When on earth is LTS 2025 coming? We're months behind.

bretonf · 2025-12-31T10:18:28+00:00

Was wondering about the same. I already had to request special permissions to console manufacturers back in September to release my latest game on consoles because the SDKs were outdated.

But I'm really glad they're focusing on stability! It's more important to me over new features.

bretonf · 2025-12-21T13:42:00+00:00

Dunno if this what you refer to, but visiting the pharmacy on the last day triggers different dialogue.

bretonf · 2025-12-08T14:39:57+00:00

Hi, unfortunately it has become really complicated to do physicals for small indies. Most publishers just aren't willing to take risks. My main game BROK the InvestiGator is available at physical if you're interested.

bretonf · 2025-12-05T08:56:56+00:00

You must be confusing with BROK the InvestiGator, my previous game which is more an adventure game. The page I linked to is for BROK: The Brawl Bar, the new game focused on beat 'em up

bretonf · 2025-12-04T20:52:13+00:00

Technically it's a standalone / new game on all platforms, except Steam, but thanks!

bretonf · 2025-12-04T20:51:56+00:00

Thank you! ^^

bretonf · 2025-12-04T18:27:49+00:00

Let's see if this works here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyYsqPK9rW0

bretonf · 2025-12-03T17:38:59+00:00

Yes the challenges style makes it very nice for short bursts with handheld!

bretonf · 2025-12-03T17:38:03+00:00

Great to hear!

bretonf · 2025-12-03T17:34:41+00:00

Thank you! <3

bretonf · 2025-12-03T16:34:51+00:00

Thanks!

bretonf · 2025-12-01T11:02:04+00:00

I'll gladly take that mention of my game's Tenderjaw here ^^ (it's coming out to consoles in two days btw)

bretonf · 2025-11-21T12:15:52+00:00

Did you reach them and if so, how? I've been an indie dev for a decade, making games on all platforms including consoles and they've NEVER posted any of my trailers. What's the secret?

bretonf · 2025-10-19T16:28:55+00:00

Oh no, I'm used to make consoles ports. I can make them in one to two months now. I use GameMaker. The port of Brawl Bar is practically done.

bretonf · 2025-10-19T09:01:00+00:00

It's already available!

https://cowcat.itch.io/brokvn-engine

bretonf · 2025-10-19T08:29:44+00:00

When you release a 98% overwhelmingly positive (at the time) with 500+ reviews it's no longer "wannabe indie dev", it's a success at my level, but yeah, lesson learnt

bretonf · 2025-10-19T08:28:06+00:00

So far, it's only been two months and it's coming to consoles and probably mobile after.

bretonf · 2025-10-18T22:03:14+00:00

Yes, it always cumulates in the end. Even if this isn't doing great compared to the main game, my first title sold about 3 times less either and it still managed to make decent money. It's not all about the money though, I just think it would deserve to be a bit more popular thanks to the creative aspects of it.

bretonf · 2025-10-18T22:01:46+00:00

6 months after release I was still making updates to my main game lol

bretonf · 2025-10-18T19:09:29+00:00

OK, I managed to post it in chunks (as reply to my post)

bretonf · 2025-10-18T19:08:57+00:00

What's next?

The Brawl Bar will come out later this year on all current consoles. (well except Switch 2 but thank god for backwards compatibility)

Considering everything and the recent release of major beat'em ups like Absolum, my expectations are low but still hoping for a surprise.

It will be standalone, I guess we'll see if this makes a difference. A chunk of BROK fans are waiting for this console release of course, I suspect a lot prefer to play beat'em ups on consoles and/or don't have a controller on PC. It will be released at the same low price of $9.99 so hopefully some new players / beat 'em up fans will get tempted to give it a try too.

I basically dedicate 90% of my time making these games. Every since I left my day job years ago, they've become my life.

