soundStrider Postmortem

Two weeks ago soundStrider was released. Please enjoy this postmortem of its development on the shiftBacktick blog. It’s about a 30-minute read. In it you’ll learn more about me, my process, how it affected my finances, and the lessons I learned.

Here’s a full table of its contents:

1. The pitch
2. Developing soundStrider
   1. Early conceptual design
   2. Building a game engine
   3. Switching to full-time
   4. Alchemizing sound from code
   5. Sharpening an accessibility focus
   6. Road to release
3. By the numbers
   1. Development roadmap
   2. Opportunity cost
   3. Burn rate
   4. Revenue
   5. Wishlists and conversions
   6. Total units shipped
4. Lessons learned
   1. Web audio is powerful
   2. Web audio is young
   3. Optimization is complex
   4. I can do this
5. Life after soundStrider

Part of this post includes a tutorial that synthesizes a glockenspiel with FM synthesis techniques. Here’s an interactive example of the result:

Currently I’m working on some upcoming updates that will address recent player feedback. Expect some performance optimizations and new settings. More information will be available soon.

Cheers!