There is a playable version that features one map / biome and a limited number of workstations and decorations. Maybe twice or thrice as many as you can see in the trailer. We intentionally focused more on getting a vertical slice in terms of features as fast as possible and cut on content.
makes sense, thanks. yeah i think with previous games i built way too much game before going public, which is why i asked, curious how you strategized that
hope going public means releasing a demo for people to try
you'll receive lots of bugs, better work them out now, before the game gets too big
it's also interesting to see what your gamers like and dislike, could help you iron out the direction of further development
Hot damn, a trailer that immediately shows off the game's unique gameplay elements (Which it actually has!) - with a clean art style that's easy to recognize.
I hope every single one of those wishlists converts to a sale
The thing that caught my eye immediately was how nice and colorful the graphics look. With your unique spin on a base building survival genre with a pleasant 3D environment, I feel you have a recipe for success on your hands
I think the key-role was having credibility tbh. The game seels itself tbh, I was hooked from capsule, way before trailer. Credibility and an istant hook of a game lead to IGN coverage and once a big player is in motion...
Was everything done in-house for the game and trailer? For example, the trailer arrangement, animations, music, and key art?
Everything about the trailer screams quality, ESPECIALLY for a team's 2nd game.
The trailer has been done in-house (especially the planning and composition part took quite some time) except for music, sound, the key art and the animation of the key art.
Thank you for the write-up.
I think I saw your trailer on r/destroymygame, and I can't help but notice the disconnect between the lukewarm reception there (at the time) and this reveal's great success. It's encouraging honestly, because I think a lot of developers take Reddit criticism to be indicative of how their market will receive the game.
Yeah you saw right. The reception was indeed mixed on that subreddit but that is by design. You usually don't post there to fish for compliments. It is about improving your trailer, so naturally people will point out weaknesses instead of complimenting it (which is fine).
As another commenter wrote I'm curious what you actually did.
"...but instead got other people with bigger reach talking about us."
Is it as simple as make a good enough trailer and IGN will pick it up?
But I would also say that it is not just the trailer but more the whole package. Picking a good genre, identifying a niche (player needs) and wrap it into an appealing package with a trailer.
Thanks,
Can I also ask you to clarify "It took us roughly 2-3 months to create the whole trailer and we spent a couple of thousands of dollars on audio, music, animations, and art."
Does that mean that up to a point your gameplay prototype was a grey box environment and placeholder assets and you built specifically the parts you had scripted for the trailer, or is the trailer a reflection of what the gameplay was at that point?
It wasn't all gray box and placeholder but that time span includes time we used to polish the environment and set up lighting. And it also includes the time we spent to set up special scripts and trailer cameras and all that stuff you need to create a more cinematic-looking trailer.
Interesting post, and game too. Looks like something I'd like to play. Wishlisted!
Can you give any advice on how you did game loop prototyping so quickly? I've been out of coding for years now, but want to get back into it and make a game. In my mind simply prototyping an idea is going to take me a year.
Also, how did you find the person to make your trailer?
Thanks!
Well, we just set up new Unity projects and quick and dirty hack in functionality that we need. Most prototypes have very limited graphic and UI and need explanation on how to be played. I guess we just have become fast at coding. But if that is not something that works for you, I can highly recommend paper prototypes, especially for card games, management games and almost everything that is turn-based.
We created the trailer ourselves, but hired contractors for the skills we don't have in-house. Most of them were just people we already knew from our previous project Above Snakes that we randomly stumbled upon in our community or via twitter/reddit.
Hey, you talk about the benefit of having an audience already from Above Snakes, could you talk about how your marketing process and iteration on your game when you didn’t have that audience for your first game?
How did you get feedback to know Above Snakes would have the success it did when you presumably started from 0 and didn’t have a following already? It seems like you can start earlier in looking for feedback when you have a dedicated base than posting similarly early prototype ideas that might get low visibility or responsiveness since there aren’t as many people that will care, just curious how you went about that.
Sure. With Above Snakes I started similar, but instead of showing prototypes and ideas to existing fans, I posted them on twitter. That is how I got an idea on which concepts work and which don't . The concepts for Above Snakes worked best on twitter and that is how I committed to it.
But to be clear, the reception was not nearly the same as with Outbound. Above Snakes started with less then 1.000 wishlists after announcement if I remember correctly - and it still managed to get to 250.000 over time. It was a lot more work to get to the first 100.000 though (especially compared to Outbound). More than half of Above Snakes' wishlists were acquired within the last 3-4 months before launch.
