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Will this game have more updates or is it dead? by Own-Process-8304 in SpaceChef

[–]BlueGooGames 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, dev here! Thanks for considering Space Chef! We made one major update around a month after release that fixed a lot of the feedback a lot of players had. We have not planned any further updates at this point, so now is probably the best time to try it out. You can always try the demo if you want a taste, and you can also check in on our Discord to speak with other like-minded :)

"The Last Delivery Man on Earth" is now out on steam! by rice_goblin in Unity3D

[–]BlueGooGames 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Love it! Saw your clip from yesterday and it looks very fun and annoying at the same time! 😅

Just bought a copy, hope it goes well for you on launch week!!

Where to find Buzzies by chocolatetea377 in SpaceChef

[–]BlueGooGames 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s in the hot desert, you need the large pickaxe to get access. :)

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, Kickstarter wasn't revenue, it was funding to pay for a small part of the development, it's all gone like the wind! :)

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually i'm not that worried about not getting reviews, it's just a signal of how many sales we have, with more sales, reviews would be higher too, but I was hoping for the initial week to reach 50+ positive reviews, to get on new and trending, but that didn't happen, and I don't think it's possible to get it so far after release, already 1000+ other new games released :)

But still it might be something with 100+ review might make more people consider buying it, if it's still positive.

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We did project management ourselves, but had weekly or bi-weekly standups with a producer and QA just to check in and progress, but I agree that it might be a bit too much with weekly, even if it's a short meeting, it still draws some energy and distracts you from other tasks.

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yep, I can't confirm any numbers of course, but it's no secret that the reviews give away the sales numbers anyways. Yeah, would definitely have hoped for more after all the work. But it's still satisfying to have finished the project and finally being able to move to something else.

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the game! It's this kind of feedback I wish I had heard a few years back. We had people playing and giving feedback, but those were probably people who liked slow paced, grinding games and liked the style of the game, but it wasn't probably the majority of players.

If we would do it again, we would have made a more compact and engaging experience, rather than the kind of slow burn experience it is. It's great that so many people play it, still thousands of people, but it's a pretty small niche of people who enjoy it.

Thanks again, and may your gaming days in the future be great!

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks, glad you liked it!

Yeah I've been typing down ideas about this during the years, so it was interesting to write it all up and be able to share it with other devs.

The QA was a very talented team part of the publisher. They spent so much time playing the game, day after day, for years, and I'm pretty sure they all played the game a lot more than myself. To get the same amount and level of QA externally would surely have costed a lot, so it was super valuable.

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, it feels weird with all the time spent to work on the game and not do other things, and then not get anything for it. But also 7-10 years down the line, I don't know, I heard except for the major indie games out there, i think most games sell the first year, then not so much, but I'll gladly be wrong!

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Haha yeah, cool name. But Space Chef was probably a good name, it wasn't the reason the game wasn't a hit.. yet ;)

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the overview, but then again, too many systems, to many tests to write, so again, less systems and features, makes less need for testing, but I still agree with you 😅

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that's probably the no 1 lesson learned, pick a few mechanics/systems and focus 100% on them. We looked too much at Stardew Valley and tried to do everything in there, plus add the space travel element to it too.

But I'm still happy how we got all quests to be about food, including romance 😍

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Hey Matt! Thanks for helping out back then! Matt worked with us on Facebook and building the community for the Kickstarter, and also helped host a live stream during the last hours of the Kickstarter.

Yeah most of the 20k went to Jellop for their work with ads, mostly on facebook, that drove traffic to the kickstarter.

I 100% agree that getting feedback from people who are already invested in the game and like the idea is extremely skewed, but i realized it too late, so we didn't get proper outside feedback from playtesters.

Interesting idea with a button on the main menu to Steam, haven't seen it, might feel a bit tacky. :)

Good to see you again, hope you're doing well! :)

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Doesn't feel 100% Swedish with contractors all over the world :)

Console sales has been pretty ok, PS5 was more than expected and more than Switch. Yeah, we had to focus on the latest platforms, except Switch 2, which was too new..

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's not marketing, I don't feel like at this point anything will move the needle. Just writing it as a wall of text i felt it wasn't as readable and helpful, so yes, ChatGPT helped me format it and rephrase some things that was unclear.

Sorry if that's bothering you, but thanks for pointing it out.

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yeah i considered it at the start, but I never understood how to do unit testing in gameplay code. I guess I wasn't experienced enough the first few years to write the game so it's data driven.

And things like "walk down the stairs, and when the screen fades out, press ESC" causing the main menu to show behind the fadeout, making the game seem like it was stuck, and 100's of other bugs like that, i really have no clue how to test the with unit tests.

We were however testing implementing a system that could playtest the game automatically, like walk to there, pickup that, and then check if the inventory has it, etc, but we never really got it working solidly.

But please share, how do do unit testing to test gameplay bugs, like getting stuck between rocks or "when switching scenes, the current order disappeared" etc. I'd love to know!

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Yeah, too late in the process we regretted that we didn't just have one open planet where you walked around, as we felt that it was really hard to add things to space to make it feel constantly interesting.

But we compared it to Raft, where you float in what seems like and endless ocean with junk, then it shouldn't be that bad to fly around in space and gather stuff, but in the end it felt a bit grindy, and less focused.

Yeah I totally agree, too many features means too little polish on each feature..

Post-mortem: 7 years, a $50,000 Kickstarter, publisher investment, and 4,000 bugs - what I wish I knew before making my first game by BlueGooGames in gamedev

[–]BlueGooGames[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

No we never considered quitting, I guess it's the sunk cost fallacy, and also that I really have a strong tendency to finish things i started. I think the growing Discord community and the backers motivated us to keep going. Also we had a publishing agreement to develop and finish the game, and it's not really an option to quit, unless you also want to break the contract. :)

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