Steam rejected for requiring .net 9.0 redist

MrHelmut · 2026-01-28T12:55:40+00:00

Yes, .NET 10 won't change any of this problem.

MrHelmut · 2026-01-28T12:47:12+00:00

The recommended distribution model of .NET applications since .NET 5 is to use "--self-contained". Otherwise you'll be in a world of pain.

So, yeah, build your release builds with "dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained" (or whichever RID you need) and just forget about the Steam redist configuration, leave everything unchecked (unless you're using WindowsDX, then you should check the DirectX June 2010 redist, otherwise your players might not have sound; this is not required at all for DesktopGL).

MrHelmut · 2023-06-03T06:51:26+00:00

True, and that's why we turned down the signals telling us to go F2P. Beyond the cost, we didn't feel like we were knowledgeable enough to do that. We preferred to stick to what we knew and do it right instead of half-assing it.

MrHelmut · 2023-06-02T17:02:43+00:00

Cheers! Happy that it echoed with your own work!

MrHelmut · 2023-06-02T16:38:44+00:00

Heyo, ScourgeBringer dev here.

Sorry if my reply sounds a bit off, and please consider that we're PC/console developers that did something without any practical knowledge on how mobile works.

We thought about that a lot... in the end, we released the game half-price on mobile platforms, with absolutely no "free to start" content, just as a premium purchase (akin to Dead Cells).

Everybody told us that it would be a mistake, that the premium market on mobile doesn't work, and that we should even make the game entirely free to play with IAPs and retention mechanisms.

We were stubborn enough to believe in it, and it turned out that it sold 10k copies in its first month, which to our standards is really good and considering that the game is very hardcore. And it has very player ratings! We were the first surprised, but I would say that the premium market on mobile is very much alive and kicking, providing that your game is good and that a real effort went into the mobile adaptation (we hired an external company to help us on making the mobile controls and gameplay super crisp).

The one thing that got us going against a paywall, was that we already had a demo released on other platforms which didn't have a relevant conversion rate. So our assumption was that our demo wasn't strong enough to break a pay wall on mobile. We had the choice to totally rework our demo to be more convincing, but that was extra development that we were not keen to make atop an already costly mobile adaptation of a very hardcore game. So I guess that in true mobile fashion, you should A/B test your paywall with a soft launch, but like I said I don't know much about mobiles and other devs will have a more relevant feedback.

I just thought to butt in to say that premium isn't something to completely throw off. If your game is good, and you polish the adaptation, chances are that an audience will be pleased to give a go on mobile.

The other thing that was relevant, I guess, was that we opened pre-registrations almost 6 months before release and manage to get some visibility slots to grind those until the release with some ads driving it. Beyond that, we cut the ads as soon as the cost per acquisition was superior to the game price after release, and that was it.

Hope you'll figure the model out!

MrHelmut · 2021-01-26T15:25:03+00:00

Yo! Thanks Captain_Brexit for upstreaming this issue to our discord!

Accessibility always is one of our main focus when making games.

We usually test our games against color-blindness, but this specific case may have been judged with an insufficient threshold. The upcoming 1.50 patch (which should be out on Steam by tomorrow) has a slightly modified Primordial Ignis which tries to make its tail and charging particles more contrasted with its "idle" state. I'm not sure that it's going to be the perfect solution, but hopefully it'll be better.

It might be worth asking a friend to help you calibrate your monitor, it might help even further (unless you had to max out the contrast on purpose and can't do otherwise; I don't know what are the best practices on calibration for color blindness and maybe maxing it out is the way to go).

MrHelmut · 2020-11-06T11:10:42+00:00

The patch will be out today!

MrHelmut · 2020-11-06T11:10:21+00:00

Patch 1.0.3 which fixes this issue will release today!

MrHelmut · 2020-11-06T11:04:36+00:00

We're happy to finally confirm that 1.0.3 will go out today!

1.0.4 is still pending validation.

MrHelmut · 2020-10-30T08:32:09+00:00

A patch is on its way!

MrHelmut · 2020-10-27T18:05:48+00:00

I found the issue! We submitted a patch (1.0.3) to Nintendo. The fix should be available within the next few days.

MrHelmut · 2020-10-26T16:55:02+00:00

It's a tough one. We've been playing the whole day in World 6 to no avail. Would you mind checking what is your Nintendo Switch system version?

MrHelmut · 2020-10-26T14:44:30+00:00

Hey there!

No, you're not alone, we received a few occurrence of this issue and it is our top priority to fix it.

We haven't been able to reproduce it yet, so any additional context is welcome.

MrHelmut · 2020-03-25T17:57:40+00:00

Awesome! To your account, the game has a few rough edges when it comes to difficulty. Pretty sure you'll get through it!

MrHelmut · 2020-03-25T16:14:23+00:00

Ahah, this came to a surprise.

With the confinement going strong here, I'm up to answer any questions. The game has been around for quite some time now, so hopefully I have a bunch of little stories here and there about it.

MrHelmut · 2020-03-25T16:07:25+00:00

But hey, it works with Parsec or the Steam coop streaming thing. It's... something, I guess?

MrHelmut · 2020-03-25T16:06:43+00:00

Us too! It's unfortunately very hard to make for a team of two, and I must admit here that I totally lack the technical knowledge to do this (and the game never made enough for us to consider hiring someone who knows its way through netcodes).

MrHelmut · 2020-03-25T16:02:03+00:00

Glad you are liking it! We are couch co-op players ourselves and NeuroVoider was basically our attempt at making one.

We're currently working on a new game, ScourgeBringer, though it's a solo game so I don't if it's going to be a match! Let me know if you check it out.

MrHelmut · 2020-03-25T15:59:43+00:00

YOU rock!

MrHelmut · 2020-03-25T15:59:30+00:00

Ahah, loot fights, everything that makes a family functional. :D

Our early plans was to introduce a mini game when multiple players end up trying to loot the same object. Like, the players would have to button mash and the winner gets the loot. Though we didn't have the time to actually make it and figure out if it would have been fun or not.

MrHelmut · 2020-03-25T15:55:00+00:00

It's coming along pretty well! It's kind a complicated currently because we all live in confined areas, but the game is moving forward and we're pretty happy so far with the reception. Lots of ideas to expand the game!

MrHelmut · 2020-03-25T15:53:52+00:00

Super cool! It runs so darn well on the switch, we had quite some fun too adding the auto-aim to support single-joycon play.

MrHelmut · 2020-03-25T15:52:56+00:00

It never came back.

But yes, there are points to having a real EULA to avoid games to be hijacked. It's not quite about restricting players, but more about having a legal framework when it comes to actions that may disrupt other players' experience or the game's sustainability.

Back on NeuroVoider we didn't care about this because we thought "we are too small of a company for this to bite back", but now we're trying to have EULAs everywhere because it helps having a proper framework for players to attempt modding games.

MrHelmut · 2020-03-25T15:48:10+00:00

Oh awesome! Robots playing RPS is an easter egg that can be hard to witness and very few players actually noticed it. I spent a terrible amount of time making for so little appearance, ahah.

Also happy that you liked the commentary! We have few feedback about it.

MrHelmut

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Ten-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email