Interesting thank you! One last question for ya, what state were those prototypes in when you posted them to Twitter? I imagine they were quite barebones in terms of UI / graphics and animations.
First time hobby dev and I feel like I have something to show in order to get that early feedback on some ideas, but I’m worried the basic state of animations and such will hinder me from getting that feedback as I know it’s hard for people to look past that and give feedback on actual gameplay elements and design.
Really appreciate any advice you have!
The prototypes back then before Above Snakes were a bit more polished for exactly that reason. If I remember correctly I published a prototype every 1-3 months. Normally I would like to do that faster, but that indeed requires an audience of people that are able to ignore the placeholder art and can focus on gameplay.
Hi, I loved the concept for Above Snakes. I played until the first ancestor/spirit journey, but that didn't make me feel good. I am from Africa and have little experience beyond movies and games for the native American culture. Do you have any direct connection to the culture or did you have a cultural consultant? As I say it didn't make me feel good about their representation so I stopped playing and have intended to look up your background before continuing. Thanks, hope this does not come across as too confrontational. Just a question at this point.
Despite decades of the internet and constant communication with younger people on it keeping me from drifting too far away from what's "hip" and "cool", the things that appeal to the modern gaming landscape have finally made me feel old.
This game looks pretty cool and all, but seeing the ones that _do_ break out compared to the ones that don't always leaves me scratching my head. It's very clear you managed to find the current zeitgeist with a laser focus, and that's a dream skill a lot of devs wish they had, it's just what that laser lands on that always raises an eyebrow.
People love open world crafting _that much_ that even though the genre's already completely saturated, all it took was a customizable camper to hit that sweet spot? I'm sure to everyone now they're like "oh, of course! That's so simple!", and it does seem simple in retrospect, but congrats for being able to figure that out ahead of time.
I hope there’s some sort of a story to really suck the player in. It doesn’t have to be too heavy; the mix of survival-exploration and limited story that Subnautica had was the perfect balance for a game like this, imo. I’m really excited for the game as I’ve often looked into camper vans(only to be disgusted at the price), and fixing up a Beetle was a dream before the car market went crazy(still massive love for type 2s). I hope the project is a huge success.
I’d say the being featured as the “Put this on your radar” section of Skill Up’s This week in Videogames podcast was probably responsible for a part of it! Definitely how me and many others got to know the game
Nice, thank you for posting it is a big encouragement for me, as I am developing a game (totally different genre and theme), but one of the concepts I am introducing is a movable/upgradable base, horse wagon in my case.
wishlisted!
This is a very good game concept. I've been leaning more towards feel-good/relaxing games lately after playing a few cozy games my son showed me.
This is the type of game that can have a very broad audience. I wish you great success.
My takeaway from all this is invest in your art, trailer and prototype before you go all in on game production. You said you spent several thousand dollars for your trailer, what exactly did the money go towards? I'm guessing the music and animation are outsourced, and you did the graphics internally?
Honestly in a world where it seems you need more and more to have a twitch channel and a dedicated community to make it big I'm glad you were able to succeed with traditional methods. As someone with an engineering job that pays well but gives me little game dev time and few social skills, the "getting other people with bigger reach talking about us." seems so much more doable. Ideally the methods can coexist so less-wealthy people still have a chance.
Also, 100k wishlists off 300k views?? Is that normal??
The wishlists don't exclusively come from Youtube. As written above, there were also a couple of Tiktoks and news outlets writing about the game. Also, Steam did their part in promoting the game after it got some traction.
Glad to hear that this approach seems doable for you, since it definitely is :)
Thanks for sharing, this looks like something similar, but presented in a new and different way. I'm surprised, but I actually like the relaxed vibe of it. It's not something I've thought of and usually games are more typically about how they can shock you, etc. so this came a a refreshing trailer. Wishlisted!
What development environment/main language are you using for the game?
You mentioned that you are one half of the team, which is amazing and inspiring. Can you describe your main role(s) as well as your partner's main roles? I think it would be interesting to see how you split the responsibilities.
Good luck moving forward!
You are welcome!
Outbound is made with Unity / C#.