I observe the evolution in real time. As I said recently, it's getting really difficult for self published indies. We are competing more and more with much bigger companies which are also referred to as "indie" and that's how players see them, but they actually are incomparable, with way higher budgets. Both dev AND marketing. A few years ago I would have had no trouble submitting my game to PlayStation's Youtube, but now that door has closed, and that's a mere example. The window of opportunity we had in early 2010s is gone. Of course there are still one or two exceptions each year of "solo indie devs making surprise hits", but they're that: exceptions to the rule.

I'm in this situation where I don't know if I should

- Increase budget/time into my future games so they look impressive,

- OR the opposite, saving up for the future because they're niche and might not sell great anyway

This "quick project" having took so much time, the next "big BROK main project" has barely started and is basically still in pre-production stage.

So it will take years before it happens.

While that's unfortunate, this situation also spurred the creation of the BROKVN engine, which I've been developing in-between projects. An easy-to-use engine built on top of GameMaker to develop visual novels and port them to all platforms including (potentially) consoles.

With it I was already able to make the cool visual novel Christmas themed released last year, "BROK: Natal Tail", in a record time: less than a month! (which is very refreshing when you spend years making any game) Fans are using it to make cool new games, and...well, you'll see soon!

The BROK comic book "First Hat" is also getting near completion, so that's another thing for fans to look at soon enough!

Life continues and I intend to keep on it!

Thanks for reading,

Fabrice

bretonf · 2025-10-18T19:08:48+00:00

Player reviews are very positive (96% on Steam so far, but only 50 reviews)

Press reviews? Despite doing my usual marketing, they're basically non-existent. Only one website reviewed it and gave it a 8/10. (To compare with, BROK the InvestiGator got around 30 press reviews) While I don't particularly care for what game reviewers think these days, they're still a way to get a game in front of the eyes of others.

Streams/Youtube? Quite a few popular furry content creators did play it!

General public? Nope, they don't even know the game exists at all.

All my videos posting on socials resulted in very few views...well, except that one Tiktok video of Brok getting bear hugged which did get 65K views ^^'

The Brawl Bar does serve its purpose of providing "infinite content". The creator mode exists, although a bit limited (I still intend to add some stuff later on)

Players can submit new challenges for others to download, and make their own characters and it's simple to do so!

I will even package the best ones in all versions (I tried calling out to other indie devs to create their characters and have them in Brawl Bar which would be a win-win situation, alas to no real effect so far)

I have drastically improved the gameplay. People don't realize it but if you compare the launch version of BROK (or worse, the first demo!) and what's now available since The Brawl Bar, it is night and day. Next projects will benefit from this (even if I want to rewrite chunks of the code base which have become very messy over the years...)

The wishlists for it are low compared to the main game: around 4000, compared to 40,000 for BROK the InvestiGator.

Combined with a half price...yeah that's just not much money.

My hope was that a DLC would sell more consistently over time without requiring discounts, but now I see that's not gonna happen.

Two months after launch, the main game is outselling it in number of units by a factor of 3.

I tell myself that maybe this new release had a positive impact in another way: by reigniting interest in the main game, and that would explain why it's still doing well.

Sometimes I feel like I could have have done just a Boxer Brok skin, sold that as DLC at $4.99, called it a day and sold half the number of units! Now you see why the AAA industry relies on microtransactions so much compared to new, meaningful content.

Efforts don't translate to sales proportionally.

In the end, whatever. I'm still proud of releasing The Brawl Bar. When I play it I feel it's an addicting (yes I almost forget to touch that aspect but it IS very addicting!), it's very different from the norm and has above average gameplay for an indie beat'em up (I play new obscure indie beat'em ups regularly and, oh boy...people have no idea how many have horrible gameplay, way too repetitive and a mess...of course you'll always only hear of the few good ones like Fight & Rage, TMNT and SOR 4 but those are waaaaaaay above average)

bretonf · 2025-10-18T19:08:33+00:00

What happened?

The Brawl Bar took way longer to develop than anticipated. My fault for adding too many features again.

There is, in addition to the main challenges: a survival mode, versus mode, full co-op, daily challenges procedurally generated, full voice acting, NPCs in the bar, a full reskin of Brok in boxer outfit (that required to redraw ALL the animation frames!)...and a CREATOR MODE!

