Posted August 10, 2022 by Drone Garden Studios
I've been doing a lot of touch-ups on the game to get it nice for a Steam release and a $10 price tag. I've touched-up the sprites to make them less crunchy and added some flair to the UI. I really don't want to change the UI layout too much because I actually really like the default RenPy UI. But I also know that some users froth at the mouth if the UI looks too much like the default, so I am trying to find a nice compromise for us all. MAYBE I will redajust the placement of the dialogue choices, but I'm not 100% one way or the other yet.
The behind-the-scene trivia was a happy accident. I couldn't figure out how to make a menu option show up only after the game was beaten, so I just coded it so that Clash would pop up and yell at the player to go play the full game. Then I figured he could have a chat with the player, like how Cafe 0: The Drowned Mermaid handled its bonus scene. It just snowballed from there.
My biggest difficulty so far has been deciding on pricing and overcoming my Steam anxiety. Personally, I feel like there will be enough content in the Complete Edition to justify the price tag (especially if people go for 100%-ing it). I've been mentally comparing it to other VNs/adventure games that I enjoy that are around that price and I think it holds up. But then I remember that my first attempt at a Steam release was priced at $4 for one hour or so of content and users called me greedy. But frankly, Steam users seem to think that every indie game (except the massively popular ones) are overpriced. So really, I can just price this game whatever the heck I want.
...yeah, the Steam release is making me REALLY nervous. Last time I tried a Steam release, I got called greedy and a liar and users made it very clear that they didn't want me or my games on the platform. But that was my first game, two years ago. I had no idea what I was doing back then. Now I am slightly less incompetent. People who have played Clash have praised it. I have figured out ways to properly market my games, so that they don't get too lost in the sea of Steam releases. I think I can pull this off. I know I can pull this off. Its just a matter of feeling it, too.
(And please don't take this as me hating on Steam or its users. I'm not hating, I'm just disappointed.)
Anyway, that's a wrap on my first weekly update for the Complete Edition. I'm going to start prepping images for the bonus story this week and probably start porting the script over. Also, I do want to play through the original game a few times to look for spelling or grammatical errors. Not sure how much I'm going to add to main story, if anything. Again, need to play it through and see. :-)