Hey folks!
So Steam Next Fest has wrapped up, I just wanted to give a massive thank you to everyone who has checked out the project over the period. It's been so cathartic to finally see the game in peoples hands and see such a positive response to MORSE. I've genuinely had chills reading some of the responses from players, so hyped that the game has hit the mark.
Thought I'd give a quick summary of how it went:
Where things went well:
Getting featured in the Steam Next Fest Trailer: This was incredibly exciting, I found out a couple of weeks earlier that I might be getting included in it so was super nervous about whether it'd happen or not, but sure enough I managed to squeeze in just at the end of the showcase! I can't say for certain how much it translated into eyeballs on the project, but it was nice to get a nod from Valve of the game being worth highlighting.
Watch on YouTube Wishlists and downloads: Over the week, MORSE got 2,316 Wishlists and 3,838 downloads which on the surface seems like a pretty good ratio of those that engaged with it saying they'd be interested in the full thing. Obviously it's a bit more complicated than that but for 7 days those are numbers that I'm happy with. Means that MORSE is now a couple of hundred shy of 10k Wishlists!
Reviews and feedback: More than the numbers above, what really mattered to me this week was seeing how the public responded to the game after all this time working on it. Thankfully the response has been fantastic, had loads of messages of support and in depth feedback and suggestions. The game has had 95% positive ratings on the demo page and so many wonderful messages from players. I've also had plenty of helpful feedback, I've already started making adjustments to the game off the back of recommendations, such as the artillery selector mentioned in my last post. I also set up a feedback form for the project and of the 43 people that filled it out, the rating for enjoying the demo is 4.5 out of 5 and I got a tonne of useful ideas and critique. All in all though, people understood how the game worked, learnt Morse Code and had a great time!
The Stream: I really enjoyed the format of setting up the game with the glowing telegraph and it went well, had some good questions and despite being a bit delirious from tiredness it all went to plan! Definitely interested in doing more Streams soon on Twitch with different telegraphs. Next time I think I will do it a little earlier as 10pm on a Sunday is a bit much!
Ham Radio folks discovering MORSE: I've been spending a lot of time recently with the ham radio community which has been both wonderful and fascinating. In the feedback forms in particular I had a number of people signing off with their callsigns which was lovely. I also had someone find the game through other people chatting about MORSE in their ham radio Discord so it seems to be making the rounds of those communities! I also had some ham radio specialists help me figure out what was off with my Iambic key and make it feel much more authentic which was really appreciated, they literally wrote out PARAGRAPHS of notes and CODE to demonstrate how it worked. Really is humbling having their support and feeling them channel that enthusiasm towards the project.
Room for improvement:
Pacing myself: I was pretty exhausted going into the event and as a solo dev delivering this, I've been going full tilt on MORSE to get it ready for the event then promoting and doing videos. I'm now absolutely knackered at this point and probably need a week off to recover but I am very happy with how it's gone for MORSE. This has been somewhat of a dry-run for the full release, I can make notes of what I did right/wrong this time to make sure next time it's much more sustainable.
Failing to reach out to Press/Streamers: I ran out of time ahead of the event to reach out to Streamers and press, so the amount of people playing it on stream was quite limited. This is a shame as I genuinely love watching people play my games and the event was a good opportunity for that. In hindsight, I should have spent more time sending out press kits but I wanted to make sure the demo was right for the players which was the priority! It's not the end of the world, there's still plenty of people to contact about the game, of the playthroughs that I was able to find, I watched them all through, like this one!
Watch on YouTube With Next Fest out the way, I now want to contact Streamers who are also ham radio or Morse Code enthusiasts to see if they'd be willing to do a playthrough and what their insights would be! It's genuinely so fascinating seeing their perspectives on a project exploring something they're passionate about. If any of you happen to watch Streamers or channels you think might enjoy MORSE, I'd really appreciate if you could point them towards the game! Failing that, I'd love to see more videos of people reacting to the game, particularly those who've built a makeshift telegraph!
All in all though, it's been a fantastic week, the positive response from folks has validated the decision to return to the project and I'm so excited once I've rested to power through with finishing the game over the next couple of months.
The demo will be staying up past the end of the festival and I'll be doing at least one more update before launch, in particular I want to see how folks get on with the ammo cycle mechanic. BUT FIRST, first I will rest.
Stay tuned for more updates soon and thanks again!
Alex