Hello, everyone! This is Cesca, Producer and Narrative Designer of Contigo Games. It has officially been a year since StarCrossed first launched on Steam and itch! It feels like so recently but also forever ago Im sure you can relate. Time is always weird, but this year especially! To celebrate StarCrossed is 50% off on all platforms including itch, Steam, Switch, and Xbox! Please keep in touch for updates by following us on Twitter! As an additional form of celebration, I wanted to share with you some of our memories and achievements over this past year. Were a small team and my hope is also that this information might be helpful for anyone looking to embark on the journey that is shipping a game for the first time! StarCrossed didn't make a million dollars, it didn't even make half of a half of a half million dollars. That was never why we were working on this (but obviously money is great please buy games and support developers). Our goals for the project, which we identified as a team during development, were the following:

• Complete a long term game project together as a team
• Successfully publish an independent digital game cross-platform
• Be compensated fairly for our individual time working on the project
• Receive industry recognition and gain experience showcasing & talking about our work
• Use this project to make industry connection with publishers and organizations in line with our personal career goals
• Release a successful game with feminine aesthetics, non binary/female heroes, and queer content. Success being defined by the above goals!

Game Overview

For anyone who is new around here, Ill start with a brief overview of StarCrossed. StarCrossed is an action arcade game with a magical girl aesthetic and a cooperative twist! Join our cast of 5 space-faring heroes as they travel across the stars, working together to strengthen their bond and defeat a looming evil that threatens the Nova galaxy! Its time to team up, get sparkly, and take out the bad guys!

• Two hour Story with 10 different scripts
• Endless procedurally generated Arcade mode
• Online Global Leaderboards
• Unlockable Costumes
• Over a dozen different enemy types with procedural stats
• 4 epic boss fights
• Unique Character Ultimate Abilities
• Launched on Xbox, Switch, PC, Mac, Linux

You can find the trailer on our main Steam page! Our entire team was remote for the majority of development and we all worked part-time, balancing full-time jobs, family commitments, and academic programs. You can learn more about who we are in our Dev Spotlight Twitter thread here!

A Long Term Game Project Together as a Team

At first, we had pretty small and realistic dreams for this project. We intended for it to be a project we spent 6-ish months working on and then put out on the internet. We hoped some people would play it and maybe leave nice comments. Our focus at the time was to learn new skills and make something we loved. We never expected the scale of the project would grow to be what it is today And that we would work on it for the next 4 years! During development, we went through many life changes! While we were previously all based in the same place, our core team gradually spread out all over the United States. I got 2 academic degrees, I moved 4 times, I adopted a dog! I honestly feel like a totally different person from who I was when we made our first prototype, and I was able to take what I was learning in my life and bring it into this game. StarCrossed is obviously about friendship and being able to rely on the people in your life, but if you look a bit closer there are also themes of past friendships, life responsibilities, and hope for the future. I spent a lot of time these past years thinking about what I value and who I am, I think the games narrative shows many of those thoughts as a result!

Reception & Industry Recognition

An obvious point of pride for us People actually liked the game! Even a year after launch, our Steam reviews remain 92% positive. We were able to showcase the game at SO MANY events, including:

• Pax East & PAX West
• GDC
• Different Games Conference
• PixelPop Festival
• MAGFest
• Boston FIG
• Play NYC
• M+DEV
• Indy Indies
• GaymerX
• Kinda Funny E3 Showcase
• More probably???

Our very first booth space vs. our last one before launch! It's a glow up. Just before launch we went to PAX East as part of the Indie Megabooth, which has been a personal dream of mine for a very long time. I started attending PAX East in 2013, the year after the Indie Megabooth launched, so Ive never known that convention without Megabooths presence. Over the years they exposed me to so many incredible indie games, which greatly influenced my career as a game maker. Thank you, Megabooth! I love you!!!!!!! Attending these events put our game in front of so many people, many of which became friends as the years went by. I specifically want to shout out the lovely folks at The More You Nerd Podcast, who first invited us on to their show in 2017 after playing the game at PAX East. They continued to support us for the next 3 years until launch, which were eternally grateful for! Heres us taking a photo together at our booth at PAX East in 2020 (not pictured here, me crying a lot because of how nice they are)!!!! We also joined their podcast once more in April 2020 to talk about the initial launch!
Every time we show the game, we always have a moment where young kids approach our booth and want to play. At MAGFest, a pair of sisters ran over to us yelling THIS GAME HAS COOL GIRLS!!!!!!!!!!! We talked with their parents for a bit while they played and the girls, seeing women at this booth showing a game we made about magical girl/nb characters, declared they also wanted to make games. That made me extremely happy. I also recently learned that my now industry peer, friend, and inspiration Victoria Tran (Community Director @ Innersloth) attended PAX East years ago as one of her very first game conventions and StarCrossed was the first game she played on the show floor. This absolutely blew my mind! We didnt know each other at the time but game conventions can be extremely intimidating and Im so happy that the StarCrossed set up could be a game that was approachable in that setting!
As I mentioned earlier, 4 years is a long time to work on a project and I changed a lot over that time. A big part of this was coming to terms with my own queerness and actually feeling I was a part of the LGBTQ+ community. This will probably sound extremely cheesy, but being able to write the StarCrossed cast and explore their relationships helped me feel more comfortable with myself. We were also approached for interviews by journalists who specialize in LGBTQ+ content which was extremely validating. It took a lot of time and practice, but eventually I got to the point where I could say Hi, Im gay and this is my gay video game about gay magical girl/nb heroes. Shoutout here specifically to Ana Valens (Daily Dot), Kenneth Shepard (Fanbyte Media), and Gayming Magazine!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$