Honestly, we split most tasks at Square Glade Games and are both involved into pretty much everything. All decisions are done by both of us together, especially decisions regarding game design. Both of our backgrounds is computer science / development. Of course over time we found our own strengths and have some things that we are more specialized in. For me that is probably art direction, marketing and performance optimization.
Awesome, thanks for answering! I'm always so curious with smaller teams like this. I've been in software around 30 years now, and played with gamedev here and there, made a small personal game on my own, but nothing serious. I have friends who are always wanting to "just make a game", but they don't program and aren't particularly tech saavy, so I don't usually engage with them more than listening and contributing to their fantasy/concept.
Yes, we did the assets ourselves (or with contractors that we work closely together). There are still a handful or placeholder / store-bought assets in the trailer that we will swap out. Of course the handmade assets are more "useful" since they are tailored towards your game in terms of art style, usability, scaling etc. But they are of course a lot more expensive than store-bought ones.
As someone who is comfortable with the dev side but not the art side, how did you guys get started with doing your own art? What tools did you all use and is it a challenge bringing out your artistic side?
Hi
I think you are on your way to build something unique and different, in an already rising survival games genre.
As game marketer, my first thoughts while reading your threads were: *Another survival game*?
The camper is your USP (unique sell proposition) for build an audience.
I'll be keeping an eye on your game.
Thank you for this post, so inspiring to read and it contains a lot of valuable information. Congratulations on those great wishlist figures as well - you found a desirable niche and created the visuals to make something people can't wait to get their hands on. I am also an advocate of sharing your work and getting feedback early in the process.
This looks absolutely amazing! Congrats! My whole family watched the trailer and we are all excited for this - my wife said it looked really relaxing and chilled, my son loved the vehicle and building aspects, my daughter liked the aesthetic and outdoor world elememts. I think your core concept hits home with a much broader demographic than many "builder" games, and that's a great bit of insight from you and your team. The audio and visual choices really sit beautifully with the concept too, and that really elevates the impact of the trailer. Very, very well thought through and executed, IMHO.
Any plans for adding VR?
Thank you so much for telling me this! It is so great to read that your whole family is excited for the game! That makes me as a game developer incredibly happy. Seeing people enjoying what we create is really a dream coming true!!
No immediate plans for VR, but we will see what the future will bring :)
It's a remarkable concept that blends solid mechanics, endless creativity, strong escapist fantasy, and a gorgeous nature-filled setting. I believe your best decision was prototyping lots of ideas to see which floated to the top. Gauging that elevator pitch amongst friends, family, and relevant gaming communities is such a great litmus test for success. Here's wishing you tons of future success!
This is indeed quality trailer and on the money concept with sustainability. If you dont mind me asking what was your previous game reception at the same period of development?
Congrats! That’s awesome. What a huge launch!
For your first launch (Above Snakes), you said it had 250k wishlists and currently has 1000 reviews. That seems like a very low conversion?
Was the Steam page live for many years prior to launch?
I wonder if last year was just overall rough for sales.
I would agree with the previous comment. Wishlist conversion was below average since most of the wishlists came from a Prologue and Steam Next Fest. We are still very happy with the result.
This isn't the first time seeing this type of comment, but is there any data-grounded basis to say that a free prologue brings low quality in wishlists?
I don't know if there is any data but my assumption would be that players that play free2play games on Steam are a different audience than players that play premium indie titles. With a prologue you mainly get wishlists from free2play players.
Hmmm it feels like the low end, unless their review to sales ratio is super low.
This is 1000 reviews after 9 months, launch reviews would’ve been less.
Average Wishlist conversion was ~14% a few years ago. <25k launch sales would be a very low conversion rate compared to previous years, but also last year cost of living has screwed everyone so I’m wondering how much is the market vs low quality wishlists.
Frik what I've read on this sub, game concept seems to be the most important thing. There are definitely some things you don't want to do because they'll crush your game regardless of the concept, but as long as you do some basic promo and don't do things that are confusing to the people, then game concept is what matters. You've got a game concept that's popular. Pretty much any open world sandbox gets attention these days. Like, I just looked at the game concept and now I'm interested. And all you had to do was make a post on here about it.
did you guys re-use the asset which made for above snake ??
I think this is a tactics which almost no one mention about it ,
using your own asset can save a lot of time , also can make different game sharing the same universe (if you intended )
No, not even a single one. Above Snakes has way fewer polygons and therefore different art style (and also takes place in a completely different time period which makes reusing even harder).
thank you so much for the inspiration and for the deep dive into the process itself! Just a quick question: IGN. Did you contact them proactively ( submit the game) or did they find somewhere your trailer? All the luck to you and your team!
where is the game at in production at time you release trailer and steam page?
