I intend to write regularly on my work on God is a Cube. Those will be small news. I think it's better to have too much news than too few.
Here is the TL;DR:
- Dropping Mac support (keeing Windows and Linux support)
- Can still create working builds (Windows, and Linux I guess)
- Money lost on the game
- Still counting on wishlists
- Next: will correct bugs
The unnecessary files
After thinking about it, I realize that having too much unnecessary files is not a problem. Yes, it's cumbersome to look at some folders, but it's not blocking anything. I should focus on making sure that all necessary files are still there. The best test to be sure everything is in order is to create a new build of the game.
To do:
remove unnecessary files- focus on the build
The build
The whole build process is still working! I can create new executables, and they are running fine.
I just have to change a few lines of configuration and set a few options, and everything is generated automatically. There are 3 platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac) and 3 modes (normal, advanced, demo), which is 9 different executables, with small variations.
Back in the day, it was already impossible to keep all the steps in mind (and the slightest doubt forced me to redo everything), so I'm glad I put so much work into the automatic build process so it can be almost 100% automated.
Dropping Mac support
I know that a lot of things changed on Mac, including the droping of 32-bits executables. I don't think Unity 4 (from 2012) can export something working on nowadays Mac.
So, sadly, I intend to drop Mac support.
I will make a public announcement, remove Mac version from the Steam store, and I will refund anybody who bought a Mac version and willing to get a refund. This will be managed as case-by-case basis.
Linux support will continue, as the process was simple: I export a Linux build and Linux users tell me if it's working. I always had very good feedback from Linux users, and it helped a lot, for the Linux version, as well as the game in general. If, for any reason, the Linux support is not as good as intended (maybe Linux distributions changed a lot and the game is not as compatible as before?), I will precise it in the store description.
To do:
- remove Mac support from Steam
- make an announcement about dropping support for the Mac version
The wishlists
There are still 6,000 wishlists! The number droped a few hundreds per year, but still. I hope that once the game is finished and released, some of those wishlists will actually buy the game.
The sales
As Steam does not want developers to share sales numbers, I won't give too much details. I will say that in 2021 and 2022, I sold less than 100 units per year, and this year (2023), I sold less than 20 units. This is a very low number of units. But counting all sales from the beginning of the project, on Steam and other platforms, I sold more than 1,700 units.
But even with those sales, I still lost at least $10,000 on the project, and at least $10,000 more on accountant fares (because I created a company, and chose to pay an accountant to fill in my taxes). Loosing money on your indie game is a common topic, still, it hurts. At least, I now have a high paying job (outside the game industry), so I am in a better situation than most of other indie game creators.
Besides, I am not resuming development of God is a Cube for the money, it's more that I want to finish this project and to actually deliver it to people still wanting to play it.
Next actions
I already found a few bugs by testing the game again. I intend to correct them. It should be a good way to start again working on the code.