Hello everyone, time for the monthly Dev-Blog!

Hiring Artists

First off, I would like to mention that I am looking for a Pixel-art animator (high priority) and a Pixel artist

Send an email to roguegenesia@gmail.com if you are interested.

Secondly, I've made a roadmap for the upcoming major updates.

(Dates may shift, changes are bound to happen, depending on players' feedback)
Here are a few more details: I will increase the price to $10 about 1 month before 1.0 (so 0.11) to allow for a 20% discount on the game's 1.0 release, as Steam requires a 30-day cooldown after any discount/price changes.

Dog DLC release

Yesterday marked the release of the first pet DLC. A cat pet DLC is coming later on (likely for the 0.9 update). Initially, I wanted both pet DLCs to be released at the same time, but the animator who worked on the avatar is much busier with other things. In the end, dog animations were completed much later than I expected, and work on cat animations hasn't even started. As people may have noticed, there is a bit of backlash about the release of a DLC while the game is still in early access (EA).

First off, why make a paid DLC in the game?

As I explained in the previous Monthly Devblog, initially, I didn't see it as important. However, due to numerous requests from players, I ended up creating it as a DLC. Creating animations for a pet is a time-consuming process, and I had two options: either I do it myself and delay the overall development of the game, or I spend money to hire someone. By making it a paid DLC, I can cover the animation costs.

Then why not wait for the release of the game? Why spend time on a DLC when you can focus on the game?

Firstly, personally, I spent around three days of development time implementing the pet system. I don't believe it significantly delays the overall lifetime of the game. Secondly, developing and supporting a game is also running a business, and in this case, I'm not alone. I have a contract with my publisher (iolaCorp) that states we share the development costs 50/50. This means that whenever I want to hire someone for certain tasks like optimizing the game or creating more animations, I need to go through them as well. While they give me creative freedom in the game (although we sometimes clashed, I always achieve to win), hiring someone is not something I can do as freely. Recently, the revenue of the game has significantly decreased, reaching only $6,000 this month. While this may initially sound like a lot, it is not much for a business. Let's say I want to hire an animator and a pixel artist, costing around $4,000 per month to pay them. This means that out of the total revenue of $6,000, we are left with $2,000, which is then shared between me and iolaCorp. This means that both my publisher and I receive $1,000. While I can manage with $1,000 per month, iolaCorp is a business that hires people and works on its own projects, so it is not sustainable for them. Consequently, I won't be able to hire the people I need. Having a paid DLC that increases the revenue to around $8,000 to $10,000 per month allows for a higher budget to hire people to assist me with multiple tasks. This enables me to solely focus on developing the game, ultimately speeding up the development process and improving the overall quality. In the end, it still hurt to face hate due to this DLC as if I were trying to hack their bank accounts or engaging in predatory monetization. However, this is part of the life of being a "Solo-Dev".

Solo Dev, not so solo

It has been some time since I have been completely alone in the development of the game. While the initial Early Access version of the game was developed solely by me, I have since hired people to assist me with certain tasks. Although I still handle most of the development and the direction of the game, I haven't been alone on this journey. So far, I have hired:

• 1 programmer for 3 to 4 months to support me with the D-rank boss, talent development, and other minor additions. This was especially helpful as I focused on creating the talents and avatar system.
• 1 animator I hired for 2 months who worked on the avatar animations.
• 1 animator who did a few animations but quickly disappeared after completing them.
• 1 technical artist I hired to work on optimizing the game, as it goes beyond my technical capacity.
• 2 musicians. (one that we parted way due to not fitting the game, and the other not giving much life sign <.<)

However, I am a developer at my core, not a manager, and it can be quite challenging and stressful to have people working for me. Finding the right individuals to work with is difficult in itself. you need to check a lot of person, make sure they are not trying to scam you, they have the skill level I'm looking for. Additionally, life happens, and some individuals may become busy for various reasons, either too occupied to continue working with me or experiencing unexpected delays. Let's take the example of game optimization. It is a major issue for the game currently, and I hired someone to work on it. Unfortunately and for valid reasons, they couldn't deliver on time. Seeing that it was still reported a lot (I'm especially thinking of update 0.8) I become a impatient toward some players and ended up closing a thread where people complained about it... and I'm sorry that was seriously stupid. I try to take it upon myself and not affect the person I hired, I know very well that harassing them about it is not gonna help, They also understand they are behind schedule, and that can easily build-up stress. In the end, it is still a video game, and I want to avoid causing stress that can affect the well-being of the people I hire. Speaking of optimization, I have some exciting news as significant progress has finally been made! The optimization is not yet ready to be implemented into the game, but it should be ready for Update 0.9. [previewyoutube=WB7t_tkvRqU;full][/previewyoutube]

Update 0.9

Now that the pet DLC is out, I can finally start working on the next major update. (The dog pet DLC didn't really cause any delays as I simply started working on things that were planned for 0.9 in the meantime like the bestiary or the Crystal sword.) Development of 0.9 will begin next week, and the beta will likely start the week after, following a similar pattern as before (I will make a news post about it regardless).

One last note

Based on the current state of the game and my development speed, if I could solely focus on development, I would aim to have the game ready for 1.0 around September/October. In terms of development, the remaining work is "relatively" minor:

• Creating new zones and zone variations is primarily asset-heavy work, with programming focused mainly on implementing AI, particularly for bosses.
• Enemy design involves about 95% of the work dedicated to sprite and animation.
• Implementing unlockable skins is again mostly asset-heavy, requiring about one week of work at most to integrate them into the game.
• Some refactoring needs to be done for the shop, achievements, and soul shop, but each task would likely take no more than one week.
• The cursed stage will likely require a significant investment of time.
• Avatar design takes some time, usually around 3 to 7 days for the most ambitious ones, while animations typically require approximately 2 weeks of work.
• Card and artifact development usually involves spending equal time on both sprite creation and coding.
• Weapons generally have a 75/25 split between programming and art, with a major focus on creating particle effects.
• Events and stage objectives can be more involved development-wise, but I can easily work on a few of them per day.

Ultimately, the factor that will most significantly impact the timing of updates and the game's release will be whether I can find talented animators and pixel artists to assist me.

[ 2023-05-27 03:01:28 CET ] [ Original post ]