigger size than we could in the game. It made the cover of the guide pretty great too. We would definitely like to get the same artist for the next in the series.
No idea when L&S2 will be out yet. Thinking about making all puzzles skippable but then offering cool rewards for those who do them.
Revenue-wise selling other peoples’ games makes sense, though you’d have to decide whether anyone can submit a game to post on your site or whether you’ll have criteria which means you’d have to try them out first. Also, not a bad idea to make puzzles skippable. I would just make sure that if rewards are offered for completing puzzles, I’d make it so that any skipped puzzles could be returned to and finished later.
Daniel, you could make the puzzles skippable but don’t leave them out unless they are to hard to make because i just love doing them really. as far as selling other peoples games that could be done like they do yours only after someone plays them and likes them but not right off and only after they are found to be up to your standards. thanks for the info on L&S guess i will wait and hope. i have finished that other company game and it was a lot to small for the money about the same size as Jack but much more costly. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK
Re: a guide….I know you had a lot of issues with Plimus and people not being able to download the guide after paying for it. Maybe you could poll your fans to see how many did purchase the guide…..if it’s as many as I think, maybe you could consider just embedding a printable version of the guide in the next game and charging a couple more bucks for it? Then you could have a “get help” link on the menu page, that if you clicked it you would go directly to the guide, and not have to print it or pause your game in order to get just a slight nudge from the guide. Just a thought.
Skippable puzzles, that you can go back and finish to get whatever cool reward for completion, is a GREAT idea.
Hackers are jerks. Scum of the earth who live to make others miserable. Sorry you’re having to deal with them…..but unfortunately, these days, dealing with hackers is a fact of life.
I can hardly wait for L&S #2!
I agree very strongly with oceanloveroh’s comments and think they are ~quite~ insightful, but I would say that I had no issues with Plimus regarding the strategy guide, perhaps given that I downloaded it immediately. =)
Skippable puzzles is a cool idea; hackers are ****holes. Yes, give us the next Lilly and Sasha as soon as possible.
As to hosting other people’s games on your site, that depends upon whether you want to be seen as really nice, sincere game developers into life and with no agenda, just trying through aching hours of revising code to bring pleasant fantasies into existence, or whether you really, really need the money. Either way, your fans are with you. *bg*
I for one really love the guides and would buy one plus the game
Hey Daniel,just a small tip that might help you regarding guides-
Since my site specializes in walkthroughs,I had requests pouring in to make printer-friendly guides.Which means images can be optimized or arranged in a way it would lower consumption of printer’s ink.The Eternal Twilight walkthrough is an example of being printer friendly.Though Plimus gives trouble downloading guides,still from my sales stats I think your pdf version of Lilly and Sasha was a hit and I would recommend that no matter in which format you put up the guide,just make it printer friendly(not the .exe formats like in Aveyond the lost orb’s official strategy guide).
Just sharing my two cents
Over cloud 9 I have used your site for quides and agree with you that it has great guides and I am one player who buys guides from who ever gives them out for their games and I used the one Damiel had for LS and really enjoyed it. just so it is easy to follow and you don’t need college degree to follow it. thanks
Bit late to the discussion, but anyway, here goes.
I wouldn’t embed the walthrough in the game package for 2 reasons. First, not everyone wants one, and it seems unfair to have to pay more for something you don’t want. Second, one reason why people go to a developer’s site is to check out the ‘Tips’ section if they’re a bit stuck. They then might see something else they want to buy and/or get involved in discussions like this one, so it’s a way of building a fan base which can give invaluable feedback on different aspects as well as increasing your sales. Embed the walkthrough and that might not happen.