One year ago Gremlins, Inc. appeared on Steam for the first time – under the Early Access program. It's been quite a journey, and we feel so very privileged to have such a warmhearted community that currently is almost 50,000 players strong! Thank you!! Below, we share some insights from the last 12 months:

EARLY ACCESS & FULL RELEASE

Gremlins, Inc. released in Early Access on October 22, 2015 and spent a total of 5 months in Early Access, before moving to Full Release on March 11, 2016. Was it enough? We think so! Here's what we added to the game during the Early Access period – and a lot of this was shaped by direct feedback from the community:

Ranking Ladder & Leagues
Tournament Ladder (for official in-game tournaments)
Automated matchmaking (with multiple options)
Single-Player Mode (with multiple preset challenges)
A proper interactive tutorial
A proper Gremlinopedia covering the whole game
Auto-Save feature for single-player sessions
Reconnect feature for multiplayer sessions
Player Stats, Player Profiles, Player Reputation
Emoticons as in-game communication tool
Predefined messages as in-game communication tool
Animated Chaos Cards
A major update to the Jail Mechanics/UI
Tons and tons of UI improvements
Ambient sound tracks for all in-game locations
First original music tracks
5 additional localisation languages (bringing the total to 11)
Steam Achievements
Steam Trading Cards

The chart below shows the frequency of our updates during the Early Access period:

That's 15 game updates in 5 months, more than two updates per month! While we're happy that we were able to keep the tempo, we must say that at times, it's been quite a challenge, and everyone on the team missed a bit of sleep in those months. However, old habits die hard =), and so we happily kept improving the game after the full release almost in the same fashion. To be honest, with the great sales that the game started to show, it would have been a crime not to! Here's the list of what we added to the game after its full release on March 11, 2016:

Major feature: Character Abilities
Major feature: Team Mode (in multiplayer and in single-player)
Option to run private sessions
Option to play with anonymous masks
Major feature: item drops tradable via Steam Marketplace
Inventory & Collection sections of player profiles
Dedicated Asia-region server in Singapore (thanks to G-Core)
High-score ladder for single-player sessions
Option to customize profile with different skins, character portraits, lobby icons
Expanded session and game (character) stats
Tons and tons of UI improvements, including emoticon hotkeys
Color-blind mode
Extended Gremlinopedia (with search option)
Tips & Tricks in-game section
1 more localisation language (Polish, bringing the total to 12)
More original music tracks, more sound effects
11 new cards (including this week's 2)
8 new Misfortunes
4 new single-player challenges
3 cosmetic DLCs released
Digital Artbook released
Original Soundtrack released

The chart below shows the frequency of game updates following the Full Release:

That's 13 big updates during 7 months, and almost two updates per month, bringing the total number of updates to 28 in 12 months:

USER REVIEWS

By the end of our Early Access period, the sales of the game were roughly at 7,000 copies and 91% of our user reviews have been positive:

Following the Full Release, the sales grew to nearly 50,000 copies as of October 2016, and as a much wider audience accessed the game, the distribution of the reviews has changed a little bit:

Just recently, Steam has updated its user review policy/statistics, but we didn't really notice it because the number of user reviews from people who did not buy their copy but have received a key (via some promotion or media) has been fairly small for Gremlins, Inc.: only 27 reviews out of 932 –

SALES NUMBERS

We spent 41% of the last year in Early Access, which generated 16% of sales (by units) for the game –

In terms of revenue, the difference is even bigger (we changed the base price from $9.99 to $14.99 after transitioning into Full Release):

Overall, we spent nearly 1/2 of last year in Early Access, earning roughly 1/10 of the overall revenue there. Which actually reinforces the truth that dev teams should see Early Access primarily as a way to engage with the community, and not as a means to get additional funding. Another thing is the actual average price paid for each copy sold: since the game is cheaper in regions like Russia, Ukraine and China – while these regions represent a lot of copies sold, overall – we expected the overall average price of the game to be substantially lower than the US list price; in fact, it's been quite high, which means that most players have purchased Gremlins, Inc. at the full price, and not during the sale (the highest we had so far, has been 30% off).

And now is a good time to talk about DLCs: we have 3 cosmetic DLCs (Uninvited Guests, Automated Competitors and Astral Gamblers) as well as Digital Artbook and Original Soundtrack by A. Fruit. Here's how the sales look, in units:

The same sales, but now sorted by revenue:

THE REGIONS

Finally, let's talk about the countries where players buy the game from. The first thing that never ceases to surprise us, is this figure: 121 That's the number of countries from which customers purchased Gremlins, Inc. and the list includes such countries as Suriname, Nepal and Maldives. As well as Mayotte, Palestine, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guernsey. If we look at the sales during the Early Access period, when we had only 7 localisation languages available, this would be the split in terms of units sold:

Come Full Release (and all 12 localisations), and the picture has changed:

Finally, if we measure by revenue – and include all 12 months, even though in the first 5 only 7 out of 12 languages were available, we arrive at this split:

As you can see, Eastern Europe and Western Europe are almost balanced, with USA taking a further 1/4th of the pie, and Asia (Japan + China) responsible for yet another 1/5th of all revenue.

