Hello to our lovely LUNA The Shadow Dust supporters, Its been almost a year since LUNA launched! Today, wed like to share what weve learned during the games development and tell you about our biggest successes (and failures). If you are planning to make a game yourself, we think youll find our experiences helpful!

The Backstage Experience

Many of you might know that after the game was released, we produced high-quality merch (pins, posters, postcards) as a way of breathing new life into our characters. We also ran another KS campaign to make our physical LUNA artbook a reality. Were so thankful that our book and OST have received such great feedback. LUNA just feels so much more alive now. Its hard work, and the costs are high, but because weve also been inspired by many other great art books and albums in the past, it only felt right to contribute back to the community.

Visit our Merch Shop HERE!

Our Successes (and lessons learned)

Over the last year, weve earned the communitys recognition and have received many awards and nominations as a result. It really is the best feeling knowing that your hard work has paid off! (ov)
We still consider the release of the game to be our biggest success. The harsh reality is that many gamesnot only indie titles but some big IPsnever see the light of day for various reasons. To see LUNA finally out there is a blessing in and of itself, and were even more thankful that the global pandemic did not directly impact our release. Its no secret, however, that weand the game industry as a wholehave been affected by the newly-imposed travel restrictions. None of us were able to attend conventions, talks, and festivals. We miss meeting people face to face, and we sincerely hope that life will get back to normal as soon as possible! Now, its time to shed some light on what didnt go exactly as planned. Our ambition was to use LUNAs fully hand-drawn yet content-heavy cinematics to tell our story in a unique way. However, players often felt that the story was a little ambiguous, and during cutscenes, some grew impatient. The slow walking pace might have also affected players' mood as they solved puzzles. We also received some criticism regarding the difficulty of our puzzles. Some thought they were too hard; others found them too easy or repetitive. Obviously, theres no one-size-fits-all solution to these problems, but we agreed that the gaming experience could be improved for the better. This is why our team decided to redesign one of the most criticized puzzles, improving the characters walking pace (without compromising the games feel) and optimizing repetitive routes between puzzle-solving sessions. But the games already been out for a year; isnt it a bit too late to apply such changes? some might ask. Well, these optimizations are not bug-related, so theres no need to rush. Wed rather take the time to decide whether theyre really worth changing from a game design perspective. And as most of you already know, indie games need time to grow; it takes time to assess feedback and see how other players react to the same design choices. All these changes will be available to experience in the next major update. Its rare for an indie title to blow up overnight, but were confident that more and more people in the future will slowly get to know LUNA and that our community will keep growing. With that in mind, the game should always be as polished as possible.

Slow Growth

The press often offers indie games publicity for the first 3 months or so after release, but after that, many small games vanish from the radar as new titles emerge. Getting to our players is a slow process, but that doesn't mean we just sit and wait for LUNA to magically grow on its own. Over the past year, with help from both of our publishers, weve continuously tried to expose more people to the game. We attended Steams virtual festivals and ported the game to various platforms. Our next goal is to bring LUNA to mobile for Android and iOSspoiler alert: Were almost there! As a team with no other investments, weve still not broken even one year after LUNAs release. But we're getting there. Your ratings, merch purchases, recommendations, and reviews all help keep the dream alive. Making and releasing indie games is not a sprint; its a marathon. Its an uphill battle, but as were slowly heading toward our goal, we hope LUNAs success will help us create more awesome games in the future. Thank you for all your support. () Yours, The LUNA Dev Team

[ 2021-04-02 14:00:10 CET ] [ Original post ]