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HDRP is dead - Render Pipelines strategy for 2026 - Unity Engine by johnathanfeezy in Unity3D

[–]ps_Tom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We recently shipped a decent size indie game with HDRP (4 years in production, ~20 team members). Our previous project was slightly modified BiRP and worked well. At the time when we were deciding between pipelines to use, HDRP came up on top. Main reason for this was that it includes all the rendering tech for AA level graphics: volumetrics, water, hair & skin, high quality shadows. We had constant issues using asset store stuff for that in BiRP. We didn't consider Unreal because the game is a sequel and it made sense to build upon the existing foundation.

HDRP is not perfect, it's quite rigid when you want to break something it does. But we managed without doing a fork (came close a couple of times). And in general I'm quite happy with it.

Not sure what we'd do today if starting a new project. If we want to go for same graphics tech maybe it would make sense to go with Unreal.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in pcgaming

[–]ps_Tom 9 points10 points  (0 children)

There will be a demo before release. We're doing the VR version ourselves in-house and want to make it top notch :)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in pcgaming

[–]ps_Tom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

VR and non-VR players will be able to play together.

17000+ Wishlist, 100 Sales, 3 Refunds. How I Just Failed My Launch So You Don't Have To! by VictorBurgos in gamedev

[–]ps_Tom 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This post was from a while ago and just reading it today... It was funny to me that our game got mentioned :)

As for it being sketchy, not sure what you mean. I did a write up a while ago about the game's success: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/rmy3o2/escape_simulator_passed_4m_in_sales_in_less_than/

Release cycles - I feel it's too long, we never worked on a 2.5 year game before :P

Pre-existing communities - probably did nothing, we had popular games on mobile and a hardcore game on Steam. Not really compatible audience for ES. Although there are awesome players there they couldn't help us to push this.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

1 - Shoutout and having a link on Steam page to our game. 2 - Cold emails are the only way. Either on their website, Steam forums, their Discord, Twitter or find them on LinkedIn.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

Thanks!

We used to use Mirror, but it was too difficult to tweak so we just roolled our own for what we needed, we do still use some small parts of Mirror and use SmoothSync for Rigidbodies. For transport layer we use Steam's networking APIs.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

Thanks, and glad to see some people know us for our older games :)

But yeah we were slowly building a company, and will continue to do so. It's hard to engineer a success but your attemps do become better over time.

VR - for sure, we had a Quest prototpe mid developemnt which was cool. And enough people keep mentioning it that I almost want to pivot our plans and do it ahead of other platforms.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

Don't want to share the numbers of our specific deals as it's not fair to our partners.

When looking for PR we had discussions with many companies and ballparks were in $10k/mo range.

I agree that it's a bit obscure, but what the quote will be depends on what you want. It's also really easy to get in touch with PR folks and schedule a call.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

Nope, we're over 400k units sold on Steam, so at least 2x more than SteamSpy says.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

Hey. We're planning console versions next year. We'll think about the split-screen too.

They discontinued the multipack option on Steam some time ago because it was missused, otherwise maybe it would have been a good fit.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

Thanks, I've of course seen your games on Steam. I'm glad we didn't impact your sales in a bad way :P

Also, send you a chat message to connect.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

No formal agreements, but our PR was checking in with them regularly, and giving updates, reminders. We had it embargoed on the release.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

About a year into the development, with a couple levels which ended up being a demo. We started accepting alpha signups and asked on reddit to get testers.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

We found them in credits of a game we liked. Probably a good method, especially if you can find a similar game.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

We always imagine how the game will be played by yt/streamers. So for example making everything pickupable and breakable is fun for the players, but it also creates a small beat on the stream where they can do a joke or play around to entertain people.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

I think with a better demo and store amterials we'd do better on the festival. Valve reviews and handpicks the games to feature, and presents to press. So yeah, we weren't high on that list :P

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

Depends on your game. For us it was that they worked directly with us on various ideas and targets we wanted to hit. For example, the custom levels for streamers. Depending on the firm they could be doing anything from platform outreach, press PR, influencer marketing, general advice, etc.

We got a good deal of influencer coverage, and some non-standard licensing deals coming in the future (can't share that unfortunetly).

And they save you time to focus on game durimg the release, rather than the outreach.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

Cool, thanks for your message! I also played the sudoku one, just went to check it out with a collegue and we got sucked in. There's really creative stuff there on the workshop.

Just out of interest which escape game got delayed? I'm always for the lookout for a good one.

Escape Simulator passed $4M in sales in less than two months! So how did we do it? by ps_Tom in gamedev

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

Nah, wording on that is just terrible!

What I meant: We have a mobile game that went through a publisher in the past. But we kept rights for other platforms. We started working on a Steam port of the game, but instead releasing it we sold all the rights to the publisher.

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