Hey everyone! First of all let me say thank you to everyone who has helped make the long legacy of Super Mega Bob possible, starting with Kickstarter supporters, moving to those who voted in Greenlight, continuing with Desura and Itch.io customers, and finally making the way to o
Hey everyone! First of all let me say thank you to everyone who has helped make the long legacy of Super Mega Bob possible, starting with Kickstarter supporters, moving to those who voted in Greenlight, continuing with Desura and Itch.io customers, and finally making the way to our Steam customers. Super Mega Bob has, frankly, been a pretty wild - and extremely drawn out - ride. It's been great.
As most of you probably know there have only been a handful of updates for Super Mega Bob since its release on Steam. And most of you probably also know that, frankly, the game still has some update related issues that need to be addressed. First, let me get the bad news out of the way: barring some major change or event, there will be no content updates for Super Mega Bob in the future. We would like to release at least one more update addressing the notoriously horrible saved file deleting feature, something which I should have done a year ago. I would love to fix the wretched "move the mouse cursor with your keyboard/controller" flaw, but honestly that is such an ingrained (and horrible) design decision that I would have to rewrite massive amounts of code and add tons of new functions to ever make that happen. A save file delete fix - if we're able to get it done - would likely be the last update I'll release for the game (if you want to know why updating the game is so difficult for us, please read on).
Transparency is something that I think is very important in every aspect of life, and I feel no differently about game development. There's a good possibility that no one will ever even read this, but I want it to be here so that you can understand the decision making process that went into announcing that updates will be coming to an end. Really, this also serves as a development "post-mortem" that explains how things went and what led us to decide that Super Mega Bob is an official "vault item" that we don't really develop any more.
A Brief History of Super Mega Bob
Development on Super Mega Bob began in Late Summer/Fall 2013 as a hobby side-endeavor of mine. I'd dabbled (rather unsuccessfully) in game development before and was just making a fun little shooter called SMB for my own amusement and to share with others. Most of all it kept me in touch with my dream of, just maybe, making games for a living one day (still a dream as of January 2017, mind you).
When I originally "designed" Super Mega Bob (I use the term loosely because very little planning went into it) I really didn't know what I was doing in a lot of ways. I just had a general idea of what I wanted and started making art and writing code. As I started posting screenshots on my Twitter account (which had all of about 40 followers at the time) something unexpected happened: people really liked what they were seeing. Suddenly I had over 1,000 Twitter followers and was thinking, "hey, maybe I could make something of this!" So I did something very stupid: I took the very little tiny foundation I had made for SMB and decided to build a skyscraper on it. Never a good idea in game design (or any line of work, for that matter).
Early 2014 I ran a Kickstarter. Two, actually. The first one failed. The second succeeded in raising $1,000 to help me develop Super Mega Bob full-time over the Summer. It was awesome, I was excited, and things were great. I finished the game early that Fall, released to the pleasure of my KS supporters, and then put the game on Desura and Itch. I can't recall the initial sales numbers, but they were very low. As in 20-40 copies low. That wasn't a huge surprise to me, and it didn't demoralize me. The game was done, it was a good experience, and I was happy with it all.
Then I launched a Greenlight page. I won't go into all the details, but I'd never actually planned on doing it. Some online friends talked me into it, however, and it's not a decision I regret (we're here, after all!). That being said I went in knowing there were some issues: XNA was totally defunct, my code was wildly out of control, I had built the game on a tiny little foundation, and if I spoke too loudly while programming I was afraid the source code would literally fall apart. So I was moving forward with a "here's the game as it is" mentality.
Oh, but it gets worse. A virus struck my computer (my bad for being stupid and allowing such a thing to happen) and corrupted *all* of my source code. So I ended up de-compiling the actual application to get it back. Yeah, it was a mess. So now I had spaghetti code that was double spaghettied. Making even the slightest update like a complex game of cat and mouse, dodging through the raging lazor beamz (TM) of Super Mega Bob.