In terms of finances, if we had been trying to sustain a studio we would be in trouble. No one on our team was financially dependent on income from this game so we never felt we needed to compromise our vision in favor of more marketable decisions. Maybe this was extremely foolish of us, I dont really know. Were very fortunate that our publisher, Whitethorn Games, felt the same way and supported our desire to cater to a more niche market.
Recording our Kickstarter video. Fun fact! my dog Olive was just off camera in most of these shots. I don't think I'm allowed to give exact numbers here, but the game and game related merch made around $25k-ISH across all platforms. This total number is how much our team saw after platform and publisher cuts and includes merch and game copies sold through our Kickstarter, which raised $12,270. (Side note, thank you so SO much to Anya and the Kickstarter Team for their help with our campaign!) Its definitely not a lot if you think about how long we spent working on this, but considering that An average game on Steam sells 2,144 copies and will make $9,586 in revenue after being on sale for a year (@richiedewit, dutch game garden) we agree that as our first game this was an overwhelming success Especially since we initially expected to make $0! As were all aware, A LOT HAPPENED IN 2020. Very soon after our launch the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, followed by the Black Lives Matter protests occuring around the globe in June. We as a team did not believe it was enough to make a statement post on social media and walk away. Together with 18 other development teams, we organized a fundraising bundle on itch.io in support of Black Lives Matter and the National Bail Fund Network. The bundle saw 2,832 contributors and raised over $100,000. Later that month, we also contributed StarCrossed to the Humble Fight For Racial Justice Bundle, which sold 134 thousand bundles.
Did this affect our sales and earnings? Absolutely. 134,000 people got a Steam key for StarCrossed through these bundles and we will never see money from those people playing our game. Do we regret doing a bunch of charity bundles less than 6 months after launch? Not even a little bit. Being able to support people and causes we care about was much more important than potential sales. We made this decision together as a team and we were able to do so because we had already paid all of our contractors and contributors up front during development. Note here also that wow, I cannot believe our publisher was cool with us doing this??? Im so grateful we partnered with a team that shared our values enough to put fundraising and charity above profits.

Fair Compensation & Our AWESOME Team

That's another thing I'm immensely proud of! Everyone who worked on this game came away from it feeling properly compensated and proud of the work they contributed. We have good relationships with every single one of our contractors, including voice talent. Making games is often high stress and challenging, especially on low budgets. We did our best to be careful in our spending and communicative with our entire team, so everyone was aware of where money was going and what we could afford. If we couldn't afford to pay someone properly then we didn't move forward. Im realizing now we didnt pay our friends who helped us set up our event booths, but I promise we did buy them a lot of coffee and bagels. Our core team was paid exclusively through profit share, which is our revenue minus our expenses (paying contractors, cost of showing at events, merch production costs, Kickstarter shipping, etc.) and we've each made a few thousand dollars. I really hate using the word contractor when I talk about the team behind StarCrossed, because every single person who worked on this game was invaluable. Without their skills and contributions, StarCrossed would be an extremely different game and Im so grateful we were able to work with these amazing people. Contractors here refers to people who joined the team later in development for a specified amount of time to do particular tasks. Contractors were paid up front based on agreed upon rates. I would happily work with every single person again. aaaaaaaaaaaaa I love this team!!!!!!!
Featuring voice talent from Livi, Nina Freeman, Dom Dinh, Simply Undrea, and Caitlin Burt!

