Nice! I'm amazed at how well the lighting works. I was expecting it to impact performance in a bad way. Are you going to keep working on it now that the jam is finished?

At this point (a little over a week since the demo went up) my Steam traffic is pretty low. I must have dropped off some list of available demos or upcoming releases.

On the flipside, I noticed video of my game popping up on Youtube, and maybe TikTok (I don't use TikTok) and this was all unsolicited. So at least there is some organic interest in streaming the game. Which is surprising to me since 2d puzzle games aren't very entertaining to watch!

The stats on the demo have further solidified the love it or hate it response. Players either bounce off of it within a few minutes or the play the whole thing to completion. There seems to be almost no middle ground. That makes sense to me. Puzzles either click with you or they don't. I can play Dr. Mario until my hands bleed but I'm one of those odd people who gets bored with Tetris.

I just updated the demo here on the Construct 3 Arcade. It is identical to the version on Steam. It contains 10 levels, a more fleshed out tutorial at the start, an expanded hint system, and a few bug fixes.

Getting the game and demo up on Steam was more convoluted than I expected. If you make any errors, no matter how slight, you'll have to wait for Steam Support to notify you so you can fix the problems and resubmit your software and store-page content.

I found the following tutorial very helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwMPvEFFomE

Another thing that I didn't anticipate is your capsule art needs to be designed so that the demo banner doesn't obscure your logo or text. Not an issue if you aren't hosting a demo, but something to keep in mind if you may want to make a demo available later.

While I haven't heard of Steam pushing your visibility upon making a coming soon page, I did have a big spike in traffic the following day. A lot of this traffic was from within Steam.

Considering I had my nose to the grindstone while making the game I didn't do much to raise awareness that it even existed. I have been accumulating wishlists over the past 5 days ranging from 3-12 per day. My "marketing" efforts have simply been posting here and in a few Reddit forums. Strangely, I currently have more wishlists than I do demo plays. I would have figured people willing to wishlist would try the demo to see if they did indeed like the game.

As far as the demo goes, people tend to quit playing very quickly or keep going until they've likely completed all the included levels. There aren't many instances between those two extremes.

How has everyone else's experience on Steam been?

Hello all,

My game is finally "finished" and up on Steam. I haven't set a launch day yet but the latest build of the demo is available. It contains numerous tweaks and additional levels compared to the demo on the Construct Arcade.

I'd greatly appreciate it if all you busy developers checked it out.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2600050/Horace_Hagfish/

I'm really enjoying the game! I do have a technical question. How did you manage to get the game to launch in fullscreen?

I just purchased it. I'll give it a go as soon as I get back from walking the dogs... They find the appeal of computer games mystifying!

Let us know how the Steam launch plays out!

Did you send out any download keys for curators and reviewers?

Speaking of limited space, how did you handle choosing what to depict in each of your scenes? Obviously anything related to the puzzles must be included, but how do you decide what to include that is simply there for atmosphere and visual storytelling?

I will look up Chris Zukowski.

I'm sure it is far too late for me to get much out of mailing lists. I dropped off the social media radar years ago. At the moment I have the Horace Hagfish demo up here and on itch.io. Occasionally I comment on reddit and leave a link to the demo if it is relevant to the discussion. This doesn't lead to a lot of traffic as you'd imagine!

Horace is actually finished. I'm currently wrestling with making my steam page and a video (I have zero video editing experience). I also have a lot of anxiety about launching and being "officially finished" even though I'm eager to work on the next project.

In total the game has 50 levels with a pretty smooth difficulty ramp and new puzzle elements introduced every few levels.

I think I had slightly different roadblocks than you. For me the jump from design to production was very stressful. Then I ended up redesigning most of the puzzle elements halfway through as I felt I wasn't capitalizing on the color mixing core.

Developing another adventure game might go a lot faster a second time around. You've got the experience and I'm sure a lot of your code is reusable.

I just put it on my wishlist. I'm looking forward to it!

Have you decided on a price?

I obviously don't know the secret of marketing indie games. I was hoping maybe you had discovered it!

First person point and click adventures are probably considered niche. But I think there is a demand for them beyond simply revisiting the classics. Have you reached out to any streamers? I think the genre actually lends itself well to streaming.

Congratulations on completing the game as well! How long did it take and what were the surprising pitfalls during development? Will you be doing another adventure game next or are you going to jump to a different genre?

I agree with JonathanGaVa, the simple answer is yes.

I can also sympathize with you. I'm more of a right-brain person as well. My advice is to view the non-pixel art aspects of game development as a creative exercise. It is a lot like learning to use a new form of media. You won't be very good at it at first (this might be frustrating) but the steady improvement will start to become very rewarding.

I'd also suggest making a more modest game at first. You can still throw your desired artistic aesthetic at it but keep the scope of the mechanics very tight. This will help you get to grips with Construct 3 and your good graphics can make a simpler game very engaging for players.

I've taken a similar approach. My first completed game with Construct 3 is a top-down puzzle game. I opted for EGA graphics as a challenging creative constraint. While I do love puzzle games, my "dream game" is not a puzzle game. But everything I've learned making Horace Hagfish has put me many steps closer to being capable of actually making that "dream game"

construct.net/en/free-online-games/horace-hagfish-55972/play