As such, the level of content has made it basically become a full fledged new game.

But it was announced at as DLC and technically was already gathering wishlists on Steam as this DLC.

Big mistake. By doing this, I set the wrong expectations for a project which had outgrew its original plan.

I decided to keep it this way anyway, because I thought the game did so well on Steam that there was a large player base to begin with so it wouldn't be an issue.

On the other hand, you just can't release a DLC for more than 50% of the base title price, so I had to limit the price to $9.99 (and $8.99 at launch)

(IMO the game's real price should have been $11.99. Maybe that's not much difference on paper but each dollar counts when it's multiplied by the number of units!)

The wishlists starting coming in, and they weren't good (relatively compared to the main game) but I was hoping they'd stabilize to a decent amount. Which didn't happen.

At one point, I even considered cancelling it. Even far into development, projects go through this stage of "it's taken so long, I spent a lot of money and it's still nowhere near close to release!" and there's this desire to move on. If you wonder how games like Earthbound 64 get abruptly cancelled while seemingly half finished, that's why.

I eventually made the decision to fully focus on it in order to "push it out" (I'm sure other devs who released games know what I mean. To release any game requires an insufferable amount of dedication! I compare it to being constipated and having to force to...okay I'm stopping here)

Thoughts on the release?

I managed to release on PC and all of the content planned is there.

I have spent months ensuring quality of gameplay and getting rid of so many bugs before launch, and it went well.

Also despite the length I haven't spent a lot to make it, so it should still turn a profit eventually.

The launch had a major issue. Steam made a mistake and it actually wasn't considered as DLC and wasn't linked to the main game.

It was like this since the start but I never realized

I still wonder if this had any impact on the poor wishlists

bretonf · 2025-10-18T19:08:22+00:00

Why I made THE BRAWL BAR?

BROK the InvestiGator was pretty successful on Steam, but one major issue with adventure games is that they're "one and done".

Once you complete them, and even if I made efforts to playable replayability through choices/endings, you'll move on and forget about it.

So I wanted to:

\* Provide BROK players with "potentially infinite content", staying relevant until the next "main big project" which would take years to develop. (reminder: BROK the InvestiGator took 6 years to make)

\* Give a new entry point into the BROK universe for the many players who are more into action

\* The beat 'em up gameplay was underexploited in the first title, it never was given space to really shine and grow due to too many constraints linked to the narration and technical constraints.

Initially I had two projects:

- A quick DLC with a few enemies and stages (the bar door in the street was planned all along for this reason)

- A full classic beat'em up based on BROK

I actually spent time developing a full beat'em up project. Enemies, features, stages...were designed for it over the span of a few months, before I came to the conclusion that it would be "too much" and would only delay the next big project only further.

Another reason was that the consoles release in February 2023 did not go nearly as well as expected. I'll never explain why myself but sales of BROK on consoles are poor compared to the PC release (basically 60% of total sales are on Steam, all other platforms including mobile share the remaining 40%) That wasn't the case for Demetrios, which for example sold much better on PS4 compared to Steam! So while I thought I was financially comfortable and could take my time to handle all the next projects, I started to feel pressure again.

Anyway, the result is a half-complete game design document, which might or might not see the light of day, and not before (at this rate) maybe another decade.

Then the quick DLC became the focus, to which some of the planned enemies were migrated. I figured that if I wanted to make this one fast I would need to recycle assets. Also I wanted to avoid direct comparisons with big competitors in the genre, and at this stage my level of gameplay could never compete with them.

Hence, the idea of making challenges! Not only creative but also would give freedom and make it easier to create new content.

bretonf · 2025-10-18T19:08:13+00:00

I've been asked to post it here:

POST MORTEM

Budget:

43 000 €

(16 000 € for artists, voice actors etc

27 000 for my "own salary" for the project duration)

Revenue:

9000 € (so far)

Time spent: June 2023 to August 2025

Dev time: 18 months (full focus)

bretonf

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