I like how this grew in time. Will there be a demo when the game launches ?

Thank you. I am not yet sure I want to release a Demo but surely I will have a closed beta
Meantime
More SciFi/horror movie reference
I tried to create an environment based on the movie "The Mist" more exactly the pharmacy encounter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCmKg928Cfk

So far I got the layout and the eggs just that in my version instead of spiders are worms.
Hope you guys enjoy

So, big update.

Working on jungle map enviroments and travel map system

More open space maps

exo armour :D

Also the stats are going to be invisible in final version to increase the survival feel

and small adjustments on travel map

Promotional update

Our Discord is up and running: https://discord.gg/h3aFcf9

UPDATE

the final game screen is the path choosing a screen, basically, after the player exits a zone he can choose which zone to visit next during his journey, each zone will cost him one day, after all, days are finished he will only have the option(also he will unlock) final zone.
Note that during city travel he will use fuel.
With this design, I think we can extend gameplay time to as much as we want with the condition to have enough random pool content not to become repetitive

Since I had a medic in the squad I thought it was a good idea to visit the hospital in order to have my medic interact with medical equipment in the hope of making more progress for a vaccine - on the downside a door after it's opened it stays open, might want to add a barricade door mechanic in the future

Order of priority ?

- baricade

- loot

- defense pozition

- explore

More tests and more tests ...

We reach alpha 0.5 on our Discord

Curently testing out full squad of 6 characters

So some news, after more test sessions the results were good on the combat/explore gameplay, addictive & fun but bad on the travel map system so we had to change the design and start the main map travel concept from almost zero again.

Now there will be just one main road, during this main road there will be checkpoints with 1 scenario mission(not optional) and after you beat the scenario mission you will have access to the other location from that checkpoint(optional/grinding missions). Each time to move forward to the next checkpoint it will take 1 day, when day counter reaches 0 you will be at the final mission, and at this moment you better prey your squad is godlike

Also a question for the designers

What is your opinion on healing: you want to be able to heal on a travel map even if you have no medic(this option will make thing easier but non-survival realistic + will make engineer class not so critical to have in squad) or only to be able to heal in the base and during combat, if you have an engineer in the squad (this will make thing harder but will increase the survival atmosphere + will make the medic class more critical to have at least 1 in the squad)?
Having the option to choose mode is not an option.

Just passing through, posting a screenshot from the new travel map system update, we implemented action points per day, still requires some small visual polish but it is mostly complete.

We also must decide on the research screen, currently, the new design contains 4 main tabs, skilldex, inventory, car workshop, and R&D + the standard travel map screen

Happy new year!

Outside area. 

my attempt to complement the main story with environment storytelling

Side art update

made a banner

and having a bit of fun with pre-made shadows

And some "fan art"

Chromosome evil strike team versus a monster from another developer game.

We decided to remake the tutorial.

In the final version, we are going to make the road animated & loopable while conversation and basic instruction are issued within the APC, also we plan to combine them with the story.

The main inspiration for both interior and exterior of the squad APC is:

So here it is:

Can you guess from which movie is this from? :)

So, the tutorial is now in the final implementation stages.

Few notes:

- tutorial miss one is for basic controls learning mixed with a bit of story and setting out the mood of the atmosphere

- after the first-time player finish the tutorial he will get an achievement for it that will have as a reward a skip tutorial button unlock for next time he starts a new game(I want all achievements to give rewards that boost re-playability)

- in the tutorial mission, 1 player will be outside any danger but in mission 2 he will have a small taste of danger

- I want everything the player does to feel like a reward, for example in order to unlock the interface player must press some buttons in the command APC. He can choose(optional) if he already wants to move the mouse on them and see the tooltips now or later

Screenshots of the 2 tutorial missions

Edit:

and vehicle version for cutscene and normal maps

Mockup/little spoiler for one of the upcoming bosses in Chromosome Evil.

Not much time to post lately, lots of stuff happening in the background of this development, good and bad.

And tactical map design for this scenario.

You will need to excuse me, the text from the design pic is full of mistakes and hard to understand, it is meant to be only for my eyes and programmer eyes. So as you can see we are pretty chaotic but it works just fine, we have a lot of history behind so on this final process of development we are going to work guerilla style.

Since our game is made in C++ and all shadows and lights must be hand drawn/animated, I now resumed some of the light "systems" polish. On the good side, with such a system the game will basically run even on a potato computer.

My aim here was not to create realistic lights but rather atmospherical ones.

- top layer got an alpha object with main shadow shapes

- all walls and big objects generate a shadow PNG 

- light object shapes used to cut through the generated wall shadow 

So each time a map starts the game will generate one huge shadow / light layer PNG. We also got light animations that we had to fake trough some torture procedures.

So here are a few possible shadow/light combos that we use in the game. Hope you enjoy

UPDATE.

