Is this game dead? That’s the one question you never want to ask yourself as a developer. Unfortunately, it’s the exact question I’ve been asking myself every day since launch.
Yeah, the start wasn't great. Then, six months ago, Wonder Ball went from paid to free-to-play, and it certainly picked up a few new players here and there. Still, the numbers lag far behind what I was expecting. In comparison, my first game, Office Run, has been played by ten times more people. That game was just a small project I whipped up in two months while still learning the basics of UE4; looking at its code now, I’m honestly surprised it holds together at all.
On the other hand, I put two years into Wonder Ball. I grew immensely as a developer in that time, and I think it's more than obvious in the game and its mechanics. Yet, here we are. It’s a strange feeling when your "quick test" project outshines your "passion" project, but I've realized I can't dwell on the statistics.
Because at the end of the day, none of that matters. What matters is that I finally received feedback from more players—even if it was much less than I’d hoped for and most of that feedback was bizarre, at best. However, I must give a huge thanks to everyone who decided to share more than just a thumbs up or down.
Now, back to the question: Is this game dead? Well, no. Definitely not. At least not for me. I’ve been cooking up so much new content you wouldn't believe it. DLCs will be coming out left and right soon. Okay, maybe not that fast, but you get the point. On top of that, I’m still working on an entirely new game, writing books, and working my day job. How do I do it all? As one famous man once said: "Sometimes my genius is... it's almost frightening."
But why? After everything I just admitted, why would anyone continue developing DLCs for a game that barely anyone cares about? Well, that’s the beauty of being an indie solo dev: I can do whatever the **** I want. :)
Finally, I want to share a few "revelations" I’ve gathered from reviews and streams so far:
This game was actually made by a real developer. Who knew, right?
One player mentioned "the developers" (plural). To this day, I am still trying to find out who "they" are. If you see them in my house, let me know.
Apparently, this is NOT the worst game on Steam. Now that is some fantastic news! Thank you for the ego boost.
I have "never played a fun game." I'm not quite sure what a "fun game" is supposed to be in this context.
This isn't a physics-based ball game. I thought that was obvious? Maybe not.
From what I've seen, I'm worried nobody actually understood how to play the game—or at least how it was intended to be played. But that one is definitely on me.
That’s all, folks! See you in the next update.
— Adrian Siska, Indie Solo Developer