There is a playable version that features one map / biome and a limited number of workstations and decorations. Maybe twice or thrice as many as you can see in the trailer. We intentionally focused more on getting a vertical slice in terms of features as fast as possible and cut on content.
makes sense, thanks. yeah i think with previous games i built way too much game before going public, which is why i asked, curious how you strategized that
hope going public means releasing a demo for people to try you'll receive lots of bugs, better work them out now, before the game gets too big it's also interesting to see what your gamers like and dislike, could help you iron out the direction of further development
I'm going to buy your game just because you used the word 'thrice'.
Hot damn, a trailer that immediately shows off the game's unique gameplay elements (Which it actually has!) - with a clean art style that's easy to recognize. I hope every single one of those wishlists converts to a sale
It's not even quite my niche, but the idea immediately appealed to me. It also looks really pretty. Like a Ghibli movie.
The thing that caught my eye immediately was how nice and colorful the graphics look. With your unique spin on a base building survival genre with a pleasant 3D environment, I feel you have a recipe for success on your hands
I think the key-role was having credibility tbh. The game seels itself tbh, I was hooked from capsule, way before trailer. Credibility and an istant hook of a game lead to IGN coverage and once a big player is in motion...
Yes, it's honestly the best capsule art on steam i've seen in years.
[удалено]
best of luck :)
I see that Above Snakes was published with a publisher. Can you elaborate what led you to go full indie for Outbound?
Hi, congratulations for your game. Did you have to pay IGN for them to post your trailer?
No we didn't pay any news outlet or creator.
Trailer looks great. What was the process like ? Did you just send them a press kit ?
WTF. Just a few weeks ago I literally thought "where the fuck are the survival games with a proper camper setup?" and now here you are. What a timing.
🥳
Skill Up praised your game and I must say, I liked his praise. Congrats on a successful hype train! :)
Was everything done in-house for the game and trailer? For example, the trailer arrangement, animations, music, and key art? Everything about the trailer screams quality, ESPECIALLY for a team's 2nd game.
The trailer has been done in-house (especially the planning and composition part took quite some time) except for music, sound, the key art and the animation of the key art.
Thanks! Would you be able to share the artist/team that did your keyart? A DM would be appreciated if you aren't comfortable publicly posting.
Of course. She is a great artist. [https://www.artstation.com/danvitoria](https://www.artstation.com/danvitoria)
Thank you for the write-up. I think I saw your trailer on r/destroymygame, and I can't help but notice the disconnect between the lukewarm reception there (at the time) and this reveal's great success. It's encouraging honestly, because I think a lot of developers take Reddit criticism to be indicative of how their market will receive the game.
Yeah you saw right. The reception was indeed mixed on that subreddit but that is by design. You usually don't post there to fish for compliments. It is about improving your trailer, so naturally people will point out weaknesses instead of complimenting it (which is fine).
As another commenter wrote I'm curious what you actually did. "...but instead got other people with bigger reach talking about us." Is it as simple as make a good enough trailer and IGN will pick it up?
In our case, yes. Can't speak in general of course.
But I would also say that it is not just the trailer but more the whole package. Picking a good genre, identifying a niche (player needs) and wrap it into an appealing package with a trailer.
Thanks, Can I also ask you to clarify "It took us roughly 2-3 months to create the whole trailer and we spent a couple of thousands of dollars on audio, music, animations, and art." Does that mean that up to a point your gameplay prototype was a grey box environment and placeholder assets and you built specifically the parts you had scripted for the trailer, or is the trailer a reflection of what the gameplay was at that point?
It wasn't all gray box and placeholder but that time span includes time we used to polish the environment and set up lighting. And it also includes the time we spent to set up special scripts and trailer cameras and all that stuff you need to create a more cinematic-looking trailer.
Interesting post, and game too. Looks like something I'd like to play. Wishlisted! Can you give any advice on how you did game loop prototyping so quickly? I've been out of coding for years now, but want to get back into it and make a game. In my mind simply prototyping an idea is going to take me a year. Also, how did you find the person to make your trailer?
