Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
(1 edit)

Hello Matthew Hornbostel, thank you for your message and your support, it's much appreciated. There is a demo available on the same game page above for Windows, Linux, and Mac.


It took over ten years of work to complete this game, which is now in version 1.02. A free 2.0 update is currently in development to further improve the game's graphics and features.


A few months ago, I launched a Twitch channel with replays available on YouTube.  I also post regularly on X (Twitter). I'm on Instagram too, but I haven't updated it in quite a while.


I'm currently developing its little brother: Reliefs the Time of the Walks. It's a game set in the same universe as this game, but without puzzles or a story. It's a game of exploration and walking or horseback riding in beautiful environments and forgotten Roman ruins. You can see the development of this game on Twitch and watch all the old dev livestreams on YouTube.


The game is also available on Steam and the Epic Games Store.  But it's difficult to climb back up on Steam, especially when the game was very poorly rated when it was released in 2018 (too early access). Dozens of updates and game engine changes later have addressed these bad reviews, which were justified at the time but no longer are today. However, the damage has already been done...

That's a deeply rough experience and it underscores how difficult it is to be an indie game dev. Years of work only for the project to basically go nowhere as a result of some bugs you had not caught. I'm sorry.

I will try to place emphasis on fixes myself but there is no way a solo developer with no playtesting team will identify every possible issue so this is definitely of concern to me going forward on my own projects.

My recent Escape Simulator level for example was free and graphically tons of custom stuff went into it but it got trashed likewise due to a number of serious bugs and most of them I hadn't even realized existed until release so... that is a good example from my end but at least that was a project scaled in a month not years. It tells me this is a huge project ruining risk and I need to finish not only the core features of upcoming bigger projects but playtest heavily with anyone I can find. Sit back and see where people are getting stuck. Take notes. Adjust and fix as needed.

Hopefully that goes well.

And hopefully you can recover from your first launch as a lot of what you did the first time came close to succeeding.