- The Episodes post 1.40 would connect to the open-ended play decision
- V1.40 would be a candidate for a Steam Release in a polished version, though I'd need a least one month to jump all the Steam hoops, scrape through it, clean up assets (bought most DAZ I regularly use but probably overlooked a bunch), replace dodgy CC licensed audio, etc... Not sure wether thats worth the effort as Indie Game sales on Steam run out of Steam (pun intended) after the first few days and are buried by countless other games. I'd need at least 5k game sales to make it worth the effort in my view. Questionable.
Some tips:
1) Up the pr0n by at least 30%. Both your titles have extremely well done mechanics (making them actual games, rather than VNs or "just" your average RPGmaker effort); both lack pr0n payoff. You are, in fact, making stuff to wank to, so stop fucking around coyly pretending you're not.
1a) As stated before, the entire mini-game part of Shell trading / work is a waste of your time. LIs > RNG mechanics, always.
1b) As shown by numerous titles on these boards, churning out vignettes is just processing power, dedication and a bit of focus. DAZ isn't exactly hard to find templates for if you need some generic scenes with models you've already created.
2) Steam is a 30% revenue cut but a huge boost **if** you know how to work the algo. You want to smash into the *game* part of the experience (SF / management / 2D + 2.5D combat / strategy / Story / 18+) over the obvious pr0n elements. There's multiple titles you can look at for reference.
2a) Steam is always worth it if you already have a 1.0 gold product and are switched on enough to know which licenses to get and so on: if nothing else, it will garner you zero income for zero effort (it'll also provide a bit of sideways legal cover / tax write-offs, for reasons, but Yarrrr, this is a pirate board sooo). Otherwise, even being as negative / realistic as you are, it'll be a passive income stream that will buy you beers each month.
2b) Know your price point: $20 or $15 is your target here. When a sale hits within 3months, do a 20% then 40% at 6 months. People will impulse buy.
2c) Steam is preferrable to Gog for one simple reason:
You must be registered to see the links
<-- this type of site isn't even a Repack / Torrent or Pirate site, it literally just yoinks GoG releases and hosts them for free. So... there's zero reason to ever host on Gog. Ever. You, as a Dev, will
never get any revenue from it.
3) Indy games <-> Curators. Don't send free Steam keys to anyone, 90% of them are scammers reselling on Grey Markets. Just don't do it. If you need some interest, ping a few YouTubers who cover Indy titles exclusively, and send them a friendly Email and make it clear you're not blanket bombing the entirety of Steam with free keys. I can think of a couple who will groove with this (look up anyone who has covered a game called "Starsector" now as a lead).
3a) Reddit is annoying, but can be useful: try to post something honest / genuine + funny ("Heyy... Yeah, I know this is a pr0n game, but...") around a sale point and just point people towards it. If you get lucky / or are any good at this, the results can be quite good (one project I boosted sales by 15k in a weekend just piggy-backing off a really amusing cluster-fuck post on Reddit. That was years ago, but it helped the bottom line a lot).
3b) Don't underestimate the retro-appeal market. There's very very few games that scratch the itch that SPAZ did, and even fewer with the smut factor. (Yes, I know one mutli-million dollar smut game tried to). Yes, I know your combat is turn based; this game is fairly unique, so...
4) Way back in 1.10 or 1.20 the combat got ultra-overtuned in the later sectors. You might want to slap a difficulty choice into the game - just reduce the damage done in "Easy" by 35% ish, you'll be good. This will solve any issues players **will** have when hitting that difficulty spike. I mean, seriously: I've played many a strategy game on the highest difficulty and a couple of those later fights were
sweaty.
~
Anyhow. Glad you're somewhat better, and good luck. But if in doubt: up the smut factor, you're off by a decent chunk where game mechanics aren't providing the payoff, both here and in prior title.
Also, I know you're mostly vanilla, but for a title focusing on BDSM... there's a dire need for some direct shame kink etc. Look up "public cum walk" for a hint.