We have now the final scenario design. Please note that the game will have a high re-playability value core pilar. SO in addition to the 4 main endings path, those endings will also have 2 additional endings based on secondary vaccine and satellite quests + a variation based on player choices in random encounters. Also, all days between main scenarios got high random elements. In addition to this, we also got a starting quiz that will affect player start bonuses and also we made all achievements to give rewards on new games.

So I have a few minutes so I was thinking to share a bit of the game history.

The first instalment of this game was made in flash and it was my second flash game made(i think it was in 2011 and was called "awaken front line"). I collaborated with Sergey D. , the game got featured on Kongregate, Newgrounds and all major flash game portals. And here is how it looked like back then:

[...some more flash games made and experience...]

Then flash died and I had to migrate to PC / Steam, for me it was like "WOW" I could not even dream of reaching Steam but since I had no other choice I thought to myself I can at least try. So it took me 8 months of development to make the first PC version of this game series, I had 3 programmers abandoning the game and only 4th one managed to finish it, Dmitry N. and because of problems the game did not get polished, did not get balanced, had very little content, had bugs ... BUT ... despite this, the people loved the concept and I managed to get a positive rating and give more than 100k units.  and here is a screenshot of it:

[ ... more history that I do not have time to go into details, I made and released more Steam games not related to this project, some via publishers and some via self-publish...]

and then I got back with my default programmer and mentor Sergey D. to make this game as truly intended from the beginning. Took us 4 years so far but luckily I had some funds from my other game releases to survive and a day slave job. SO here is the evolution to compare with the current version of Chromosome Evil:

Hope you guys enjoyed this little history page :)

UPDATE.

And here is the first actual screenshot for the above Lovecraft tentacle monster design + scenario design above.

The outside area is not polished and I will probably replace the outside urban theme with farm theme to be more related to "he who walks behind the corn" aka the movie "Children of the Corn" . ALso, I want to make it darker and more horror.

Will add soon some gifs and a final map layout screenshot.

UPDATE time

Ok, so I removed the urban theme and replace it with a cornfield/farm theme. It is still a work in progress, I still need to add some details in the building and on the outside zone.

I think I will remove the trees.

On the lower side of the map, can you find an easter egg here?

Hint: from a movie

On the upper side of the map. Also if the monster is killed player can use that off-road to move forward.

Can you find another easter egg here?

HINT: from a game

And here is the monster emerging from the upper side

Did some more map polish so it is time for some gifs (still not 100% done)

The exit corridor is full of dead bodies from the first strike team, the bodies and dead tentacles are inspired from the hive from "Aliens" with a mix of "The thing" creature design. We also added some basic animation of bugs and flys on dead bodies + the animated fog.

And here is the actual Lovecraftian Alien creature.

I only did basic breathing animation and a bit of rattlesnake on his tentacles. The eye rotation is code-based and always rotate towards the target

Monster got 3 states: idle(vulnerable), tentacle attack(most deadly), and birth(spans worms, the one I used in the screenshot).

Also, you can manually target the barrels to deal extra optional explosion damage, oh and also if you do not kill the worms fast they grow

hope you enjoy

I think of starting a small development blog series about How can you add horror/thriller in a real-time tactical game.

Big idea is to use different phobias but in a smart way. 

EPISODE 1 

- BUG PHOBIA: in most residential houses maps there is old food so each time I place 1 or 2 animated bugs, sublime to appear from time to time from under table nothing too exaggerated, sometimes I also combine them with some animated fly`s but in this current map I want to really mess up players with BUG phobias so under the animated light that flickers from time to time I placed a huge amount of bugs. I also plan to later make a room full of bugs that the player must move his squad through. Note that bugs do not have any mechanic, this is purely psihological

- MIND PLAY - PSYCHOLOGICAL: during this stage, the player does not know anything about the creature's origin, it can be a religious factor, military experiment, alien factor, and so on. So in this map, I placed a pentagram to encourage religious plot affirmation but then again under the flickering light I placed some dead tentacles coming from the wall that can also move the mind toward a Lovecraftian type of plot and not removing the idea of an alien invasion either, I mean the pentagram can be just the work of a madman.

-MIND PLAY - MECHANICS: in most residential maps thing is simple, you enter the map and zombie type enemies start coming according to your aggro level(aggro level is based on how the player plays the game) but if you enter on this map with lower then LVL 3 aggro, no monster will come, the player will not know this so he will always be on edge, and if you enter this map with aggro LVL 4 or 5 then very strong monsters will come, the kind of monsters that the player will not normally encounter. Basic by doing this I train player's minds to always have a certain fear/caution of the unknown.

- MAP ARCHITECTURE - CHEAP SCARE JUMP: this is one of the very few bathrooms that got a dark edge from where monsters can come, note that after many of the other buildings exploration if the player sees the bathrooms and dark edge but never had any monsters come out from there he will have a nice surprise when this design element will be different this time.

- MAIN MECHANIC: the player can always leave the building whenever he wants but then he will miss out on the looting rewards,  this will be placed in balance with perma-death and unique characters that the player can get attached to (either because of invested equipment in that character, or past history or purely by personality trait based on text lines) so the player will try hard to keep his squad alive and will always be on edge of decision making.

