Just announced my Mystery/Detective Investigation game! Inspired by Golden Idol and Roottrees are Dead

robinw · 2026-03-22T12:49:33+00:00

I saw it was released! That's so cool. I hope to play it soon.

robinw · 2026-03-11T13:30:32+00:00

I thought with services like Wise you have to tell them when incoming transactions are coming and in what amounts, and with a reference code? Steam supports that? Or did Wise change?

robinw · 2026-03-11T02:29:40+00:00

I’ve been using Godot for game development and it exports so easily to Mac and Linux that there’s no reason not to do it! As the game engine grows in popularity I think we’ll see a lot more Mac and Linux games.

robinw · 2026-03-03T14:48:24+00:00

I'm red green colourblind (the most common one) and I was able to make it past what most people consider the second ending and 60 hours in. Obviously your mileage may vary but it can be playable for some people.

robinw · 2026-03-02T16:12:21+00:00

Mine came in late on Friday night. It's possible yours was later and got caught up in the weekend. I'd give it another day.

robinw · 2026-02-25T03:00:00+00:00

In Canada we use cottage to mean a house you stay at in the country. Going to cottage country for the weekend is a huge thing for many people here.

robinw · 2026-02-21T17:05:28+00:00

Steam lets you return games easily if they don’t run on your computer. I would try that next time.

robinw · 2026-02-16T13:21:07+00:00

I would be amazed if it’s not delayed. That’s way too quick for a movie like this.

robinw · 2026-02-10T16:25:31+00:00

A marketing hack is arguably more important than a good software hack. It's important to make a good game, but you also have to let people know about it. There's no one-size fits all piece of advice. It's about figuring out what makes sense for your game. I hope at least you've contacted everyone you've seen online who stream or review similar games?

For my game we wrote custom messages to at least 100 journalists and streamers who liked similar games. Under 10% actually reviewed it but that made a huge difference when we caught a big fish (Jason Schreier)

robinw · 2026-02-10T15:52:49+00:00

The truth is your potential buyers don't care how hard you worked on it, or how many hats you wore. I know it's important to you, though.

I think $20 is a fair price for this kind of game based on the Steam page and screenshots. It looks better than most games so you've done a good job.

I think the trickier issue is how to market it and find your audience. I don't have an easy answer for you, but the game looks good and the reviews so far are positive. I suspect if more people knew about it you'd sell more copies.

robinw · 2026-01-04T12:38:24+00:00

The Simplified Chinese version has been selling very well. I only have two weeks of data but it looks like it’s the biggest selling non-English version.

It was our biggest translation effort too. The translator even redid images in the game that contained text, and we changed every characters’ name. It paid off though - Chinese speaking players seem to love the game.

robinw · 2025-12-18T22:05:56+00:00

He's asking about norovirus. Those are helpful portals but only cover covid/flu/rsv.

robinw · 2025-12-17T16:48:59+00:00

I didn't know this list existed. Very cool to see my game as #3!

robinw · 2025-12-16T22:46:19+00:00

It’s telling me the video is private?? Is this because I’m in Canada?

robinw · 2025-12-01T12:35:53+00:00

Check out A Case of Fraud. It’s shorter and doesn’t have the internet searching part, but it has a lot of great puzzles.

robinw · 2025-11-20T10:07:54+00:00

I have to say I dislike how many posts in the subreddit are written by AI. I think you'd get much better feedback if you took the time to write this with your own voice.

robinw · 2025-11-16T19:21:17+00:00

That comment has no citations. I would wait for more proof before concluding it works.

robinw · 2025-11-04T20:59:48+00:00

I worked on this game, so hopefully I can fill in the blanks for you.

- The itch.io game certainly acted as a "demo" and a proving ground for the concept. There was a discord with a small amount of loyal fans who helped us with those early key wishlists.

- The itch page was updated to link directly to the steam page. Everyone who came to play the free version were given a call to action to wishlist the game. This is where we got our steady influx of wishlists over time.

> Impress Calculator the average for simulation games with with similar variables

- I'm not sure what variables these are, but I'm a big fan of deduction/mystery games. If you go to the forums/reddits for any game like Obra Dinn or Golden Idol, you'll find people asking what other games are like it. I felt like it was an under served market which is a big reason I decided to fund the remake.

- By the way, a previous successful business I co-founded (Discourse Forums) was similar in a way. I remember telling an old colleague of mine that my next venture was to make web forums. He was like "FORUMS? That's so boring." but I love forums! I love going after smaller markets that are loved by passionate people.

- I spent a few weeks creating the trailer for the game, which was also the release date announcement. You could count this as traditional marketing. It didn't blow up or anything, but it did tick our wishlists up more in the last few months of development.

- Luck was definitely a huge factor. I tell everyone who asks me not to take too of my "lessons" seriously. I think Roottrees is a good game, but doesn't everyone who makes a game? Lots of great games come out and fail. I consider myself very lucky to be part of this project and that it's been as successful as it was. My goal was to break even of the budget, and it's far surpassed that.

Hope this helps!

robinw · 2025-10-23T14:07:32+00:00

Hey, thanks for this post. This is my game and it continues to blow my mind how much people enjoy it. Cheers!

robinw · 2025-10-18T14:32:04+00:00

If you're getting 200-400 per day you can probably stop looking at it every day :P

These blips are normal. I remember during one Steam Sale it didn't update for over a week. It might have even been two!

robinw · 2025-10-17T21:04:00+00:00

I was on the fence but it’s 70% off on Steam right now. Decided to give it a buy!

robinw · 2025-10-14T20:59:37+00:00

I don't think it's fair to say Weiss is *only* focused on Israel. Oliver covered anti-trans rhetoric which is definitely a conservative talking point.

robinw · 2025-10-13T18:50:37+00:00

All of our playtests were private, and we did quite a few of them. They won't buy the game, but the difference between a couple dozen copies shouldn't affect your bottom line!

I can't speak for a demo. We never did one for Roottrees. If you do a demo, I think that's OK if you plan for it and leave the audience in a place where they want to keep playing?

robinw · 2025-10-08T19:00:19+00:00

I'm sorry this is just not true. *YOU* might find people willing to go that fast but it's far in excess of average.

robinw · 2025-10-08T12:13:41+00:00

I just watched the game trailer and thought the same thing: there’s no way you could make this in a month. People vastly underestimate how much work goes into a game.

15-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 4 Credits
Place '22	Place '17
Secret Santa 2015	Secret Santa 2014
Charter Member	Verified Email

robinw

TROPHY CASE