Same thing on my end. I get a random sale every few days but I agree everyone is probably holding off until the Winter Sale. I'm getting more wishlists post release for some reason. I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that I can pickup some sales every time the game goes on sale. But as you said, it certainly isn't paying the bills...or any bills for that matter haha.
I was hoping it would go better for you because you pulled out a solid and beautiful product that deserves to be successful. In any case, I think it's already a big achievement to have something nice and playable out there on Steam. And I'm sure the experience taught you something that'll make you do much better next time.
I'm still mulling over what to work on next. I have a few ideas and obviously it would be inadvisable to try working on all of them all at once.
A big part of me just wants to dive into making a retro dungeon crawler. I know I'd never get tired of it but I don't yet have confidence in my ability to create inventory, character leveling, and turn based combat systems.
On the other hand I've been sitting on a single player card game design that would be fun and less monumental. I've also got an action-arcade game idea that I'm confident I can make well but feel it isn't really pushing me to learn more.
They all sound like good options to me. I'd love to know what you'll end up choosing and to see development updates. Do you have a game dev profile on social media I can follow?
Have you zeroed in on what you're going to work on next?
Not yet. :/ I'm very tempted to work on a point-and-click adventure game, but while this kind of game has a small, passionate community behind it, it doesn't seem to sell well at all. I still tend to put passion before money, but I'd like to make enough sales to at least cover the development time (which will likely be long). I'm also considering more promising alternatives, like a rogue-like or a metroidvania, which usually do much better on Steam. But I'm quite unfamiliar with the related target audience and communities, so that concerns me a little.
As for what I've learned...
Whatever the project it needs to be something you'll passionately work on for twice as long as you think it will take. That last 20% is dangerous territory!
The other big think is to get that game out and playable in some form as early as possible. Not just for testing but also to start marketing. The only pitfall I can't get around here is that some genres just aren't built for an extended lifespan! I don't want that to drive my choice of genre though. I'm getting really tired of everything being a roguelite or loaded with crafting busy work.
Yup, good lessons here! I'm also grappling with the dilemma that some genres are simply not suited for an extended lifespan. Unfortunately, there aren't many ways around this. It's just the nature of those genres.