"Fortunately" the Greenlight page quickly tanked and I moved on. I actually worked on two different projects for the course of the next 8 months or so, kind of trying to "find my way" in this whole game development thing. Super Mega Bob was basically a wrapped up, finished work.
Jump ahead to late Summer 2016. BOOM. The game becomes Greenlit. I didn't even know what to do. At first I was excited. The I realized that I had no idea how "the Steam" even worked and that Super Mega Bob was a spaghettied mess that OH NO WHAT AM I GOING TO DO. So I prayed a lot and read a lot and studied a lot about integrating the Steam API into a C# XNA project. By God's grace I was able to get Super Mega Bob working in Steam. I understand some may think that I'm "exaggerating" when I say all this, but, trust me, I'm not. Then I tried to tunnel may way through the hideously distorted source code I was left with (all wobbling on a foundation of butter) and add little features and fixes to make the game half-way kind-of not-really-but-here-we-go Steam ready.
And we released on Steam! Yay! Celebration! Happiness! A couple hundred copies later Super Mega Bob has been able to finance the purchase of a pretty decent production desktop that we're using to tear into development with Unreal 4. And yes, in the course of the last year that's the kind of sales we've been looking at. It's nothing glorious and I'm definitely not "running with the money" because, well, there really isn't that much money to run with. And I can't run. I have a job, and a house, and bills, and, you know, all that stuff. By the way, this isn't a complaint. I never expected Super Mega Bob to "sell millions of copies and make me richer than my wildest imaginations." It's just really not that kind of game.
I've done what I can in the last year. The game crashes on some computers. The interface is wretched. The whole thing could use some general fixing. How would I go about doing all that? No idea, honestly. Programming is not my field of expertise. I've since learned from the error of my ways and switched to using more stable and more artist/developer friendly engines such as Construct 2 and Unreal 4 (Unity would work great, too, we just prefer Unreal). While these are things I would like to fix, the reality is that the time-to-money ratio would just be unrealistic. What I'm about to say I mean in all seriousness: I could probably make a much better and much more content rich sequel to Super Mega Bob in less time than it would take to try and descend into spaghetti land and make Super Mega Bob the incredibly stable game we would all love for it to be.
Conclusion
So there you have it. I know that's a lot, but if you really want to understand the "why" of this decision, there it is. It's not lack of desire, but simply of time and even the ability to address some of these issues. Who knows how hard it will be just to make the saved file deletion fix, but I'm hoping I can get at least that much done. Hoping. In the meantime we've released Septic Savages on Steam and Itch, and I'm glad to be able to say it is much more stable and has a much better user interface. We've already released multiple updates, too, with more on the way in 2017, barring some major catastrophe.
I've learned a lot about making games in the last few years. We're hoping for a great and development-filled 2017 with some 3D games and an awesome new 2D title. We're excited about where we're going and I'm still hoping that, by the end of the year, me and my PR guy might actually be able to do this as a full-time job. Until then, thank you all for your support and I hope you continue to enjoy Super Mega Bob!
Hey everyone! First of all let me say thank you to everyone who has helped make the long legacy of Super Mega Bob possible, starting with Kickstarter supporters, moving to those who voted in Greenlight, continuing with Desura and Itch.io customers, and finally making the way to o
Hey everyone! First of all let me say thank you to everyone who has helped make the long legacy of Super Mega Bob possible, starting with Kickstarter supporters, moving to those who voted in Greenlight, continuing with Desura and Itch.io customers, and finally making the way to our Steam customers. Super Mega Bob has, frankly, been a pretty wild - and extremely drawn out - ride. It's been great.
