What a week it has been! With Buddy Simulator and hundreds of other great game demos showcased over the weekend, the Steam Game Festival is now over. With that, we would like to talk about our experience with the whole event as well as posting some of the questions asked during the Q&A event we had in our Discord! Before we breakdown the event, we just wanted to thank all of you who showed up to support us, even through the vast technical problems we had going into it.
On Friday June 19th, the four boys at Not A Sailor Studios woke up early in preparation for the big day ahead of them. Their game was going to be featured in the Steam Game Festival and a livestream was scheduled for 2pm that day. The time was noon, and they just got back from eating a delicious lunch. Vince was finishing up some amazing graphics for the event, and the rest of the gang were preparing to do a test broadcast to see if everything looked okay.
That's when it hit us. As soon as we tried to launch our demo from the studio Steam account, we got an error. It stated that there was no demo to be found and none could be played. Confused and concerned, we all shifted our focus to figuring out this puzzling situation. We found out that our personal accounts could run the demo but not the account associated with the game. I looked down at the time on my computer: 1:00 sharp. We started to worry as we scoured the internet for any sort of documentation, forums, or videos we could find to solve the situation before us. Brandon concluded that it had to be something on Steam's end where the account that will be releasing the full game can't play the demo. At 1:40 we proved this to be true. Earlier we had sent a message to Steam support and finally got a response! While Steam was very quick to respond, we still had a lot to figure out on our own. We sent out another emergency message to Steam support in hopes we could get live support on this, but with one minute before the livestream started, we began to panic.
As we desperately tried to figure out how to get Steam to show that we were wanting to go live, we had to inform our fans that we will be starting late and to bare with us. That's when we got a message from a member in our Discord that Steam was showing another game as a part of our broadcast spot. We get that there can be some technical difficulties with setting us up and finding our livestream, but showing another game in Buddy Simulator's place and drawing tons of new views to a game that wasn't ours, really sucked. Suddenly, Brandon found a loophole in the Steam folders, and it was a huge process to get it working but eventually we were live! The livestream went quite well and drew a nice crowd too! It was so much fun to chat with everyone while answering some fun and obscure questions. We were live for about an hour and 15 minutes and we loved every single second of it despite all the problems we had before. Everyone was so encouraging, and we even got some new people interested in the game! Overall, it was a fantastic experience, albeit a learning experience. We really hope no one else had run into a similar problem because it seemed like such a common error for Steam to make. It appears to be quite difficult for new users to broadcast a demo with no documentation on the event or how to set it up. BUT in the end, we loved spending time with everyone during this Steam event and talking about some crazy things! It was an honor to be featured in this event and we are so grateful for the opportunity.
We couldn't have gotten through all this without the help of our wonderful community who stepped in and helped so much during these stressful times. We had fans tweeting at Steam, sending in customer support tickets, and even lettings others know on the Buddy Sim broadcast that this was not the right game being shown. We are so thankful to all of our amazing fans for their support. Thank you all who stuck with us
Also another HUGE thank you to Tanya from the Solace State team who helped us with figuring out a lot of problems before, during, and after the event! Please go check out their game and their Twitter @SolaceStateGame
Switching gears now to talk about the wonderful Q&A we had on our Discord after! Below are some of the many questions that a moderator had written down during the event so you can catch up to speed with everything!
1. What Universe is Buddy Simulator playing in? - It plays in a universe independently from A Game About Literally Doing Your Taxes, but that's about all we can share.
2. Did you always have a passion for video games, Brandon? - Brandon: I've been playing video games since I was a kid and because of that, I decided to be a game programmer.
3. In the Demo it started out as a text adventure, but since you showed a lot of art on the twitter, will it go more towards an open world RPG game? - Our twitter shows kind of the direction of the game, but we don't show everything because it's so easy to spoil. So in the full game, expect the direction you see on twitter.
