Today is the first anniversary of Planetary Settlers, and it has been quite the journey so far, filled with some good moments, bad moments, and really funny moments. As a solo indie developer, I thought I would share the highlights of my experience. Here are the highlights over the last year of the good, the bad, and the funny!
The Good:
- I had a lot of fun making the game so far, over the past 3 years.
- Planetary Settlers was accepted and released for Early Access 1 year ago!
- Received positive reviews so far
- It feels great to get my first big time game out there after so much work on it (I have made many smaller games from childhood, but this is my first truly meant for prime time).
- It feels great to put something out there that can really help people. It is a fun, family friendly game that has the added benefit of teaching about the solar system, based on the Standards of Learning objectives. I believe kids playing this will likely improve their science grades, and that adults will also get a lot of fun and enjoyment out of it. I look forward to adding the remaining levels, adding more features, and polishing it up for full release.
- I am very thankful for the support of friends, family, go fund me donors, and everyone who bought the game!
The Bad:
- Finances... I had hopes and expectations that I would make a lot of money off this, but I haven't even broken even yet (though I am getting close, not counting development time). I have been hoping Planetary Settlers would supplement our income to help me and my wife get out of debt. We nearly went bankrupt earlier, but have managed to halt our downward spiral, so it isn't all bad. I have hopes that my continued work on this, and full release of Planetary Settlers when it is done will give us that boost we need to get out of debt.
- Bugs... Like nearly all software, Planetary Settlers hasn't been immune to bugs. The worst bugs so far were: once the initial dialogue for Mars got associated to the Sun level dialogue, and a save game from the Normal Mode slot would occasionally move over to the Free Exploration Mode slot. I implemented fixes for both of those though very quickly after discovery. I have also fixed many lesser bugs, and still have more lesser bugs to fix. That is part of the journey in software development.
- I haven't had enough reviews to have a review score for Planetary Settlers. Thankfully the reviews received have been positive so far!
- I haven't met the sales threshold to be able to release trading cards for Planetary Settlers. Enough of the bad, lets move to... the funny!
The Funny:
I have had a few funny experiences as well:
- Figured out you can grind up puzzle pieces on Pluto, which kind of hampers your progress. If encountered, you could fix it by restarting the level, but now you get an achievement for trying to do it (in addition to getting your piece back with some funny dialogue)! Puzzle Smoke, don't breathe this! This achievement is in honor of "Will it Blend" which is one of my favorite YouTube series!
- The Exploding Bed Blooper: I imported a bed (public domain) from TurboSquid. I successfully imported it into the game, and then... I tried to make it physical, with the thinking that it would be neat to be able to pull the pillows off. I also had it really large so I could see the finer details of he bed. Here are the results of that "adventure": Exploding Bed Blooper!
- Found out that throwing things, particularly furniture, in low G has some rather entertaining results, as shown here: Throwing chair off sky scraper!
- Yes, there is a subtle "Uranus" joke in the game somewhere, can anyone find it?
The Future:
For those that have read this far, here's a sneak peek of what I plan to add:
- New levels (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and possibly more!)
- New projectiles (paint balls, various sports balls)
- New crafting objectives (e.g. craft repair parts, craft projectile factories)
- Ability to repair the bases and make them habitable
- More achievements
- Improved look and feel
- Optimized performance
- Other languages
- Possibly more!