As most of you probably know there have only been a handful of updates for Super Mega Bob since its release on Steam. And most of you probably also know that, frankly, the game still has some update related issues that need to be addressed. First, let me get the bad news out of the way: barring some major change or event, there will be no content updates for Super Mega Bob in the future. We would like to release at least one more update addressing the notoriously horrible saved file deleting feature, something which I should have done a year ago. I would love to fix the wretched "move the mouse cursor with your keyboard/controller" flaw, but honestly that is such an ingrained (and horrible) design decision that I would have to rewrite massive amounts of code and add tons of new functions to ever make that happen. A save file delete fix - if we're able to get it done - would likely be the last update I'll release for the game (if you want to know why updating the game is so difficult for us, please read on).
Transparency is something that I think is very important in every aspect of life, and I feel no differently about game development. There's a good possibility that no one will ever even read this, but I want it to be here so that you can understand the decision making process that went into announcing that updates will be coming to an end. Really, this also serves as a development "post-mortem" that explains how things went and what led us to decide that Super Mega Bob is an official "vault item" that we don't really develop any more.
A Brief History of Super Mega Bob
Development on Super Mega Bob began in Late Summer/Fall 2013 as a hobby side-endeavor of mine. I'd dabbled (rather unsuccessfully) in game development before and was just making a fun little shooter called SMB for my own amusement and to share with others. Most of all it kept me in touch with my dream of, just maybe, making games for a living one day (still a dream as of January 2017, mind you).
When I originally "designed" Super Mega Bob (I use the term loosely because very little planning went into it) I really didn't know what I was doing in a lot of ways. I just had a general idea of what I wanted and started making art and writing code. As I started posting screenshots on my Twitter account (which had all of about 40 followers at the time) something unexpected happened: people really liked what they were seeing. Suddenly I had over 1,000 Twitter followers and was thinking, "hey, maybe I could make something of this!" So I did something very stupid: I took the very little tiny foundation I had made for SMB and decided to build a skyscraper on it. Never a good idea in game design (or any line of work, for that matter).
Early 2014 I ran a Kickstarter. Two, actually. The first one failed. The second succeeded in raising $1,000 to help me develop Super Mega Bob full-time over the Summer. It was awesome, I was excited, and things were great. I finished the game early that Fall, released to the pleasure of my KS supporters, and then put the game on Desura and Itch. I can't recall the initial sales numbers, but they were very low. As in 20-40 copies low. That wasn't a huge surprise to me, and it didn't demoralize me. The game was done, it was a good experience, and I was happy with it all.
Then I launched a Greenlight page. I won't go into all the details, but I'd never actually planned on doing it. Some online friends talked me into it, however, and it's not a decision I regret (we're here, after all!). That being said I went in knowing there were some issues: XNA was totally defunct, my code was wildly out of control, I had built the game on a tiny little foundation, and if I spoke too loudly while programming I was afraid the source code would literally fall apart. So I was moving forward with a "here's the game as it is" mentality.
Oh, but it gets worse. A virus struck my computer (my bad for being stupid and allowing such a thing to happen) and corrupted *all* of my source code. So I ended up de-compiling the actual application to get it back. Yeah, it was a mess. So now I had spaghetti code that was double spaghettied. Making even the slightest update like a complex game of cat and mouse, dodging through the raging lazor beamz (TM) of Super Mega Bob.
"Fortunately" the Greenlight page quickly tanked and I moved on. I actually worked on two different projects for the course of the next 8 months or so, kind of trying to "find my way" in this whole game development thing. Super Mega Bob was basically a wrapped up, finished work.
Jump ahead to late Summer 2016. BOOM. The game becomes Greenlit. I didn't even know what to do. At first I was excited. The I realized that I had no idea how "the Steam" even worked and that Super Mega Bob was a spaghettied mess that OH NO WHAT AM I GOING TO DO. So I prayed a lot and read a lot and studied a lot about integrating the Steam API into a C# XNA project. By God's grace I was able to get Super Mega Bob working in Steam. I understand some may think that I'm "exaggerating" when I say all this, but, trust me, I'm not. Then I tried to tunnel may way through the hideously distorted source code I was left with (all wobbling on a foundation of butter) and add little features and fixes to make the game half-way kind-of not-really-but-here-we-go Steam ready.