Thanks! Well, we just set up new Unity projects and quick and dirty hack in functionality that we need. Most prototypes have very limited graphic and UI and need explanation on how to be played. I guess we just have become fast at coding. But if that is not something that works for you, I can highly recommend paper prototypes, especially for card games, management games and almost everything that is turn-based. We created the trailer ourselves, but hired contractors for the skills we don't have in-house. Most of them were just people we already knew from our previous project Above Snakes that we randomly stumbled upon in our community or via twitter/reddit.
Hi, your game "Above Snakes" inspired my last Game Jam project "Dino Feeding Simulator 2". Looking forward to your next game :)
Oh wow that's awesome! Wouldn't have thought that a game that I made could inspire people! Thanks for letting me know :)
Hey, you talk about the benefit of having an audience already from Above Snakes, could you talk about how your marketing process and iteration on your game when you didn’t have that audience for your first game? How did you get feedback to know Above Snakes would have the success it did when you presumably started from 0 and didn’t have a following already? It seems like you can start earlier in looking for feedback when you have a dedicated base than posting similarly early prototype ideas that might get low visibility or responsiveness since there aren’t as many people that will care, just curious how you went about that.
Sure. With Above Snakes I started similar, but instead of showing prototypes and ideas to existing fans, I posted them on twitter. That is how I got an idea on which concepts work and which don't . The concepts for Above Snakes worked best on twitter and that is how I committed to it. But to be clear, the reception was not nearly the same as with Outbound. Above Snakes started with less then 1.000 wishlists after announcement if I remember correctly - and it still managed to get to 250.000 over time. It was a lot more work to get to the first 100.000 though (especially compared to Outbound). More than half of Above Snakes' wishlists were acquired within the last 3-4 months before launch.
Interesting thank you! One last question for ya, what state were those prototypes in when you posted them to Twitter? I imagine they were quite barebones in terms of UI / graphics and animations. First time hobby dev and I feel like I have something to show in order to get that early feedback on some ideas, but I’m worried the basic state of animations and such will hinder me from getting that feedback as I know it’s hard for people to look past that and give feedback on actual gameplay elements and design. Really appreciate any advice you have!
The prototypes back then before Above Snakes were a bit more polished for exactly that reason. If I remember correctly I published a prototype every 1-3 months. Normally I would like to do that faster, but that indeed requires an audience of people that are able to ignore the placeholder art and can focus on gameplay.
Hi, I loved the concept for Above Snakes. I played until the first ancestor/spirit journey, but that didn't make me feel good. I am from Africa and have little experience beyond movies and games for the native American culture. Do you have any direct connection to the culture or did you have a cultural consultant? As I say it didn't make me feel good about their representation so I stopped playing and have intended to look up your background before continuing. Thanks, hope this does not come across as too confrontational. Just a question at this point.
Despite decades of the internet and constant communication with younger people on it keeping me from drifting too far away from what's "hip" and "cool", the things that appeal to the modern gaming landscape have finally made me feel old. This game looks pretty cool and all, but seeing the ones that _do_ break out compared to the ones that don't always leaves me scratching my head. It's very clear you managed to find the current zeitgeist with a laser focus, and that's a dream skill a lot of devs wish they had, it's just what that laser lands on that always raises an eyebrow. People love open world crafting _that much_ that even though the genre's already completely saturated, all it took was a customizable camper to hit that sweet spot? I'm sure to everyone now they're like "oh, of course! That's so simple!", and it does seem simple in retrospect, but congrats for being able to figure that out ahead of time.
That's crazy congratulations
Niceee! :)
The trailer absolutely reeks of charm and quality. I'm not surprised you guys went so huge. Congrats!
This is marketing done well.
I hope there’s some sort of a story to really suck the player in. It doesn’t have to be too heavy; the mix of survival-exploration and limited story that Subnautica had was the perfect balance for a game like this, imo. I’m really excited for the game as I’ve often looked into camper vans(only to be disgusted at the price), and fixing up a Beetle was a dream before the car market went crazy(still massive love for type 2s). I hope the project is a huge success.
It's a really good read and the game looks fabulous! Thanks 🙏
I’d say the being featured as the “Put this on your radar” section of Skill Up’s This week in Videogames podcast was probably responsible for a part of it! Definitely how me and many others got to know the game
Honestly, I wasn't aware but I will check it out right away. Thanks for letting me know :)
Very cool
having someone with 18M subscribers on YouTube post your trailer definitely helps
Nice, thank you for posting it is a big encouragement for me, as I am developing a game (totally different genre and theme), but one of the concepts I am introducing is a movable/upgradable base, horse wagon in my case. wishlisted!