STEAM FORUMS

This anniversary post would be incomplete without placing the credit firmly where it belongs: with the community that helped shape this game throughout the last year, 24/7. At the moment, there are nearly 1,500 threads on Steam forums of Gremlins, Inc. with the top thread featuring almost 1,000 messages alone – and many others showing counts over 100. If you've made it here and would like to discuss the anniversary data further, why not join us on these forums? You're welcome to share your feedback in this forum thread! All the very best, and we'll do another data post once the game reaches 100,000 copies sold! ːsteampunkːːcheatdiceːːvotesːːscoreːːcardsː

[ 2016-10-25 22:59:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Gremlins, Inc.

Alexey Bokulev Developer

Yukitama Creative Industries Publisher

2016-03-10 Release

Strategy Singleplayer Multiplayer Tags

Game News Posts: 364

🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse

Very Positive (6227 reviews)

http://store.steampowered.com/app/369990

Steam Store

The Game includes VR Support

Public Linux Depots:

Gremlins_Linux [957.92 M]

Available DLCs:

Gremlins, Inc. – Uninvited Guests
Gremlins, Inc. – Digital Artbook
Gremlins, Inc. – Automated Competitors
Gremlins, Inc. – Astral Gamblers
Gremlins, Inc. – Famous Figures
Gremlins, Inc. – Print & Play, Companion Card Game
Gremlins, Inc. – Agents of Chaos

This is an intense strategy board game in a steampunk world of corrupt capitalist gremlins who compete for money, political power and prestige. Save and invest, steal and extort, arrest and get arrested – in single-player and multiplayer modes, with ranks and ladders. Unleash your inner gremlin!

HOW DO YOU PLAY THIS GAME?

Gremlins, Inc. is designed for 2 to 6 players, in multiplayer or in single-player mode (with AI bots). Each player has 6 cards on their hand (replenished from the same deck), and uses them to move around the playing field and to perform a number of different game actions. There is a lot of interaction with other players, and duels are significantly different from 3-player or 4-player games. You play for score limit, or rounds, or for time limit in custom or ranked sessions (with matchmaking by rating). Password-protected private sessions are also available.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO PLAY ONE SESSION?

The game offers different session settings to make them fit your available time, and single-player mode offers automatic Save/Load function at every turn so that you can take a break whenever you want (multiplayer mode offers re-connect functionality as long as the session is still in progress). A quick duel for 20 score points with a fast timer can finish in under 20 minutes, while a 4-player session for 60 rounds can last for 2 hours or more.

SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM STRATEGIES?

There are different types of cards in the game (permanent, regular, secret and criminal) and as each card can be used either to move or for action, you will develop both short-term and long-term strategies for making the most out of where you are, and what you have in your hand. Normally you spend half of your game time accumulating things, and another half controlling other players (stealing, arresting, making them pay a fine, initiating player conflicts, and so on). The more you play, the more new strategies you will discover, especially when combining the effects of several cards played in a row.

MAKE DECISIONS, PLAN YOUR MOVES

This is an intense strategy game: make decisions at every round! Plan your moves, then adjust to the actions of the other players and new cards drawn.

The design of the playing field and the layers of optional features allow for a variety of strategies. The more you play, the more roads to victory you discover, using a combination of features based on the particular setup of the session.

The game offers a resource system that allows for many comebacks even after you're robbed or arrested (or both). With score, money, votes, malice, income and bribes, the tension remains until the very last round.

In this game, you have to be mean to win: not letting the others to score is as important as scoring yourself. The only true moment of unity in a multiplayer session is when everybody's united against the player who's about to win the game. Earn and steal resources, set traps, arrest, initiate Player Conflicts, bluff and climb up the political ladder to become the Governor.

The multilayer mode of the game features a system of ratings, ladders and ranked sessions: compete in a specific league, and take part in the regularly organised tournaments (normally, over 1,000 players participate). A system of anonymous masks allows everyone to compete on equal terms in a ranked session, so that you can't really disregard someone as a newbie player, or target a veteran as your prime suspect in a political race.

In addition to the multilayer mode, the game offers 9 single-player challenges plus the option to create custom single-player sessions with different AI bots (with each major update, we keep adding new challenges).