Hope you enjoyed

PS: I do not know if I will continue this series because soon I must concentrate my attention on marketing and actual scenarios + ending + loot more work :(

So I received feedback regarding the thumbnail of the Chromosome Evil steam page. I took it very seriously so I remade it.

Old:

Iteration A

I am not happy with this but I wanted to share it

And now final iterations, I got 2 of them, the only difference is the font, maybe if someone wants to help me out can vote one of the 2 so it would be easier for me to make a decision:

Just finished all remaining banners and capsules, I think it is safe to say now I got the final logo for the game, since this is a strategy game mix with Lovecraft-horror I think it is only fair to use the iconic tentacles and triangle. Hope you enjoy it!

Minor update new banner

I thought about sharing some of my desk inspiration "tools" for Chromosome Evil

So the time has come to also give something back to the communities who supported and encouraged me during this project.

I decided to make an original credit screen, from which all can benefit, basically, when you press on credit button you will be taken to an actual interactive map and you will have a custom pre-defined squad, all interfaces will be hidden except for a "back" button. I will go throughout all rooms and try to explain my logical perspective for each.

Corner up left the room:

- this one is for the people from my Discord that were active and supported me a lot, this is my way of saying thank you to them and solidify the community by confirming their involvement.

Corner up the right room:

- this one is for another Discord rooms that I have posted about my game and got some sort of support & feedback during development, this was a nice thank you to them, it also allowed me to bypass some internal rules to post this picture in other Discord sub-rooms other than "#art"/"#game dev" , for example in "General" and also be able to tag "@admins" / "@moderators" because I mean cmon, it's an honest thank you, they would not delete/ban post because of this, on the contrary, I got some nice love on some Discord rooms.

Corner down left:

- this one is reserved for Itch.io and Gamejolt, best bridges when going indie dev since they both in my heart, both got their own special rooms. I also plan on doing a tweet and tagging them, last time I did this Gamejolt returned the love and re-tweeted my tweet earning me some extra subs.

Middle Up:

- this room is reserved for people that are not part of the team but their contribution was a big addition to the game, they also deserve it.

Middle down:

- this room is reserved for actual developers of the game, me and Sadoff(Sergey Dovganovsky), and ofc the company logo (info: it is an LLC), I am small I know but I do hope to make this brand solid on a long term.

Corner down right:

- one room is reserved for Steam, they will surely not notice it but they surely deserve it for how much the gaming community evolved because of them.

- and one room is reserved for Tigsource since my dev blog got so much love on it, it surely also deserves its own room, and a thank you, it's the least I can do.

Also on outside window areas there are more names, in front of some personal names and left and right alleys I left them blank for now.

Also here is the animated part of Itch.io and Gamejolt rooms, I also tweeted and said thank you to the booth, I hope that is ok!

https://twitter.com/16bitnights/status/1382113360074964993?s=20

Hope you enjoy it!

So these last 2 weeks I concentrated on random map environments/map design & marketing and since I posted a bit about marketing the last few days now it's time for me to post some new screenshots. Hope you enjoy it!  

and a gif

Time to do some updates on survival and choice matters elements of the game

UPDATE time

I was thinking of a new way of boosting the horror element by adding prelude maps for scenarios, for example, this prelude map is for that huge boss fight a few pages earlier. this map is supposed to:

- offer hints about how can you beat the monster(aka you need long-range weapons)

- offer information about the game lore

- some character development

- tension slowly increases by fear of the unknown and mistery.

--------------------------

We had this script for text speech bubbles from characters:

1. Default (The speech bubble appears automatically when you enter the map, the conversation plays automatically, all speech bubbles coming from vehicle are the conversation between the driver and the commander/you )

- Sir? We've reached the last known position of "Gamma Squad" and from where they sent the distress signal.

- Very well, heads-up people! This was a 30-man platoon, if they ran into trouble, we can only pray that we can make a difference.

- No offense sir, but seeing that other Trojan, in that state, I do not feel too comfortable staying here for long.

- I understand your concern, nonetheless, we must scout and secure the area. If nothing comes up, then we can leave...

-------------------

Triggers: When you click with a character on these triggers the character will move close to them and do a fast interaction (around 5 seconds). The range of the interaction can be double it's normal distance because this is an investigation, not an actual object interaction. Each will have a speech bubble according to the class interacting with it (Soldier, Medic, Engineer)

2. 

If you click with a Soldier, the Soldier will say:

- What the hell happened here? This is supposed to be a top-of-the-line armoured vehicle and now look at it.

If you click with a Medic, the Medic will say:

- Judging by the damage inflicted, I estimate the creature that did this had a large mass and was at least as big as the vehicle itself.

If you click with the Engineer, the Engineer will say:

- It looks like whatever attacked this vehicle did a number on it, slicing through it's armour like a tin can. It's beyond repair.

3. 

