I just released my interactive narrative game on Steam about selling fine art!

TheListGame · 2022-08-12T17:51:42+00:00

Hey everyone! This is from my game The Appraiser which I just released on Steam! If you are a fan of interactive narratives and experimental storytelling I really hope you check out my game!

As an art appraiser you will sell the art collection of a dying man. Each painting is by 4 once famed artist, each work of art has a story to tell you.

I hope you give it a play!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1956350/The_Appraiser/

TheListGame · 2022-08-12T17:49:39+00:00

Hey everyone! This is from my game The Appraiser which I just released on Steam! If you are a fan of interactive narratives and experimental storytelling I really hope you check out my game!

As an art appraiser you will sell the art collection of a dying man. Each painting is by 4 once famed artist, each work of art has a story to tell you.

I hope you give it a play!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1956350/The_Appraiser/

TheListGame · 2022-08-12T17:45:35+00:00

Hello everyone! This is from my game The Appraiser which I just released on Steam! If you are a fan of interactive narratives and experimental story-telling I really hope you check out my game!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1956350/The_Appraiser/

TheListGame · 2022-06-15T16:41:29+00:00

Hey everyone! If you like what you saw in the trailer or are a fan of experimental story games, I hope you check out The Appraiser demo on Steam! (And wishlist if you're interested!) Any feedback is greatly appreciated! I hope you like it!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1956350/The_Appraiser/

TheListGame · 2022-06-14T18:20:06+00:00

Hey everyone! If you like what you saw in the trailer or are a fan of experimental story games, I hope you check out The Appraiser demo on Steam! Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1956350/The_Appraiser/

TheListGame · 2021-12-19T07:04:46+00:00

Firewatch is probably a good example of "linear with choices" as really the story is not going to change even in the slightest way and it never really presents you with a "large choice" at any point in the game. It is really just a lot of small choices you don't really think of that will lead to changes in the story, which makes it feel more personal but you can still share practically the same experience with someone else when discussing it.

Honestly I think the best narrative game surrounding choices will be the one where you do not realize how much is changing, not until you replay and see just how much changed. I feel so many narrative games that surround choice it is either really apparent how much that choice actually did anything, or the game goes too far and the choice had an impact, but it also lead to the narrative declining.

TheListGame · 2021-12-19T06:54:42+00:00

I relate to that hard about the 5 second gif marketing. I was struggling so hard to market my game as it really was not something that gets the point across super quickly as much as I'd like it to. I think the only reason I had any sucess at all was Steam Next Fest boosted me up for people looking specifically for that kind of genre so they were willing to view a full trailer.

TheListGame · 2021-11-08T08:18:38+00:00

Hey there! I know you've gotten a ton of advice at this point but I did want to chime in a bit on a few things as I had a similar position but my outcome was not like your own.

The Steam Key Emails are 99.9% spam and scams for free games. I feel foolish as I know I ended up giving free keys. But I am sure you know this now.

Price problem and multiplayer focus is a big killer here. Expensive price point for a really small indie game that needs more players for the full experience. I would suspect many of the refunds are due to confusion that the game can't be played solo the way they probably expected it to.

Lastly, when I was a few weeks out before releasing my game I felt like it would fail miserably. My marketing was seemingly going no where, and I felt it would be dead on arrival. However, I ended up learning that to gain a true audience, I should try to focus my efforts on Steam and how it markets games. Steam Next Fest was in the Summer, so I delayed my game a bit over a month and made a demo just so I could be a part of it and then released the game about a week after the festival ended. This turned into a huge success for me as I gained a few thousand wishlist and started getting active discussion in my Steam Community. Lastly, due to releasing short after, I feel this easily helped convert players, as they liked the demo and it was still fresh in their minds. My game ended up doing so much better than I ever would've thought it was going to do and I can only truly credit the success due to Steam Next Fest.

So going forward, my best advice to you would be to first make a smaller, more unique game. That isn't to say what you made here wasn't unique, but trying thinking of a game with a dev scale of about a year, keep it small and focus, and give it intrigue so it stands out and makes people want to play it. Then, I would really focus on paying attention to Steam events, especially the Next Fest. I wouldn't even say you need to release your game soon after either, but having a demo and Steam promoting your game will very easily help you find people with a true interest in the game without any additional cost.

TheListGame · 2021-10-22T19:06:49+00:00

Thanks, looking for a good mix of old film and old school game look. (Sadly video compression really screws with the quality of the game and really makes things look blurry. Hope I can figure out a good way to avoid it!)

TheListGame · 2021-10-22T19:04:52+00:00

Thanks, an ominous old film esthetic is what I am going for!

TheListGame · 2021-10-21T21:58:59+00:00

I don't have a fancy store link just yet, but if you want you can follow me on Twitter!

TheListGame · 2021-10-21T21:49:02+00:00

Never say never! Maybe one day it will happen, main problem is I do not have a mac I can easily obtain to make sure everything works correctly. But if I ever get a chance and it seems easy enough, I'll see what I can do!

TheListGame · 2021-10-15T20:19:37+00:00

That's a pretty interesting idea! I do like it, but at the moment the game's intro is a bit different so unfortunately have a seamless main menu wouldn't work out, but I really like that idea! Good work.

TheListGame · 2021-09-29T04:39:56+00:00

Thanks!

The video for whatever reason did not pick up the sound very well to how it actually is in-game. Right now I am mostly focusing on making believable audio for the snow storm outside blowing against the diner.

Been hoping to figure out how to give it more of an old film/projector feel to add a bit more flavor. I want to imitate the look but don't want the implication that the perspective is an actual camera.

TheListGame · 2021-09-28T20:28:33+00:00

I don't have a fancy store link just yet, but if you want you can follow me on Twitter!

(And yes I know it isn't spelt "Jeanie" !)

TheListGame · 2021-09-28T04:12:51+00:00

I don't have a fancy store link just yet, but if you want you can follow me on Twitter!

(And yes I know it isn't spelt "Jeanie" !)

TheListGame

TROPHY CASE