FACTS & FIGURES

The game currently features 169 cards in the main deck: permanent, regular, secret and criminal, each with a hand-drawn steampunk illustration (with each major update, we keep adding 1-2 new cards to the core deck).

The game also features 34 telegrams of Misfortune in the Misfortune deck: send and receive events that may disrupt another player's plans, or significantly improve your own standing (with each major update, we keep adding 1-2 new cards to the Misfortune deck).

Chaos Cards: an optional set of 6 cards available to every player in the game, that changes the dynamics of the session.

Special Character Abilities: an optional feature that enables 12 sets of abilities unique to each character type, which then defines the core strategy of every player.

There are 11 locations – the Office, the Plant, the Dump, the Marketplace, the Inferno, the Jail, the Casino, the Court, the Treasure, the Bank and the Astral Plane – and 7 spot types – Danger, Gamble, Police, Income, Bribe, Misfortune and Tribune.

The game took us three years to develop from concept to Early Access and to full release, and we're committed to the continued support of the community and development of new features and new content. It is the brainchild of Alexey Bokulev, the acclaimed creator of Eador.Genesis. There are currently over 35,000 players of Gremlins, Inc. on Steam from all over the world, including USA, Russia, China, Japan, UK and France. Collectively, players launched over 400,000 single-player and multiplayer sessions since the game's full release in March 2016.

FINALLY, WHO ARE THE GREMLINS?

You think that’s just a pocket watch in your hand, a watch that’s a bit late because you keep forgetting to wind it up? No, no and no – you couldn’t be further from the truth! What you carry around is a whole gremlin town packed into this tiny mechanism: a town with its own bank, its own casino… and even its own jail! Gremlins are the microscopic creatures that inhabit any mechanism that they can possibly infiltrate. If a watch or a telescope malfunctions, then it’s probably due to gremlins who took up a residence there.

More than anything in life, gremlins value money, political power and prestige: prestige that one can claim after completing some sort of a grandiose engineering project. Aside from working on their own projects, gremlins mostly spend their time preventing other gremlins from building something even more grandiose. This they achieve through bribing officials and lying to the electorate, as well through stealing from their competitors - and outright arresting them.

A DISCLAIMER (JUST IN CASE)

We felt it important to note that Gremlins, Inc. is not a free-to-play game. Also, this is not a CCG or TCG: you do not need to buy boosters or packs, in every session the game offers the same deck to every player, and everyone's chances are equal.

OUR DLC POLICY

We remain committed to the principle of continuously updating the game with new features (e.g. special character abilities) and new content (e.g. new cards, new Misfortunes) that come in the form of regular updates that are FREE for every owner of the product. At the same time, from time to time we create and release fun stuff (animations, character portraits, alternative music themes) that is not related to the game mechanics, as paid DLCs. If you like it, you can support our efforts by your purchase. However, there is absolutely no pressure to own any of the DLCs in order to play the game or compete in the tournaments.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT ONLINE CONNECTION

Gremlins, Inc. was designed as a digital board game with the multiplayer mode at its heart. This is not to say that we don't like single-player – we do, and there's a separate section with the single-player challenges as well as the mode where you can create any custom single-player session that you like. However, the architecture of the game is built in a way that allows us to continually update the game mechanics and AI logic, which for this reason is processed entirely on the server side. Therefore whether you play Gremlins, Inc. in a single-player mode or in a multiplayer mode, your game client needs to be connected to Steam, and game's server, at all times. If you are looking specifically for a game that can be played offline, then Gremlins, Inc. in the current state is not the right product for you. An offline-only version of the game is currently in development for release later in 2016.

AMSTERDAM AND SINGAPORE SERVERS

The game currently supports 2 separate servers: Amsterdam and Singapore. Players are able to check their ping value for each of these servers, and play on the server that is the most convenient. Each server has its own player ladder, statistics and player profiles. Most players choose Amsterdam, since ping to Amsterdam from anywhere in the world rarely exceeds 300. However, as we saw more and more players from the Asian region join the game, especially from China, we added the server in Singapore in order to be able to offer faster connection specifically to these players. We hope that this works well for every player, as good player experience is our top priority. We will continue to monitor the quality of our server/client connection in order to adapt the servers to the changing requirements and we thank you for your patience.

MINIMAL SETUPOS: Ubuntu 12.04
Processor: Intel PentiumMemory: 2 GB RAM
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: internalNetwork: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 1 GB available space
RECOMMENDED SETUPOS: Ubuntu 12.04+
Processor: Intel Pentium 3+ generationMemory: 4 GB RAM
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Geforce 9XX or AMDNetwork: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 1 GB available space

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