If you click with a Soldier, the Soldier will say:

- I don't like this at all! I've a bad feeling about this whole operation.

If you click with a Medic, the Medic will say:

- No traces of blood, they were dragged out alive! Judging by this behavior I suspect the creature does not plan on simply attacking - but consuming us!

If you click with the Engineer, the Engineer will say:

- This gives me the chills, are you sure you need an engineer for this mission?

4.

If you click with a Soldier, the Soldier will say:

- There was a fight here! Looks like many rounds were fired, but there's no blood?!

If you click with a Medic, the Medic will say:

- Hmmm... With so many rounds fired and the lack of blood, I assume the creature can attack at range? I recommend switching to rifles and SMGs now!

If you click with the Engineer, the Engineer will say:

- Well, at least they put up a good fight!

5.

If you click with a Soldier, the Soldier will say:

- 'You scared? It's just a scarecrow!

If you click with a Medic, the Medic will say:

- Was that scarecrow there when we arrived?

If you click with the Engineer, the Engineer will say:

- Man! I hope this'll not turn all "Children of the corn" on us!

6.

If you click with a Soldier, the Soldier will say:

- Come quick! I found a... hand?..

If you click with a Medic, the Medic will say:

- This hand was ripped from the body! Guys?! Seriously! We are dealing with a new and extremely dangerous creature here!

If you click with the Engineer, the Engineer will say:

- I didn't sign up for this!..

7.

If you click with a Soldier, the Soldier will say:

- We're sitting ducks here! Let's check out that house up ahead and then get the hell out of here!

If you click with a Medic, the Medic will say:

- If any of "Gamma Squad" survived, they are probably in that house up ahead.

If you click with the engineer, the engineer will say:

- That house up ahead can provide us some cover!

---------------------

Unfortunately because of engine limits my Programmer partner decided that speech bubbles are to hard to implement at this point but I still keep the prelude map, I just hope I got enough visual hints to show all that text was explaining

remindedr this is the scenario map that follows:

UPDATE.

The second Tutorial stage is done.

The first one was the interior of APC where the player learns basic controls + story lore and some character development.

This second one puts player in danger and teaches him about interactions + some lore.

The old tutorial was to standard, it was in a building and we remade it because we want players to always experience new environments and situations, we do not want players to get bored. ALso, all mechanics will be gradually unlocked not all of a suddent, and as much as possible we try to mix them with game lore and story plot.

Small update

So we decided to add a reset skill button, the twist is in order to have this option you need to first research it in the R&D screen. Mostly of R&D upgrades open actual features, not stats bonuses, another example would be the minimap, you first need to research it in R&D, and after you can build it in Car workshop as a permanent upgrade and one of the most critical features is the active command mode aka (tbs), in order to have this feature you must also first research it and after building it in Car workshop

Since we started the Beta we realized that we have a ton of mechanics that are not explained. so we now work on bug fixes and on making the learning curve more clear & user friendly.

Here is a mockup of the AP system explained.

Variant A

Variant B

We are also going to lock many features from the game and make them unlock gradually to give the overall feel of a reward rather than an actual tutorial.

 We decided to split the game into 3 parts

part 1(all this will also be in the demo version)
- tutorial/learning curve
- 20% random generated content
- fixed path
- plot/story/lore introduction
- 8 unique scenarios
- 5 days of travel map

part 2 (this will be the core of the game)
- more flexibility, allow the player to explore
- 60% random generated content
- multiple paths
- 15 unique scenarios
- 30 travel map days

part 3
- multiple game endings
- 40% random generated content
- 6 unique scenarios
- 15 travel map days

Edit:

Uploaded schematic

Minor update.

Convoy:

To add a bit more of plot logic and mix it better with the tutorial I decided to unlock:

- Car upgrade screen unlocks after the player finds, repairs, and adds to his convoy the mobile repair truck.

- Research & Development screen unlocks after the player finds, repairs, and adds to his convoy the mobile Lab vehicle.

UPDATE

All assets for scenario 06 are done.

I aimed for simple gameplay here, also by this point the player will be familiar with all basic mechanics.

Mainly you must fix the vehicle(doing so you will unlock the workshop menu) by looting components from the map(or if you already have components from the previous exploration even better)and during this time you must also protect the perimeter against the undead. After the vehicle is fixed and you have the key, the exit grid will appear

And a small twist at the end, the player will have a choice. increase Action points permanent + 1 during travel map but get permanent x2 prices in the workshop or do not get the bonus AP and have normal prices in the workshop.

Minor news

We finished all art, design, and maps(in editor) content for part 1 of the game plan, out of a total of 3.

This part 1 represents the introduction to lore, mechanics, and feels of the game and we also consider this to be the demo/vertical slice.

