For those only following the devlog, I thought I’d write up some business/marketing considerations I’ve been discussing over on my Minds channel.

This is my basic approach to software development:

• Practice, experiment, learn the possibilities and limitations of whatever technologies you’re considering.
• Aim to impress: make something rare and desirable (like a good RPG, not indie shovelware).
• Focus on a solid core and impressive features within your capabilities.
• Set arbitrary deadlines, stick to them, and cut or rethink anything that takes too long. If essential things take too long, cancel the whole project; learn your lessons and move on.
• Reject scope creep and bloat. Don’t try to be all things to all people. A complete but slow, buggy, run-of-the-mill product is not a success; it’s an expensive failure.
• Run it like a business even if it isn’t. Try to be productive, find customers, make money, and advance the careers of all involved. Expect some failures, however; don’t bank on 100% success, especially on game projects.

This approach has served me well when I actually followed it. I got serious about gamedev a decade ago, tried to start a company with some other guys, and aborted that before we burned any real money on it. That hard work still paid off by impressing enough people to land some big commercial software contracts. I also learned that unless you’re an established game company, the only way to make serious games like RPGs is to do all the essential work yourself like Jeff Vogel. So that’s what I did between jobs, starting with simple practice projects and working my way up to 3D.

…several years later…

Finally I had enough skills and free time to attempt a semi-serious game project. I had two in mind: a combat-focused modern/scifi turnbased RPG and a first-person ?ACTION RPG?. I only had a vague concept for the latter, full 3D artwork was intimidating, and I didn’t like the engine options. Unity was on the way out; the hurdles to making an RPG in Unreal looked too steep; Godot’s 3D wasn’t good enough yet. So, I made my own turnbased engine - successfully - but I didn’t have much of an actual game yet.

Around that point I seized upon the vampire sim concept for my ?ACTION RPG? and a made quick a proof of concept in Godot 3.0. My gut instinct told me to roll with it, make a fun and visually impressive RPG-lite unencumbered party mechanics and plot progression, get noticed as a developer, then return to the turnbased RPG which appeals to a more selective niche audience.

In hindsight I should have heeded my instincts instead of being a completionist. As Robert Howard once wrote, “sorcery thrives on success, not on failure” and software is sorcery. I could have leapt from success to success and completed both games by now. Better late than never, though.

I’ve also neglected to ask for money. I don’t expect much at this point, but people throw money at sillier things all the time, so why not? It’s almost far enough along. The more prerelease sales/donations it brings in, the better the odds of a successful release. It’s not just for funding, it’s for promotion and motivation. So my main motivation for the next few months is to bring the game up to “early access” quality, put it to the test, and see what happens.

Timetable

• 2023: v0.1 Prototype Phase
  • Technical implementation
  • Decide what the game is all about, within technical+financial limitations
• Early 2024: v0.2 Refinement Phase
  • Begins when game is feature-complete and non-broken
  • Ends when it’s fun and impressive enough for prerelease sales/donations
• Late 2024: v0.3+ Prerelease Phase
  • Make an effort to promote the game
  • Charge money to show we’re serious (not too much, say $5)
  • Free demo as well (a separate build with partial content)
• 2025: To Be Determined…

I should pull the plug if it’s languishing in obscurity in 2025, but not necessarily. I could keep going for 5 or 10 years as long as I’m putting enough time into development and making enough money from sales/donos and side jobs.

My ideal business plan goes something like this:

• Cheap early access for the faithful
• Occasional price increases corresponding with inflation & completion
• Full-price release to shamelessly cash in on day-1 purchasers
• Updates and discounts
• Open-source release (after making money and finishing development)
• Start sequel or finish Crusaders

Impressions and Expectations

You get one chance to make a first impression. If you nail it you get a chance at a second impression, and a third, fourth, fifth, or more. Each impression sets expectations the next impression needs to meet until someone buys the game (and hopefully downloads and plays it immediately).

The first impression will be a thumbnail image, a streamer playing it, a friend raving about it, something like that. Does it look or sound interesting?

The second impression is the immediate context. What kind of game is it? What’s it called? What does it look like?

The third impression might be a gameplay video or review. Eventually they get to the game store page with all its content, ratings, reviews, and price.

If at any point something puts them off - the dev’s politics for example - they’ll stop. At best they’ll wishlist it or think about it - possibly for weeks or months.

If they’re choosey they’ll look for a free demo. If there isn’t one they might wait for a deep discount or pirate it, unless it’s inexpensive to begin with. If they play a demo and it’s “meh” they’ll stop there. If they really like it and want more, they’ll buy the game and play it immediately.

I don’t consider a game to be successful unless it lives up to the expectations of discrminating customers who actually play it.

So, what do I need to do differently?

I think it’s best if I let the pictures do the talking and say as little as possible about what kind of game it is. I know what it is but I don’t know what to call it. For a while I tagged it something like ‘hard scifi-ish vampire power fantasy rpg’ but that’s no good. Every game is a ‘role playing game’ now; I don’t need to say that. Terms like ‘power fantasy’ and ‘hard scifi’ mean different things to different people; I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Let it be a mystery.

The game knows what it is at all times because it knows what it isn’t

While Bloodlines is definitely the main inspiration, this is not a nostalgia-bait “spiritual successor”. Bloodlines 2 was announced early in the planning stages of this project, got canceled, now it’s back on the menu for next year. It doesn’t matter. I can’t compete head-on against a AA/AAA sequel with a popular licensed IP. Their fans aren’t my fans. They’re not gonna buy my no-name vampire RPG.

I’m trying to make the game that Bloodlines could/should have been - not so ambitious, less rushed in development, better combat and stealth, less glitches, less story, less railroading, less dialogue, few or no cinematics, just a decent niche RPG that caters to its genre/audience.

It isn’t an existing IP so it isn’t bound by any particular book/movie lore, only the universal vampire rules: undead, nocturnal, fangs, drink blood. All else is adaptable to the exigencies of gameplay.

The game isn’t on the radar (yet)

This is the achille’s heel of this whole endeavor. It’s almost impossible to get noticed now. I’ve been trying for 5 years on social media with almost nothing to show for it, and it’s only getting harder.

Making an eye-catching game that fills a void should help but I still have to do all of the above so that anyone who somehow notices it and tries it will be impressed enough to advertise it by word of mouth. Then I need to figure out some new tricks to get a first impression anywhere that potential fans are exposed to content from outside their echo chambers (maybe even here on Itch (which is a challenge to say the least). You know, like advertising… but for untargetable niches, and not so obnoxious, in the age of adblock.

It’s a neverending struggle.