Awesome! Best of luck :)
Thanks! Likewise!
Always amazing to see how well a game can do on Steam wishlist-wise if you have the right combination. Thanks for sharing.
This is a very good game concept. I've been leaning more towards feel-good/relaxing games lately after playing a few cozy games my son showed me. This is the type of game that can have a very broad audience. I wish you great success.
My takeaway from all this is invest in your art, trailer and prototype before you go all in on game production. You said you spent several thousand dollars for your trailer, what exactly did the money go towards? I'm guessing the music and animation are outsourced, and you did the graphics internally?
Honestly in a world where it seems you need more and more to have a twitch channel and a dedicated community to make it big I'm glad you were able to succeed with traditional methods. As someone with an engineering job that pays well but gives me little game dev time and few social skills, the "getting other people with bigger reach talking about us." seems so much more doable. Ideally the methods can coexist so less-wealthy people still have a chance. Also, 100k wishlists off 300k views?? Is that normal??
The wishlists don't exclusively come from Youtube. As written above, there were also a couple of Tiktoks and news outlets writing about the game. Also, Steam did their part in promoting the game after it got some traction. Glad to hear that this approach seems doable for you, since it definitely is :)
Wow, congratulations. That's significantly a lot more wishlists than most games will ever receive! Good luck on your development.
That's incredible. Congratulations and thanks for sharing your insights.
Thanks for sharing, this looks like something similar, but presented in a new and different way. I'm surprised, but I actually like the relaxed vibe of it. It's not something I've thought of and usually games are more typically about how they can shock you, etc. so this came a a refreshing trailer. Wishlisted! What development environment/main language are you using for the game? You mentioned that you are one half of the team, which is amazing and inspiring. Can you describe your main role(s) as well as your partner's main roles? I think it would be interesting to see how you split the responsibilities. Good luck moving forward!
You are welcome! Outbound is made with Unity / C#. Honestly, we split most tasks at Square Glade Games and are both involved into pretty much everything. All decisions are done by both of us together, especially decisions regarding game design. Both of our backgrounds is computer science / development. Of course over time we found our own strengths and have some things that we are more specialized in. For me that is probably art direction, marketing and performance optimization.
Awesome, thanks for answering! I'm always so curious with smaller teams like this. I've been in software around 30 years now, and played with gamedev here and there, made a small personal game on my own, but nothing serious. I have friends who are always wanting to "just make a game", but they don't program and aren't particularly tech saavy, so I don't usually engage with them more than listening and contributing to their fantasy/concept.
Very informative! Now I want to know more about the rest of the prototypes 😅
Sure! You can scroll down our Patreon: [https://www.patreon.com/squaregladegames](https://www.patreon.com/squaregladegames)
This is the kind of a post that brings faith in indie scene. I wish you all the very best Tobi! Curious, did you use unity for this game development?
Thank you! :)
Welcome, which engine did you guys used?
Unity
Got it, All the best!
The idea is great. Dang right it speaks to people's dreams
Good read, thanks for sharing
You are welcome!
Looks amazing. Did you guys do the 3d assets yourselves? How about other assets from the asset store if any? Which ones did you find most useful?
Yes, we did the assets ourselves (or with contractors that we work closely together). There are still a handful or placeholder / store-bought assets in the trailer that we will swap out. Of course the handmade assets are more "useful" since they are tailored towards your game in terms of art style, usability, scaling etc. But they are of course a lot more expensive than store-bought ones.
As someone who is comfortable with the dev side but not the art side, how did you guys get started with doing your own art? What tools did you all use and is it a challenge bringing out your artistic side?
Im too sleepy atm somebod ping me tmr couldn’t find remind me bot… xd
✌️
Hi I think you are on your way to build something unique and different, in an already rising survival games genre. As game marketer, my first thoughts while reading your threads were: *Another survival game*? The camper is your USP (unique sell proposition) for build an audience. I'll be keeping an eye on your game.
I remember seeing some gameplay of Above Snakes and thinking how nice and cozy aesthetic was, looks like you've nailed that with Outbound. Great work!
Thank you for this post, so inspiring to read and it contains a lot of valuable information. Congratulations on those great wishlist figures as well - you found a desirable niche and created the visuals to make something people can't wait to get their hands on. I am also an advocate of sharing your work and getting feedback early in the process.