So until 20 July, the programmer works hard on implementing them in the game, so far he managed to implement around 70%. After that, we will have 10 days to do testing and final fixes because in August the programmer will take a vacation for 1 month while I will deal with marketing for the demo(mostly a private Youtuber strategy)

I hope we will have the version done by end of the month otherwise we will have one dead month of development in August

Have a great day

deadlines,deadlines....deadlines

I finally manage to make a coming soon page for this game on Itch.io.

https://16bitnights.itch.io/chromosome-evil

Posting to unlock this topic.

UPDATE

Development map of where are we now and what is left.

UPDATE

GAME STATUS

The demo is finished, we only got around one week of small adjustments left for it, and after we are going to send it to some YouTubers with exclusivity. And overall part 1 out of 3 is done(you can see the full scope of the game with the 3 parts in my previous post). According to the Demo results we decided upon 2 actions: 1. if the demo gets positive received by the YouTubers we are going to invest even more into the project and maybe we are going to do a Kickstarter for voice acting and custom music 2. if the Demo gets a negative reception or no reception at all, we will make some more adjustments and consider making the Demo public and going on the standard path.

TEAM STATUS 

We are both tired af. I feel like I am down on my last battery, My personal life is hard and all my hopes are in this project, 4 years I invested into this, whenever I had a hard time the thought of making this game would motivate me to go on and kept me on the floating line. Now I am approaching the end of this journey and I struggle to milk the last strength from my veins. I am both excited and scared about the upcoming results, And with this said I also want to thank you all for the support, all your feedback was good additional fuel for my motivation.

WHAT IS LEFT

In addition to the previous list, we also made a tasks list based on time requirements. 

15 story scenarios - 500 hours of work

4 endings - 40 hours of work

Achievements - 10 hours of work

Heavy marketing - 1 month before release

That is around 3 months of full-time work, impossible for us since we both have a day job, I can only allocate between 10-20 hours per week and our main deadline is 15 February, and worst-case scenario 15 March.

This being said I hope you had a good read from this small sneak peek behind the curtain.

UPDATE TIME:

Development map status. Done: means the scenario and content is already implemented. WIP: art + design + text + editor map done just requires implementation on scenario path.  Part 1 represents the demo, learning curve, and lore introduction. Part 2 is the core gameplay and part 3 is the endings and final scenarios for the 3 paths.

I want each scenario to have its own atmospheric mood and mechanics and for one of them, I was thinking to make this small experiment for one of the final scenarios and mix top-down with side view to be more dramatic. I hope you enjoy it

While my partner Sergey is busy with last-minute bug fixing and polish before we release the demo, I took a few days off from the main development process to create promotional material for the Twitter marketing campaign which I plan to constantly do 1 month before the release and 2 weeks after the release(the release itself will be in 2022).

I will make a plan for each day what tags to use when to post, where to post, and so on, and by that time I want to already have all promo material so I can concentrate more on real-time engagement.

I used 600x600 for best res for Twitter, nothing spectacular, I will also do some in-game gifs and more.

Preview:

I used both zoom and real size footage so each one got 2 versions.

And here are some mixed ones(I do plan to have a total of around 30 of these pics and around 10 solid gifs)

oh and we also work on adding the second big boss with unique mechanics, still trying to mix RTS with horror.

Forgot about this one

So much work to do

On the last mile of development, I am adding a few shock scenarios with unique twists. 

For example, here the intro will say that just after you deployed the strike team you fall asleep, a weird nightmare where you encounter the "ancient one", the mechanics here are a bit twisted, as in you can ask questions, curious players will surely ask a lot of questions from the question pool but the twist is that the strike team soldiers will constantly lose HP during this state, will the answers be more important than your strike team health?

UPDATE

Working on the game endings.

I must warn you by now that I used minimal style for all artwork in cutscenes, to have more time to work on other features + I like it this way (windows paint ftw)

The game got 3 paths, basically, 3 entire different scenarios based on player choices(+ a lot of random content), so each path will have its own ending but also secondary ending screens based on some actions player took trough out his journey.

And this is the example of the vaccine part(fail state and win state) of the ending(I hope I do not spoil to much just in case some of you actually want to play it when it is done)

That's it for today

The first exclusive first impression video of Chromosome Evil Beta Gameplay 

UPDATE

After this marketing round, we noticed a few issues with our game that were not discovered during testing.
So based on the feedback we now have an extra 1 month of dev time delay because we are implementing these new features:
- The game interface must automatically be zoom in x 2 on large interfaces
- all the text from the game must automatically be zoom in x 2 on large interfaces
- manual reload button on the interface


Also, we noticed some people are a bit skeptical about the save game costing resources, we decided not to remove this feature but we do plan to make it more accessible for example on morale zero the cost of save game will not require food resources just action points and will only cost additional resources when the morale penalty is high.

The difficulty choosing screen is out of the question since we want an exact player experience and by having such difficult options some may choose to go on easy even though the good experience only comes on normal difficulty.
So yes, the game balance will remain at the principle: the game difficulty adjusts according to how you play and what decisions you make.

UPDATE

getting close to the end of development.

