Our journey continues!
And if you are new here, it's better for you to start from the beginning of our story https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1644500/view/6075941675634992026
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1644500/view/3290467015407379121
When we last met, it was the autumn of 2021. A huge video game developer conference was about to take place, and I wanted to show my game there and see what happens. The redesign was complete, so I sent the demo to the festival's competition program.
It was an online event, so the event organizers provided a platform for communication and networking. I took advantage of one of its features, something like a message feed where I made a post about Masterplan Tycoon. I was fortunate: this feed was seldom used, but the visibility of posts was extremely good. It wasn't long before I got contacted by a game scout from Ravenage named Daniel. We talked about the game and plans and agreed to keep in touch. We talked about the game and my plans and agreed to keep in touch. The game did not win any awards in the competition program but was featured in The Rough Gems category. With the required minimum achieved, I could add this badge to the Steam game page 😎
The event was a turning point for me. I realized that what I was doing had a meaning to the industry people, not just my wife and my cat But I was still employed in a company. Burnout was setting in and I had to choose between looking for a new job or becoming a full-time indie developer to see Masterplan Tycoon all the way to a proper release. The choice was made easier by the fact I paid off my mortgage 😀
So I came up with a plan. I would continue polishing the demo and visit a couple of events closer to spring to find a publisher. At the same time, I worked on a pitch document - a presentation that a publisher would use to see if the project is suitable for them or not. I didn't send this document out to everyone at once like other developers often do. Talking to publishers in turns let me improve my pitch document over several iterations.
Everything went according to plan until February. A military conflict began and all game events were canceled. The industry had urgent issues to deal with and publishing a small game from a solo developer was not their top priority. I quickly realized that my chances of finding a publisher were next to zero and that the safest solution would be to put the project on hold and get a job, but I still had some savings and decided to push through, aiming for an Early Access release in September. Then I would run out of money.
There are no good and proven solutions in situations like this. All conventional paths were gone. Even if you asked the best expert in the gaming industry for advice, he could not give you an answer. I decided to redouble my efforts. This path seemed less destructive and helped me cope with anxiety and panic from what was happening in the world.
I rebuilt the in-game UI from scratch to make it more organic. To me, working on the interface is a meditative experience. Most developers do not enjoy this kind of work, but this is something I really like doing.
I did a lot of technical refactoring. For example, the links were now updating at the right time so you could understand whether whether they crossed something or not. This might look like a minor change, but due to the way Unity works, some things do not happen in the frame you expect them to.
And then Sound Text Things appeared (that’s what I call them). It is a textual representation of sound like you see in comics. There is even a name for this, onomatopoeia. Of course, GIF does not contain an audio track, but imagine that there are sounds of clinking stone and running water when you look at the picture 😀
April came and brought good news. Daniel from Ravenage contacted me to see how I was doing. The guys were still interested in Masterplan Tycoon, and my pitch document was more sober and realistic. And so the contract was signed, after a lot of hard work and a consultation with hired lawyers! It was an exciting moment that made it possible for the game to be released once it is ready and not when I would run out of money.
The fate of Masterplan Tycoon made a second sharp turn in half a year, and so did my life. But the release is still some distance ahead, though we are approaching it at full speed, laying the tracks ahead of our train as we go!
While we keep working, you can play the Demo:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1644500/Masterplan_Tycoon/
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