4. How did you you get started with Buddy Sim? Did you just start writing ideas down? - Yeah, at first, it was Brandon Showing Vince the idea, and it was very different from what it is now. This continued for about a year as a side-project. Josh and DeMarco found out about the Buddy Sim Projects and joined the team shortly after we finished A Game About Literally Doing Your Taxes!
5. Do you have plans for the future as a Dev Team? - We plan on finishing Buddy Sim for now, but the rest depends on How well Buddy Sim does/ how popular it gets.
6. The demo is an introduction to the game, so is the demo itself going to be a part of the game or will you change the Demo to fit the full game better? - The Demo will be changing a bit to fit the full story as well as some minor changes. Nothing huge from the original demo will be lost.
7. At the end of the Demo it changes to 2D from Text adventure will there be more changes in view/graphics? -No Comment
8. Was there a thought for anything proper for funds, like a Kickstarter? -We thought about it, we don't need a whole lot of funding, so right now a Kickstarter isn't a priority.
9. In the introduction, you start with little games, and later you have a more open-like-world. Will the game have more little puzzles for reaching Milestones? -Yes, we are planning on making more little puzzles for you in the full game.
10. How will saving work (checkpoints or autosave)? -We'll try to make it so you resume exactly to where you left off.
11. Do you think there possibly could be some kind of sequel or will it be only one thing? -So, we can confirm there WILL be buddy dating sim (Joke). And a sequel would be a bit hard for a buddy sim game, but it would be very cool for other games to play in the same universe. But currently, we don't have plans to continue.
12. (1)So you're in college right? (2)What are you majors? - (1)Josh and DeMarco just graduated!
-(2)DeMarco:" I'm a game design major with a minor in Animation."
-Josh: "I'm also a game design major with a focus on writing"
-Brandon: "Computer science with a concentration in Game Engine"
-Vince: "Graphic Design"
13. Is the Buddy Sim Graded? Like for school? -Nope. It was purely made out of passion!
14. What's your favorite dessert?
-Vince: To be honest I'm not a big sweets guy, but I'd definitely go for some banana pudding)
-DeMarco: I'll announce it loud and proud!! cheap store birthday cookies,
-Brandon: Pumpkin Pie
-Josh: I love my cheesecake, but it might easily be topped by a good fudgy cookie!
15. Which game engines did you start on?
-Brandon:" Unity because I think it gives a good idea of how scripting works"
-DeMarco: "I started with "Scratch" because it taught me the basics."
16. Do you speak any other Languages?
-DeMarco:" I took German in high school, but sadly I only speak English"
-Brandon:" I speak about as much German as you, DeMarco"
-Josh:" I took 4 years of Spanish, and I remember nothing"
17. Hi. I'm asking about Buddy Simulator. I love the type-command thing. I was wondering if this will still be a good portion of the game when the whole game comes out? -Josh: I think you will be happy with the full version of the game, but we can't say too much!
18. Are there any dream-projects you guys would like to work on?
-DeMarco: A rhythm-RPG game. I would love that!
-Josh: I've always had an idea of making a horror game where you can switch between a monster and a human.
-Brandon: I guess not really a horror game, but "Downpour", it takes the input of the player to change how it plays.
19. Talking about NSFW... Do you guys know about Rule34 and do you think it will happen with your game... -Probably.
20. What type of movies do you watch? -DeMarco:" We're watching like a lot of good dramas or comedies. I love animated shows like Cowboy Bebop and Castlevania"
21. What's your favorite music genre?
-Josh: "Music would be Indie Pop."
-DeMarco: "Indie music as well and lofi hip-hop beats."
-Brandon: "I'm all over the place. In work mode, I prefer Lofi, but other than that I like Indie as well."
22. Is there room for writers only in Game Dev groups, like in general? Or do those people always have like multiple jobs like programmer for example? -Josh: "There are a lot of places/groups that search for writers only, but a lot of writers occasionally dual as a level designer or producer! Keep your eyes peeled on job posting sites.