Working on achievements

We want to release in 2, max 3 months so you will need to excuse the basic icons for achievements since my time is required on the marketing plan and marketing execution after this.

We also make each achievement with extra rewards for example:

- destroy 100 zombies: gives + 2 bullets on each new game

- upgrade rifle to max LVL: gives + 2 weapon components each new game

and so on... to increase the re-playability factor, along with the multiple paths, multiple choices, and the randomly generated content.

NEXT:

I will work on the release marketing plan, I will also make posts about that too in the hope that it won't be too boring since it's not actually game dev material

Now on to marketing.

The organization is important for me.

When I start the campaign I want to use my time to respond and adjust to all responses so all promotional material will be done ahead of time in order for me to be more efficient.

I will concentrate all the marketing funnel on the Steam coming soon page. And from there I plan to redirect already existing fans to my Discord to keep growing my community.

I split the campaign into 2 parts: Critical & Secondary

Critical

These are tasks that I consider to be essential in the overall release campaign, without them I think the chances of success are considerably lowered.

1. Email list updates

Target: my old custom email list needs an update, some of the content creators may no longer be active and some new content creators may have appeared

Type: part of email marketing

2. Email marketing

Target: youtube content creators, journalists, streamers

Type: slow-burn/fast-burn according to the video release timing and userbase flow.

3. Twitter

Target: Journalists / Curators / content creators - networking

Type: fast-burn campaign, regular/constant posting

5. Gamejolt and Itch.io

Target:  exposure

Type: early access release one day before the Steam full release. And full release on Itch.io and Gamejolt one month after.

Secondary

These tasks I consider to be secondary, the campaign can still do decently without them but surely they can give that extra boost(especially the Discord MK).

Also on some of them, I am doing an experimental approach so I don't know the exact results and some are more aimed toward Branding.

1. Facebook "Chromosome evil"(game) page 

TARGET: for people who already know about the game but search for more information, the extra story presentation will boost the prelude element/slow-burn and can be viewed even after release for extra lore

Type: slow-burn campaign / Branding - Story (close to comic book aproach, extra lore, episodic) hints/artistic/atmospheric marketing campaign.

2. Facebook Pixelart groups

TARGET: extra audience

Type: Indirect Marketing / fishing for audience / fast-burn campaign

3. Facebook "16 BIT NIGHTS"(company) page

TARGET: experimentation/Branding - I want to experiment a bit with minimal investment in some facebook Adds campaign

Type: official news of the release, fast-burn campaign

4. Gamejolt (similar to Twitter mechanics)

Target: The aim is to gain extra exposure from Gamejolt closed community + there are many small/medium size YouTubers on GJ that will also boost this effect.

This campaign is meant to also draw attention to the Gamejolt version release. 

Type: both slow-burn and fast-burn, includes regular posts that will end in a  release

5. Deviantart

Target: extra audience + old DeviantArt subscribers fans refresh

Type: fast-burn and slow-burn, one round, post 10 picture art from game in one day in order to get all new submission section 100% covered. This also helps with Branding.

6. FORUMS

Target: extra audience

Type: slow-burn, I made a post about the game on aliens forums, 40k forums, and other external community forums and now I will bump all threads for a refresh

7. Keymailer & Indieboost

Target: extra audience

Type: fast-burn, The demo will be available for most content creators one day before release to increase exposure.

8. Discord

Target: extra audience, target entire gaming communities

Type: fast-burn, will mostly post links from other campaigns in art, self-promo, and other allowed rooms

9. Itch.io

Target: extra audience

Type: fast-burn, release free version 1 day before Steam release to increase extra exposure and full release 1 month later

10. Reddit

And there is also: Reddit although I do not have much experience there so I will need to improvise along the way

11. Steam news/annoucements

Target: This campaign main goal is to "resuscitate" older wishlist players that forgot about the game and to show activity before release

Type: fast-burn campaign

12. 16 BIT NIGHTS official site

Target: community

Type: Branding, official news

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I cannot enter into details on all points in just one post but for example, I will take:

3. Facebook "16 BIT NIGHTS"(company) page

TARGET: experimentation/Branding - I want to experiment a bit with minimal investment in some facebook Adds campaign

Type: official news of the release, fast-burn campaign

This is meant just for official news to already existing fans and JOurnalists that are interested in our projects.

https://www.facebook.com/16BITNIGHTS/

I will make an announcement post on the official Facebook page of my Company regarding the release and other critical news only. I will also make an event countdown for the release.

Example of content that I will be posting(please note that I am not 100% sure I will release in March but I made this so you understand what I mean)

1. Facebook "Chromosome evil"(game) page 

TARGET: for people who already know about the game but search for more information, the extra story presentation will boost the prelude element/slow-burn and can be viewed even after release for extra lore

Type: slow-burn campaign / Branding - Story (close to comic book aproach, extra lore, episodic) hints/artistic/atmospheric marketing campaign.