Final notes

I truly cannot believe how much Ive grown and learned from working on this game. Not just the technical MAKE THE GAME part or the GET MONEY launching a game part. I also learned about how to be a good communicator, how to uplift and support my team, and how much thoughtful representation can mean to people within the gaming community. I included the prototype of StarCrossed in my grad school application 4 years ago and I put it in my portfolio to showcase my skills to employers and get jobs. It has led me to meet a truly astounding number of new friends and colleagues. I spent so many nights lying awake worrying about did I forget to pack something for the convention tomorrow? or what if nobody actually plays our game and everyone thinks its bad and they hate it or Steamworks PLEASE I dont understand what a depot is!!!!!!! It was all totally worth it. Happy 1 year anniversary StarCrossed!!!!!!!! Thank you to everyone who supported us, bought the game, or read this very long post! I had a lot of words I wanted to say. Thank you for reading! Other cute pictures I wanted to add so I'm sneaking them in at the end!

[ 2021-02-12 05:18:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Guardians!

Now that StarCrossed is out on Xbox One and Switch we have more people playing than ever before! Thanks to the feedback from our community, we've found additional ways to improve both gameplay and performance. All aspects of StarCrossed have received a noticeable performance boost, giving more stable frame rates on powerful computers while also allowing people with lower end machines to have an improved experience.

Here's what has changed!

• Frame Rate improvement across the board!!!
• If you reach an Arcade Mode scorecard break while your ult is activated, your ult now turns off letting you carry your remaining charge to the next stage.
• Health and Ult pickups now disappear over time if you don't pick them up.
• Bosses now award a large chunk of points in both Story and Arcade Mode.
• Adjusted hitboxes on Void Bullets during the final boss fight. They were previously too large and doing damage after the bullets had already passed.
• Fixed animation issues in some Story Mode cut scenes. Transitions into boss fights are now smoother.
• Updated UI elements in the Leaderboards view for clarity.

If you missed our previous post, the Official Soundtrack and Artbook is now available as a DLC bundle on Steam! Thank you for playing StarCrossed and sending us your feedback! If youre enjoying the game, please consider leaving a review. Were working towards the Very Positive rating and need your support to get there! - Contigo Games @PlayStarCrossed

[ 2020-05-20 03:25:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Art of StarCrossed is now available for download!

Check out this in-depth look at the world and characters of StarCrossed! The digital art book contains nearly every piece of art created during the game's development, including full-resolution final assets, early pieces of concept art, and everything in between! This package also includes a fully-illustrated 6 page prequel comic called The Legendary Guardians. Check out the artbook and comic here! Pages include insight from the developers at Contigo Games, telling the story of StarCrossed's design through commentary and "Ask the Artist" segments! Purchasing the artbook and comic is an excellent way to continue supporting our development team! Please check it out!

• Over 45 pages of art, including never-released concept art and developer commentary!
• 100+ illustrations and concept sketches by the StarCrossed art team!
• A full-color 6 page prequel comic!
• Sections devoted to each character in the main cast, including villains!
• A closer look at 3D art, character portraits, and background illustrations!
• Developer notes about character design, world lore, inspirations, gameplay planning, and more

Be warned! This artbook contains spoilers for StarCrossed Story Mode! Grab your copy here! Thank you so much for your support! If you're enjoying StarCrossed, please don't forget to leave us a review! Thanks! -Contigo Games

[ 2020-05-09 01:42:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Guardians!

The Contigo Games team is back from PAX East and getting in the last few fixes before our console release later this month! StarCrossed v1.2 includes performance fixes that will get you in the game quicker and will have you and your partner moving from wave to wave smoother than ever! ALSO, big news! You can now play StarCrossed on Linux! Were so excited to add Linux support, and we hope you enjoy playing StarCrossed.

On to the patch notes! Here's what has changed:

• Better performance when spawning enemies and bosses. Reduced frame stutter when boss fights begin.
• Improvements to game load times during company splash screens, and at the start of Arcade and Story mode.
• Slowed down Ult border particle to be less visually distracting.
• Fixed a Leaderboard bug where the Stage Count could sometimes report an incorrect number.
• All 2D images now appear a bit more crisp!
• Snake enemy movement improvements. They now spend more time in the center of the screen instead of the edges.
• Fixed a bug where enemies can sometimes become invincible and stick on screen.
• Fixed a rare bug where game can sometimes freeze after a boss fight during the slow motion effect.
• Fixed a rare bug where the opening cutscene can sometimes freeze when skipping.
• Pause menu no longer appears over game over menu if you unplug a controller in the game over menu.
• Fixed issue where players can be hurt after defeating the Scientist boss.