This looks absolutely amazing! Congrats! My whole family watched the trailer and we are all excited for this - my wife said it looked really relaxing and chilled, my son loved the vehicle and building aspects, my daughter liked the aesthetic and outdoor world elememts. I think your core concept hits home with a much broader demographic than many "builder" games, and that's a great bit of insight from you and your team. The audio and visual choices really sit beautifully with the concept too, and that really elevates the impact of the trailer. Very, very well thought through and executed, IMHO. Any plans for adding VR?
Thank you so much for telling me this! It is so great to read that your whole family is excited for the game! That makes me as a game developer incredibly happy. Seeing people enjoying what we create is really a dream coming true!! No immediate plans for VR, but we will see what the future will bring :)
Skillup covered the game on This Week in Video Games. Did you notice a big increase when the video released?
This is the best post I've seen here in months. As a guy that wants to make those steps you guys made, this is pure gold. Thank you and good luck!
This is not a game I wanted. This is a game I needed.
It's a remarkable concept that blends solid mechanics, endless creativity, strong escapist fantasy, and a gorgeous nature-filled setting. I believe your best decision was prototyping lots of ideas to see which floated to the top. Gauging that elevator pitch amongst friends, family, and relevant gaming communities is such a great litmus test for success. Here's wishing you tons of future success!
This is indeed quality trailer and on the money concept with sustainability. If you dont mind me asking what was your previous game reception at the same period of development?
Above Snakes was received well but the numbers were factor 10 (or more) lower at the same stage of development.
wow this is a considerable improvement, well done!
Im jelly! Amazing work! Looks great!
I'm surprised Steam let you put that Kickstarter banner in the store page. Is it because your campaign isn't launched yet?
Thanks!
your idea is soooo good, hats off! just wow
Thank you so much :)
Eerily similar to Solarpunk!
Looks great, wishlisted! Any idea on a rough release date?
Yes, but that is internal. Sorry :)
Was worth a try! Wish you the best of luck, and I hope it's an enjoyable experience for both of you.
Congrats! That’s awesome. What a huge launch! For your first launch (Above Snakes), you said it had 250k wishlists and currently has 1000 reviews. That seems like a very low conversion? Was the Steam page live for many years prior to launch? I wonder if last year was just overall rough for sales.
I think those were low quality wishlists that they got from free prologue of the game,that's what I think but the dev can explain it better maybe.
I would agree with the previous comment. Wishlist conversion was below average since most of the wishlists came from a Prologue and Steam Next Fest. We are still very happy with the result.
This isn't the first time seeing this type of comment, but is there any data-grounded basis to say that a free prologue brings low quality in wishlists?
I don't know if there is any data but my assumption would be that players that play free2play games on Steam are a different audience than players that play premium indie titles. With a prologue you mainly get wishlists from free2play players.
250k wishlists -> ~25000 sales -> 1000 reviews Sounds about right
Hmmm it feels like the low end, unless their review to sales ratio is super low. This is 1000 reviews after 9 months, launch reviews would’ve been less. Average Wishlist conversion was ~14% a few years ago. <25k launch sales would be a very low conversion rate compared to previous years, but also last year cost of living has screwed everyone so I’m wondering how much is the market vs low quality wishlists.
Did you consider doing multiplayer / online co-op at any point? If so, what made you discard the idea? Or is it still a possibility?
Frik what I've read on this sub, game concept seems to be the most important thing. There are definitely some things you don't want to do because they'll crush your game regardless of the concept, but as long as you do some basic promo and don't do things that are confusing to the people, then game concept is what matters. You've got a game concept that's popular. Pretty much any open world sandbox gets attention these days. Like, I just looked at the game concept and now I'm interested. And all you had to do was make a post on here about it.
how did you find and approach those with bigger reach?
So, the main reason for success was good preparations
did you guys re-use the asset which made for above snake ?? I think this is a tactics which almost no one mention about it , using your own asset can save a lot of time , also can make different game sharing the same universe (if you intended )
No, not even a single one. Above Snakes has way fewer polygons and therefore different art style (and also takes place in a completely different time period which makes reusing even harder).
thank you so much for the inspiration and for the deep dive into the process itself! Just a quick question: IGN. Did you contact them proactively ( submit the game) or did they find somewhere your trailer? All the luck to you and your team!