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Post-Demo Plans

Hey, everyone! It’s time for a not-as-fun-as-my-other-updates blog post!

First off, the demo: I’m pretty happy with the response it’s gotten. I’ve been watching every let’s play and getting a lot of feedback here, and I’ve been making changes here and there. The current version of the demo is free of any game-breaking bugs as far as I know, but there are still a few minor bugs that I’ve fixed and changes I’ve added in my personal version.

I’ve also been hearing that some people are experiencing lag in Cloudy Hill and Giant Garden. The current version of the demo attempted to address this via some script changes, but I haven’t heard about whether or not that fixed it for everyone (though it definitely fixed the slight lag I was getting in Cloudy Hill). If I don’t hear anything about that in the coming weeks, I’ll try reaching out to people more directly.

Despite those issues, I think the demo’s been a pretty big success! I’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback about the music, writing, humor, gameplay, and overall polish of Jimmy, which has been fantastic. My next goal is to get on Steam Greenlight. Before I do that, though, I would like to have a finalized demo together, which unfortunately involves waiting on a script–not sure how long that’s going to take. In the meantime, I’ll be working on development as usual. Since the demo released, I’ve completed two levels and four songs, and I want to keep up that pace.

Earlier this year I talked about the possibility of doing a kickstarter. I haven’t ruled that out completely, but I’m financially stable enough with my part-time grading gig that I can work a few less hours and stay above water, so I’m going to do that next year. If development doesn’t go as quickly as I’d like or if Jimmy has trouble reaching out to a larger audience after I get on Steam, I might still do a kickstarter next summer–or even before–but, currently, I’m going to try to stick it out on my own a bit longer.

Thanks for believing in Jimmy!

Posts

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Kloe
I lost my arms in a tragic chibi accident
2236
07/23/2016 04:10 PM
Yay! Well good luck Housekeeping! :D
zDS
The Besr
5623
07/23/2016 04:12 PM
What are the requirements of selling a game without a publisher? Is it complicated?

Either way, best of luck! I look forward to seeing more of this game. It was quite good from what I played.
Housekeeping
3571
07/23/2016 05:08 PM
author=zDS
What are the requirements of selling a game without a publisher? Is it complicated?

Either way, best of luck! I look forward to seeing more of this game. It was quite good from what I played.


That might be a question better asked of the Ara Fell folks, haha; I haven't done it yet! I believe that Steam has made it pretty simple, though. Last I checked, I think it was 100 bucks or so to get on Steam, and then they just take a cut of the profits.

And, thanks, guys!
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
07/23/2016 05:20 PM
Good luck Housekeeping! I'm stoked for the full version!

What are the requirements of selling a game without a publisher? Is it complicated?


Depends on where you plan on selling it. You can sell it on your own personal website and keep 100% of the profits, but you'd have to do all the marketing yourself, and that's a nightmare to do to make yourself stand out among the tidal wave of other games trying to do the same thing. You could devote an entire year for promotion and it probably still wouldn't be enough compared to a month on Steam.

If you're talking about Steam, then you'd have to go though Greenlight. Housekeeping is right in that it's $100 to get started, but that's just for a developer's license. To actually get your game on Steam, you'll have to put it through the Greenlight process, which means the Steam community has to vote on whether or not the game deserves to be on the store.

That's my understanding on how the process works, anyway.
Sgt M
h
7268
07/23/2016 09:36 PM
Replaying the demo to see if the lag was resolved was on my to-do list. Definitely something I will be getting to soon.
Housekeeping
3571
07/23/2016 09:49 PM
@SgtMettool: If you've got time to spare, I can send you a save file so that you don't have to play through the introduction.
Seeric
2155
07/30/2016 05:30 PM
I'm really glad you released a demo since this has been a game I've been looking forward to for quite a while! I've been pretty busy lately so I just got around to playing it today and I'm still really early on (in Cloudy Hill), but I'm enjoying it a lot so far. That said, I have run into two technical issues (and I downloaded the game on July 13th so to the best of my knowledge this is the newest version of the demo).

1) Cloudy Hills is pretty choppy to walk around in. I didn't play the early version of the demo so I can't say if it's less laggy than it was before, but it's definitely noticeable.

2) I stumbled upon a game-crashing bug on accident and have been able to deliberately replicate it. The error message is "Script 'Window_Selectable' line 61: ZeroDivisionError occurred. divided by 0". This happened, rather appropriately, when I got a green exclamation point above my head, talked to the Information Guy screen which explains red and green exclamation points before going into battle, and then I crashed immediately after the battle ended. To clarify the order of events was: Got a green exclamation point --> interacted with screen --> battle occurred after dialogue --> crashed after battle instead of transitioning back to the map. It doesn't seem possible to interact with the screen if I get a red exclamation point instead of a green one (I'm guessing you can't perform interactions in general with a red exclamation point). Oddly enough, I seem to only be able to replicate this crash with the Information Guy screen as I tried replicating it with Mr. Beaver and with a toy chest and in both cases the interaction dialogue didn't pop up until after the battle.

Also, I have a suggestion which isn't bug-related. Even if it means breaking the fourth wall a bit, I think it is really important to put in a line or two of mandatory dialogue which informs players that fountains can heal you and that you can save from the menu (this latter part is a bit less important because a dialogue box already pops up at the start to state that X opens the menu, but more explicit dialogue can encourage players to open that menu to create a save file as soon as possible). The fountain dialogue is essential though because you are otherwise going to likely get complaints from players who fought the slime and then used up their healing items or rushed straight into Cloudy Hill without healing at all. Most players who are experienced with RPG's will likely figure out what the purpose of the fountain is, but a significant chunk of players in a wider, commercial audience will probably either miss interacting with it entirely or will not make the connection that the blue flash and the pleasant sound effect is an indication that they've been healed.

EDIT: I just stumbled into the same error again when talking to Mr. Marvelous for the first time while I had a green exclamation point above my head so I guess it's not just limited to the Information Guy screen after all.
Housekeeping
3571
07/31/2016 07:34 AM
Point 1: I'll see if I can work with a tester who experiences the lag issue and do what I can to cut down the events on that map so I can figure out the threshold for amount of events before lag starts. Point 2: Thanks so much for finding this! I have a fix for this lined up now (works on that one information guy TV) and will get cracking on implementing it at large tomorrow.

I'll take your other suggestions into account, but I'm trying to keep tutorials at a minimum. I might utilize some more information guy TVs to do that, as I've already included a few more in my version (which explain status effects).
Malandy
357
07/31/2016 11:04 AM
Perhaps have Helga, or someone else?, ask Jimmy to wash up in the fountain or something?
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