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[HoroArch]

HoroArch, do you plan on making more games? 

Hehe, yeah, it's likely.  But don't hold your breath - this one took five years, and the last game thing I shipped to the public before that was in 1999.   

[forsaken1111]

Without giving specifics, how have sales been for this one? Better than you had expected? Worse?

[HoroArch]

Without giving specifics, how have sales been for this one? Better than you had expected? Worse?

Without giving specifics, SteamSpy's data can always be seen by the public, so I'm not disclosing anything to point at it.
http://steamspy.com/app/779590

I believe I'm also allowed to rule out the bottom part of their error bar:  It did not sell a negative number of copies.  (grin)

It's been out for a little over two weeks now, and hasn't yet gotten anything Metacritic would call a critic review, so it's entirely possible that many people who would like it haven't heard about it yet.  Or maybe this is just the size of the audience.

However, most of the reviews people have left for it have been positive (93%), so I'm currently thinking of it as a cult movie sort of thing. 

It's also got a fair number of people actually playing it, compared to other indie games somewhat like it; this data is also public.
http://steamcharts.com/cmp/722730,428350,252090,779590#1m

So, the number of people who like it maybe isn't big, but they like it.  That's good enough for me to feel like it was worthwhile.

[forsaken1111]

I was more curious about your expectations and whether it was meeting, exceeding, or falling short of them. I'm getting into game development myself and trying to build up some data points for expectations and realistic sales numbers.

[HoroArch]

Ah, gotcha.  I'll try to keep this short as I doubt it's of interest to most.  I basically tried not to have expectations.

I've noticed a pattern, where making one of my favorite games seems to have pretty good odds of putting the studio who did it out of business, or at least slapping them very hard on the wrist financially so they run back to safer pastures.  I figured I'd be clever and never actually go into business as such, so I can't be driven out of it.    So the entirity of Scavenger SV-4 development was done as a hobby, not as my full time job, and the number of sales I *need* to meet to make my rent next month is 0 +- 0.  I would strongly recommend that strategy.  If you have a business plan that uses terms like "runway" and "burn rate" and is trying to pay you real money while you work before the release, I don't like your odds no matter who you are.  I had to do the business paperwork to sell the game, but I did that at the very end with the finished game in hand, and if I'd never been ready to ship, I'd never have done it.

That said, did I sometimes hope it'd be a sleeper hit and bring in Scrooge McDuck's swimming pool of money?  Sure, I'm human, that sounds great.  Shipping a game feels like scratching an enormous pile of lottery tickets - did you win?  I did pretty good for a hobby windfall, and it's hypnotically distracting to watch the numbers as they continue to roll in.  So far, it looks like I could have probably made more money washing cars for that time, but "make money. make more money." was never my reason for doing it.  I'm more moved by the incentive to have brought something cool to the world.  I think I did that, it's fun to watch people find it.

So, I guess I'd say "meeting", if I had to pick.   

[forsaken1111]

I appreciate it, and I think you're underestimating how many people might be interested.

Have you considered contacting a few youtubers like Scott Manley or Quill18 and asking them to take a look at it? Quill does roguelikes sometimes and he really gets into some similar games. Scott seems to love anything to do with space. I first saw the game on youtube rather than steam, from Nookrium's channel.

[Gabeux]

Great posts I do wish Scott Manley would pick it up. There were pretty meh alpha/beta games that he showcased in the past, so would be cool to see him giving SV-4 a shot - given that it's a great, and complete, game.

Heh HoroArch, I really love your game, so you did accomplish the goal of putting something [very] cool out in the world. Have been telling a bunch of people to try that out, and even had some discussions about the game design and implications, and how it makes the game unique.
Gotta say that since I was a kid (so around 15 years ago) I've been wanting to see games explore "modules as features" more. Like how adding or removing a microphone/camera allows you to hear/see or not, and how you can assign any module to any UI screen in the rover control screen.

Things like X series "Trading System Extension" which allows you to see prices in far away locations, as long as you have something nearby to acquire/relay the info (like a ship or satellite), Flatspace that had different radars and scanners that would be better suitable for certain playstyles (miner vs. bounty hunter, for instance). Deathwar 3030 Redux has a bunch of systems that make your UI richer, smarter and more useful that are "released" [unlock] the further you get into the game.