Thank you for playing StarCrossed and sending us your feedback! If youre enjoying the game, please consider leaving a review. Were slowly working towards the Very Positive rating! - Contigo Games @PlayStarCrossed

[ 2020-03-10 02:43:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Our artist has created a special Valentine's Day illustration, just for you! Check it out on Twitter. StarCrossed is celebrating with our first post-launch update, making StarCrossed a smoother experience for you and your partner! The whole team has been watching people stream StarCrossed and share their excitement on Twitter! This also allowed us to hear your suggestions and feedback!

Here's what has changed:

• We lowered the default master volume of the game and added a volume slider to the Options menu. This should help streamers configure their setup more comfortably!
• Resolved issues some players were having with PS4 controller button mappings.
• Better handling of miscellaneous USB devices being picked up as controllers. Let us know if you discover any devices that are incorrectly detecting as a controller!
• When playing with two controllers, you now have the option to also use the Triggers and Bumpers of your controller for StarBoosts and Dodging, giving you more ways to play.
• StarCrossed will no longer get in the way of your multitasking, it now freezes its state when minimized.

Along with these overall system changes we also have some small gameplay improvements.

• Are you stuck on a hard boss fight? Dont give up! Your ult will now gain some charge between attempts to help you defeat those big enemies!
• Higher level "Chompies" have been slowed down, giving you more time to respond to their impending attack Still proceed with caution.
• Added additional checkpoint after a conversation that takes place after the first boss fight. You wont have to read the same dialogue after retrying.
• Fixed an issue where some users were not receiving their end of Story Mode Steam achievements. This has been fixed and you will be awarded your previously earned achievements when you boot up the game!!

Thank you for playing StarCrossed and keep sending us your feedback! Happy Valentines Day! - Contigo Games

[ 2020-02-14 23:04:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Steam! Were excited to announce that StarCrossed will be released on February 11, 2020 for PC and Mac. Its so soon! Well be offering a 10% discount during our launch week, so dont forget to swing by and pick up a copy! Well also be releasing the StarCrossed soundtrack, an original track list of magical and spacey tunes, which you can purchase as a bundle or separately. Its been almost a year since we launched the StarCrossed Steam page. Weve been so happy to see our wishlist numbers rising over time and were so excited to share our game with you! We also want to extend a very special thank you to all of the Steam curators who have added StarCrossed to their collections. We appreciate your support! Well be posting some great content on our social media in the coming weeks as we approach launch. Please follow us on Twitter!

More about the game:

StarCrossed is an action arcade game with a magical girl aesthetic and a cooperative twist! Join our cast of 5 space-faring heroes as they travel across the stars, working together to strengthen their bond and defeat a looming evil that threatens the Nova galaxy! Its time to team up, get sparkly, and take out the bad guys! Cast of 5 playable characters to choose from! StarCrossed features a group of magical heroes who have been chosen to defend the galaxy during a time of crisis. Each hero has their own unique ultimate ability which can be used during gameplay. Every pair of characters has unique dialogues which explore their relationship to each other and to the universe. Mix and match to explore each character's personality! Designed from the ground up for 2 player local co-op! Everything in StarCrossed, from the mechanics to the aesthetic, was designed around the themes of cooperation and togetherness. Play on keyboard or grab some controllers! Split controller mode offers the option for solo play or an even cozier two player experience. Get competitive with Arcade Mode! Endless procedurally generated waves of enemies make Arcade Mode perfect for high score chasers! Show your Steam friends who the real heroes are by topping the Friends Leaderboard, or go for galactic domination by climbing the Global Leaderboard! Explore the galaxy in Story Mode! Visit new places and meet our quirky supporting cast in Story Mode! With visual novel style dialogue scenes and an epic quest, this mode is for the players who want to learn more about the Nova Galaxy and become true Guardians!

About the team:

Contigo Games is a small studio dedicated to creating multiplayer games and playful experiences to bring players together in meaningful ways. The story of our studio is a story of friends who wanted to stay close even when life pulled us geographically far away. Contigo Games was founded in 2016 in Massachusetts, USA to work on StarCrossed. As personal obligations forced us to move apart, Contigo continued existing as a remote team. We've been working on StarCrossed for a little over 4 years now, but our goal remains the same as it was on day 1: to create a game about cooperation and friendship which brings players together the same way that creating it has kept us together. In 2019, we launched a Kickstarter to help fund the development of the game and we've been working hard this past year to finally finish our game and send it out into the world. Thank you so much for your support! Questions? Comments? Find us in the Steam Community Hub or on Twitter! See you on Feb. 11!

[ 2020-02-04 19:20:54 CET ] [ Original post ]