Star Nomad 2 on Steam, iOS & Android!

OddConfection

Thank you very much!

I had a bad exp with bundles for Star Nomad, IndieRoyale included it in their Greenlight bundle without informing me, a week AFTER it passed Greenlight by itself. It was selling on Desura for a few months before that and IndieRoyale is a part of Desura. Long story short, they went bankrupt and owe me a lot of $$. Not only did they gave away thousands of keys for peanuts with their bundle when I didn't need it or even knew about it, they ran away with every indie dev's $$ who sold their games on Desura...

No more bundle shenanigans this time.

C-7

The Next Penelope also did not do well according to Aurel, he had hope it would do much better. Honestly I thought that game if any, would be a success. It's amazing in production, looks fantastic, plays very well.

If there's anything one can gather from player feedback (which I've read a lot lately), they definitely prefer indie games that have a lot of replayability. I think its understandable, because big AAA titles can get away with fancy graphics, for indies, we have to focus on gameplay and part of that is replayability, it increases the perceived value of our game a lot. So while an indie game can be brilliant, but if there's low replayability (for a shorter game), its unlikely to do well on Steam. Mobiles is a different matter, there its more about consumable entertainment, so being good is good enough.

Hmm... I don't see anything wrong with what you're doing by reading that article. And having a lot of C2 games rejected is expected from my point of view. When you have an engine that is powerful and easy to use by anyone as C2 you'll have a lot of stinkers (no offense to anyone please). Your game looks absolutely great. Indie game dev is not an easy job these days unfortunately.

Oh it's not the rejection of many that is depressing, it's the floundering of the few that are in all respects, great games of their genre.

Voted! It looks really good - good luck with this!!

Voted! It looks really good - good luck with this!!

Thanks. Good luck with Umbra too!

Indeed. We must persevere to be successful. As an indie dev myself and having some friends who are trying their best to promote their game I feel that one has to be very determined or must have a lot of passion and I can see that in your trailer and posts. Sorry if comments sounded too harsh.

Indeed. We must persevere to be successful. As an indie dev myself and having some friends who are trying their best to promote their game I feel that one has to be very determined or must have a lot of passion and I can see that in your trailer and posts. Sorry if comments sounded too harsh.

No, you were spot on with the comments. But we're only human, so seeing great games fail is very disheartening for the rest of us who are making mediocre stuff compared to The Next Penelope or Airscape.

— - no worries about not wanting to use bundles after your experiences, I think Indie Royale added us into a bundle once without our permission too.

If you do decide to use a bundle again, the most recent one we used was Groupees

[quote:3o7j55zc]So while an indie game can be brilliant, but if there's low replayability (for a shorter game), its unlikely to do well on Steam

I think a big part of success on Steam comes down to visibility i.e. being on the main page or the top of lists

Appearing as a Featured Item is the best, but in order of profitability the Steam promotions we've been in are:

Featured Item (as a new game and when we went free-to-play)

Weekend Deals (when a publisher pulled out and Steam needed to fill a slot)

Midweek Madness (when we released expansion packs)

Weeklong Deals (can opt in to the this every couple of months)

Seasonal Sales (general discount and community vote/flash sale)

Get in touch with your contacts at Steam and see what you can do to get your game featured in any of these bigger sales. It was only because we'd been asking them that they offered us a place in the Weekend Deals when a publisher pulled out, and that got us over 10,000 extra sales, sure it was at 75% off but it was worth it for the exposure and extra players in-game.

[quote:3o7j55zc]seeing great games fail is very disheartening for the rest of us who are making mediocre stuff compared to The Next Penelope or Airscape

It is disheartening, but I would hardly call your stuff mediocre

Thanks for the advice and kind words OddConfection <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

I just started a Kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/16 ... ar-nomad-2

I should have done a Kickstarter simultaneously with the Greenlight campaign, cross-over the audience/clicks early on... but I didn't plan to, as I can finish the game without extra financial assistance. I had planned to use free music & sound effects to save money and dropped the idea of using painted scenes to tell the intro and ending story.

But I think Star Nomad 2 deserves better so I'm talking to some composers now to negotiate and contacted my favourite artist for the scenes.

Sadly I still suck at promotion/marketing so its limited to a few posts on gaming forums and that's it. See how it goes, whether a good game can market itself or $$ for marketing is a must...

Looks interesting.

—

did you seen this title?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/107200

it somehow looks like carbon copy... <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

—

did you seen this title?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/107200

it somehow looks like carbon copy... <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

Top-down spacesims are a genre. I have played many of them over the years, including back in the 90s with Star Control, Escape Velocity etc.

Here's a let's play of Escape Velocity:

I've also played Space Pirates and Zombies.

Do you consider games like Battlefield the same as Counter Strike?

Thanks for the advice and kind words OddConfection <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

I just started a Kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/16 ... ar-nomad-2

I should have done a Kickstarter simultaneously with the Greenlight campaign, cross-over the audience/clicks early on... but I didn't plan to, as I can finish the game without extra financial assistance. I had planned to use free music & sound effects to save money and dropped the idea of using painted scenes to tell the intro and ending story.

But I think Star Nomad 2 deserves better so I'm talking to some composers now to negotiate and contacted my favourite artist for the scenes.

Sadly I still suck at promotion/marketing so its limited to a few posts on gaming forums and that's it. See how it goes, whether a good game can market itself or $$ for marketing is a must...

On the subject of music, I think I've done more with interactive soundtracks than anybody so far with C2 (as far as I've seen), and I totally believe in supporting fellow projects. If you need help with implementation or how to even go about the stuff, let me know. If it's a route you're interested in trying, make sure your composer of choice knows what an adaptive score is and how to do it (it would be the music seamlessly changing itself or re-ordering itself based on gameplay). At least judging from the gameplay video I've seen, it would be a really neat approach and would add a lot to your game.

Just saw this and it looks amazing! You have my vote!

Looking good and hope to see the Steam release soon. Got my vote.

C-7

Thanks, I haven't decided on the music just yet, talking to a few composers.. it's super expensive. O_o

ultrafop

Rushty

Thanks!