Guess what I try to mean is, over a decade I've been eager to see not only wider/deeper of progression in weapons/armors/items/parts/skill-trees and so on, but enabling progression of features* themselves.
The risk is that a gaming.."illiterate" might drop the game thinking it has a barely any features, that the game has false advertising, or that it takes too long to unlock a certain feature. Mount&Blade, for a rough example, you gotta put in some hours before you get to manage fiefs and meaningfully participate in large battles and sieges.

With SV-4, you pick features and mount them on your drone, and get to decide which features will have UI readouts. People might not bat an eye, but this makes it so every time you're sending your rover, you might get to discover not only a new artifact/item/curiosity/lore piece, but a feature in itself. That's poetry to me.


Just to be in the clear, I haven't played a ton of AAA games (or even indie games) to affirm this "feature progression" is lacking or rare..but I just can't remember too many games outside the sci-fi and sandbox genres to have much of it.

*: In this post I make a broader use of the word "feature" than normal. Although SV-4 does not open up new game systems per se, like "you found X and unlocked the crafting system", found artifacts might have medium to high impact on gameplay and how you perceive and navigate the gameworld, which is something I could do with a lot more in games.

[HoroArch]

Hah, it's funny you should mention him.  I've never reached out to him, I figure he probably gets a lot of spam, but there has always been a small easter egg just in case he ever ran into it.  Try entering his name for your character name, and observe carefully. 

[forsaken1111]

Hah, it's funny you should mention him.  I've never reached out to him, I figure he probably gets a lot of spam, but there has always been a small easter egg just in case he ever ran into it.  Try entering his name for your character name, and observe carefully. 

Ahaha that's excellent. Just tried it.

Have you considered hosting a global high score system? Some roguelikes do this and then break up scores by season or give specific seeds and have people try to run it within a certain time to see who can get the best score. I haven't seen anywhere to put a seed for this game but just a thought

[ZeroGravitas]

Have you considered hosting a global high score system? Some roguelikes do this and then break up scores by season or give specific seeds and have people try to run it within a certain time to see who can get the best score. I haven't seen anywhere to put a seed for this game but just a thought

client side game + server side high scores never works

[HoroArch]

client side game + server side high scores never works

It's true.  There's kind of an informal highest score battle going on, but making it official would incent somebody to cheat. 

(Also, great handle; "Gravitas" is also one of the ship names the game can randomly propose, in memory of Banks.) 

[deoloth]

Loving the game so far. I found a wonderful thing

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

An IFF!!!

on my second playthrough that was really handy for detecting and getting close to some of the more interesting things.

Kinda wish we could scan things, terrain features and 'other stuff' besides objects, to get an idea of what we are looking at and see a scientific analysis from the computer. But then I am always a sucker for reading deep into things and getting sucked into a games underlining story. Honestly, I had to tear myself from the science station a number of times because I wanted to see each phase of information as it was being revealed.

With all the numbers on the engine's systems and so on, did you consider a high orbit mode at some point? Or maybe there is something I don't know of, seems like I keep hearing murmurs of things I haven't seen yet, and I am curious at how much more I might have to see. 

[ZeroGravitas]

client side game + server side high scores never works

It's true.  There's kind of an informal highest score battle going on, but making it official would incent somebody to cheat. 

(Also, great handle; "Gravitas" is also one of the ship names the game can randomly propose, in memory of Banks.)

thanks - i'll have to keep playing until i hit that one

i think after putting this out, you'd be able to pull in some decent kickstarter money if you did ever want to make another game.

[askovdk]

I've had around 10 runs now and really enjoy it. 

The two first thing I do is:
1: Launch the rover
2: Go back and read the bunk terminal!

As a fan of SF short stories these small and very different background stories put a good frame around each run.
So even if the game is technically the same, then the feel is different.

So far my best run ended with about +100k, and I've had two different 'very bad end' with the -50k modifier. 

[ZeroGravitas]

hit a new personal record but had to cut my run short when i dropped onto a sentinel with serious weaponry - i don't remember it being there when i took off. had some real mysteries to open up, too. next time!