This is a bit experimental.

https://www.facebook.com/ChromosomeEvil/

I did not enter this page in any of my marketing funnels but I noticed I get some new views from time to time, mostly I suspect that after people hear about the game and they are interested they do an additional search for it on social media and they stumble upon this page. My goal here is just to solidify already existing fans by posting lore-related content. For example, I took the intro cutscene images and modified them a bit to fit the Facebook criteria and when fans enter this page they will have a nice story to read in order to be more informed by the game's lore. In a long term, this can also help with the branding but this will not cause additional exposure unless the already existing fans are impressed and they do a bit of organic exposure to their friends.

And these are the promotional material that I will be posting for this task, 1 post per day in order not to mess up with the Facebook algorithm

Now if you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer.

Also if you have any suggestions please x 2 tell me so that I can improve, I still got time until February to do so and I don't want to miss anything.

UPDATE TIME

this one is regarding marketing.

What did I do last week while my partner was fixing the last few bugs left? I did a bit of email marketing.

And this is how I split my email marketing priorities until 24 March:

List 1 (past) - for Exclusive Beta footage (I think I posted about these results in the past, I only sent the press kit to 5 YouTubers that I have been following and engaging in their communities for some time such as Nook, Frazz, Splat, and so on) aim here was to create quality branding, not quantity. This list got converted 5/5

List 2 (present) - here I aimed for YouTubers that do upcoming indie games announcements, my list was custom made, again with engagement in time but unfortunately from the 5 YouTubers I aimed, only 2 responded but still, I consider this a success. Please note that for this category I haven`t sent the game only the trailer, release date, and a gameplay video from one of the YouTubers that did one during Beta.

Because indie games fans:

Because strategy game fans:

List 3 (Next) - Here I will target game Journalists, again my list will be small(5-6 Journalists) but I will do solid research first and active engagement. I will also include here a game version with locked content(I don't want too many spoilers out there + I am still doing the exclusive approach not just because I want better chances at bigger people but because I aim for quality in branding)

List 4 (after) - Here I will target very big Youtubers, it will be a 50-50 shoot in the dark because I did not have time to research and engage in all their communities, this list will probably have 10-15 people and if even 1 of them will make a video the goal will be reached.

List 5(after) - here I will target medium size YouTubers, this list will probably consist of around 30 YouTubers, I will also not have time to do many engagements but if branding from List 1 and 2 worked then this should not be a problem and should increase the exposure more as we are getting closer to the release date

List 6(same time with the release) - here I will target the people who subscribed to my site with their emails, ofc here will be just an announcement so there will be no actual game press kit attached. I aim for a big boom so I will try to synchronize this with the Gamejolt & Itch.io free vertical slice release and probably I will also give some keys on Keymailer and Indieboost although TBH in the future I plan to stop using  Keymailer and Indieboost entirely, exclusivity works so much better than paying YouTubers and risking your keys to end up on third party sites on sale.

List 7 (removed) - here the aim was people who do Streams, unfortunately, I will skip this one because I am lacking time & I am exausted, I hope it wont bite me in the ass at the end but I do hope some streamers will pick it up organicaly

As an extra note:

I will be using Gmail when sending out the pres kit because it is most likely not to get into the spam folder.

If you have anything else do check your email chances of reaching into the spam folder here: https://www.mail-tester.com/test-kc6vi0zve or just google for any mail testers.

After you send your email I also recommend dropping a message or a tweet politely asking if the email reached in good condition and if they need additional info, mostly this works best if you already established engagement in their community or a Twitter account. On my list 1, I had this luxury but for future lists, I did not have time to establish a basic engagement with everyone.

What do I scan when creating my email lists for YouTubers:

- the number of subscribers

- the amount of engagement per video(likes and comments) in the report to the subs

- the flow on which videos are released

- the type of content must include my target audience

- the quality of his videos

- last time he was active

This being said, I had a long chat with my partner Sergey who does the programming and brings my design to life(I have huge respect for this man, in 4 years he ALWAYS provided 2 updates per week, no breaks no computer broken no shit excuses) the chat was in regards to the future after release. For me, it is too much to do both A. art, design, testing, story and B. PR, marketing, community management, so after this project I want to choose just one of them, either A or B, I personally incline more for Marketing and PR but we shall see, the decision is not final yet.

I hope you Gentlemen found some useful information through my post.

I salute you!

Thank you guys for all the kind words and support!

A lot has happened behind the curtain last week, my partner might go indie full time sooner than expected because of various reasons but I will let him post about that when the time comes.

Meantime a small brief of my past week tasks

- Press kit / Landing page update/polish: https://16bitnights.com/chromosome_evil/
Because next week I will be on List 3 - Journalists, I need to have the press kit at its best quality, Journalist require a more polished approach when coming to press kits.
My aim here is to get 3 Metacritic approved Journalists in order to get a Metacritic score. I will probably search for similar games reviews and contact those journalists, I only need 3 but TBH my hopes are very low, they are mostly already bombarded with many emails and have very little time + many of them require early engagement and scanning for their preferabilities, this translates into time, time that I have a very limited amount of. I used to be in contact with Owerpowerd noobs but unfortunately, they lost the Metacritic approval a few years ago.
This step is not critical but it is a very solid addition for branding & can help open doors easier for the next steps from my email marketing list.

