Overview
Today I want to talk about why the update is not out yet and marketing.
Current Update
The current update takes a bit more time and instead of smaller updates I want to also provide more content. I will explain why further down below.
For example, there will be some more information about what is going on with this area shown below.
I also want to adjust the transition to the castle and the castle in general to make it more interesting, like new enemies and more diverse ways to progress than just finding a key or atleast make it more than just picking it up from the ground or table. The next two updates will definitely favor gameplay.
Marketing
So let’s start with the main topic today.
The project as of right now, in terms of new players, is kind of dead. This means I have to think about marketing the project more than ever. Small Updates are development-wise really hard to keep up constantly especially if no one is really playing the game anyway. It would have made sense if there was a constant flow of new players to have the development version as close to the released version as possible and basically market the game through continuity of updates and activity, atleast for a while. But since that is not the case and on top of that it is impossible to market small updates very well everywhere else, because there just is not enough content to show. I decided for a middle-ground of creating updates that deliver relevant changes and additions to the game, in as many places as possible, without taking ages.
Right now, I am planning to release an update about every 4-6 weeks. At the same time, I want to be able to take time and work on how to market the game, creating a trailer for every content update, posting on Twitter as much as possible and also trying to hit up more reviewers and influencers and not just release an update and hope someone notices it. Because the project is in no position for that right now at all, where I can just focus on development.
Alpha
As a trade-off, since it is going to be a bit till the next update - I’m planning a public alpha branch where you would be able to play a more recent version, which would go live when there is enough content and some basic testing is done, so maybe every 2-3 weeks. And you can also already give some feedback. I plan to release the first alpha version of the next update at the end of the month. And then leading towards a bigger content release in January.
Next week I’m going to show more of the new content.
Cheers,
Leon Drace