And we released on Steam! Yay! Celebration! Happiness! A couple hundred copies later Super Mega Bob has been able to finance the purchase of a pretty decent production desktop that we're using to tear into development with Unreal 4. And yes, in the course of the last year that's the kind of sales we've been looking at. It's nothing glorious and I'm definitely not "running with the money" because, well, there really isn't that much money to run with. And I can't run. I have a job, and a house, and bills, and, you know, all that stuff. By the way, this isn't a complaint. I never expected Super Mega Bob to "sell millions of copies and make me richer than my wildest imaginations." It's just really not that kind of game.
I've done what I can in the last year. The game crashes on some computers. The interface is wretched. The whole thing could use some general fixing. How would I go about doing all that? No idea, honestly. Programming is not my field of expertise. I've since learned from the error of my ways and switched to using more stable and more artist/developer friendly engines such as Construct 2 and Unreal 4 (Unity would work great, too, we just prefer Unreal). While these are things I would like to fix, the reality is that the time-to-money ratio would just be unrealistic. What I'm about to say I mean in all seriousness: I could probably make a much better and much more content rich sequel to Super Mega Bob in less time than it would take to try and descend into spaghetti land and make Super Mega Bob the incredibly stable game we would all love for it to be.
Conclusion
So there you have it. I know that's a lot, but if you really want to understand the "why" of this decision, there it is. It's not lack of desire, but simply of time and even the ability to address some of these issues. Who knows how hard it will be just to make the saved file deletion fix, but I'm hoping I can get at least that much done. Hoping. In the meantime we've released Septic Savages on Steam and Itch, and I'm glad to be able to say it is much more stable and has a much better user interface. We've already released multiple updates, too, with more on the way in 2017, barring some major catastrophe.
I've learned a lot about making games in the last few years. We're hoping for a great and development-filled 2017 with some 3D games and an awesome new 2D title. We're excited about where we're going and I'm still hoping that, by the end of the year, me and my PR guy might actually be able to do this as a full-time job. Until then, thank you all for your support and I hope you continue to enjoy Super Mega Bob!
Hey everyone! I've got some exciting news for all of you who have been playing and enjoying the game over the last few weeks: Super Mega Bob now has full controller support! I'm really excited about being able to allow players to experience the game in a new and amazing way. The
Hey everyone! I've got some exciting news for all of you who have been playing and enjoying the game over the last few weeks: Super Mega Bob now has full controller support! I'm really excited about being able to allow players to experience the game in a new and amazing way. The game now also supports two resolutions, 1024x768 and 800x600. It's neat to see all these new features coming to the game so shortly after its release on Steam.
Trading cards are also coming! It's a lot of art work, but I'm hoping to see trading cards come to Super Mega Bob in the next week or two. I've had a steep learning curve getting used to releasing on Steam, but now that I'm getting the hang of it I'm confident we can add these cool features and that future games from Jenito will have a much smoother release on Steam. Thanks again for all of your support and enjoy the game!
Hey everyone! I've got some exciting news for all of you who have been playing and enjoying the game over the last few weeks: Super Mega Bob now has full controller support! I'm really excited about being able to allow players to experience the game in a new and amazing way. The
Hey everyone! I've got some exciting news for all of you who have been playing and enjoying the game over the last few weeks: Super Mega Bob now has full controller support! I'm really excited about being able to allow players to experience the game in a new and amazing way. The game now also supports two resolutions, 1024x768 and 800x600. It's neat to see all these new features coming to the game so shortly after its release on Steam.
Trading cards are also coming! It's a lot of art work, but I'm hoping to see trading cards come to Super Mega Bob in the next week or two. I've had a steep learning curve getting used to releasing on Steam, but now that I'm getting the hang of it I'm confident we can add these cool features and that future games from Jenito will have a much smoother release on Steam. Thanks again for all of your support and enjoy the game!