- Steam Developer Page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/25256606?snr=1_5_9__2000
I also managed to establish my Steam developer page, I should have done this a long time ago but better late than never.

- Update official site news: https://16bitnights.com/
Just a simple update, I created entries regarding things I already posted here, such as a case study on "How to evaluate a publisher", case study on "Email marketing" and the first gameplay video of Chromosome Evil.

- Social media posts regarding my latest entry. https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=73024.0
Since I made this email marketing template I decided to share it in some places like Tigsource, Itch.io, yoyo forums(game maker), and Reddit.

- Twitter: https://twitter.com/16bitnights
I did some posts regarding CHromosome Evil, I also engaged with other people's posts with some likes and minimum comments and I had a few private conversations with some people in the market, basically a bit of networking.

- Discord https://discord.gg/J2E2YWK (PS: feel free to join)
I did a bit of chat with people in the industry(not related to chromosome evil) just for more networking & engagement on external Discord rooms + some community management on my own Discord(I do have a nice level-up system on my community that I will probably also share the template in the near future)

- Tiktok
Yea I installed TikTok, it is very toxic if you ask me but I want to experiment with marketing, I know that most people there are very young and my target audience is mostly 20+ but I still want to try it out.


And that`s it for now gentlemen

So much has happened, I don't even know where to start ...

So I try to stay away from Political topics but unfortunately, some also affect my Game dev career so I will try to describe the events as neutral as possible.

The first event.
Last week my partner Sergey D. decided to quit his main job and go indie developer full-time, he got money for 3 more months but this, in theory, should not be a problem because the game is now finished and the release is just around 25 days away so he should start receiving income from the game sales within a maximum of 3 months and our worst-case scenario on sale projection covered his risk factor.
His worst-case scenario is to make his share around 15.000$ profit within the first year, mainly with all expenses and my share we need to make 50.000$ profit within the first year.
I was so happy for him and I got excited and also started preparing my own job quit moment, I planned main for 22 of May since that is also my b-day even though things are very hard on my day-job I wanted to wait a bit to see the exact release results.
BUT ...
The situation from Ukraine - Russia will affect our situation and we are trying to adapt. Especially since my partner is from Russia and I am from a UN country. Mainly:
1.1 If SWIFT will get banned how the hell can I send him money?
1.2 we discussed a worst-case scenario of him coming to my country to give him cash but then again he cannot take more than 10k $ through Vamal customs + the flights might be banned so he might not be able to come.
1.3 50% of our target audience is from Russia so many of our fans will not be able to use bank aka won't be able to buy the game. How will this affect our game sale projections and estimations?

This is a bad situation for my partner since he got 2 kids to raise and he is the head of the fammily and got nothing to do with the conflict.
After working with him since 2010 on different projects I can clearly say he F***ing deserves to finally get his full-time game dev career independence.
So we keep going forward and see how the situation evolves.



On to the second event.
A few years ago I made a game TAURONOS( https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=59788.0 ) with another programmer from my country Tudor Vaida, we managed to find a Publisher from Ukraine( https://restlesscorp.com/ ) that helped us publish the game on Nintendo Switch and Xbox. He took care of both marketing and the porting process and was very transparent and cooperative so we truly enjoyed working with him. He is one man army, as indie as it gets.
So due to recent Ukraine conflict events, we decided to let him keep all income on Xbox and Switch as effective immediately. He will not be able to make giveaways of our game and porting to PS would require a new contract but with all the income TAURONOS makes on Switch and Xbox he will keep it non-recoupable.


And the third and final event
Marketing, lots of emails sent lots of work I don't feel capable of doing a constructive post about this now, I am exhausted.
But as a small side-event, my partner finally made a social media account on Twitter if anyone wants to drop him a follow https://twitter.com/DovganovskiyS

I don't know what the hell will happen now with this worldwide situation and how will this affect our release and game dev career, I will admit I am a bit scared.



Gentlemen, I salute you!  

12 days until the release

Good news!

Vertical slice/early access is now available to download for free on Itch.io

https://16bitnights.itch.io/chromosome-evil

Good news.

The game was released on Steam.

We still work on improving it based on the players feedback

Work on new content continues.

Here is a preview.
We plan on making an entirely new system for inventory/crafting

Main game version of inventory(old one):





 expanded version of inventory(new one)




and

+ Just made a post about community management if anyone is interested.

https://itch.io/t/2072083/community-management

Today I finally reached my dream and quit my job. Now I am a full-time indie game developer. I only had to invest 10 years of my life to reach this point but it was worth it.

Thank you Itch.io for contributing to this outcome!

We are now working on some extra content for the game and we hope that soon we can release the full version on Itch.io too

we just got accepted into the Fearfestival powered by Feardemic