Day 107: Today, I released the alpha of Rogue Cadet. It’s an important milestone. The link is here: https://maximelore.itch.io/rogue-cadet. It’s also my birthday. Oh and I went to the grocery shop to by some alcohol.

Daily interesting stuff:

• Reddit post, AMA of a senior game dev. Cool stuff in there.

• Reddit post, twitter flowing thread. People post their twitter profile. And follow other people. I gained some followers thanks to that.

Tasks done:

• Released the alpha. That’s it, that’s all that I’ve done. But it took a lot of time. Here all the stuff I did:

  • Made the final build for PC / MAC / Linux. I had to reinstall the proper export packages of Unity. And make the .zips.

  • Passed the trailer to public so I can link it everywhere.

  • Made a new version of my feedback form. I added a section for the communication (rating on the itch page etc…)

  • Updated the itch.io page. I changed the description. Linked to the new version of the trailer and the feedback form. I also changed the screenshot to something more up to date (and cooler too). Finally I uploaded the builds.

  • Updated the Gamejolt page. This was essentially just copy pasting from itch. Except that the upload time for the builds was much much longer.

  • Tweeted about the alpha version. As usually there were almost no interaction but, hey at least I’m doing it.

  • Made a facebook post on the game’s page. It took a bit longer to make since it’s not limited to 140 characters. This time instead of treating it like news. I tried to make it as a compelling announcement.

  • Shared the post on my personal page. I don’t have many facebook friends but I still got some attention.

  • Posted on the group page of my school section. I got some visibility which is nice. I also posted the same thing in the chat group.

  • Sent personal notifications. I have some friends that aren’t active on Facebook or Twitter, so I contacted them directly. And send them the links. Sometimes I even throwed a joke or two as well.

  • All that lead to a whole 42 visit of the itch page and 5 download of game. When I told you I’m terrible at reach, I meant it ;)

Milestone end: Wow, this concludes the alpha milestone. It was a long road. Starting from a dirty prototype and ending with the current alpha version. I’m quite happy with the game. Granted it’s not groundbreaking but it’s enjoyable and it’s starting to become quite complete. Now I have to make it to Beta. There’s still a lot of stuff to do. And probably even more to cut. The focus now shifts to finishing the damn game. I won’t add any big feature. I’ll also look for if someone would want to work as an unpaid hobbyist on this project to make graphics.

What went wrong:

• I think the biggest problem was motivation. There were some days where it was hard to work. And at some periods, productivity was really low.

• I failed to better inform myself on a legal standpoint before. And I was disillusioned concerning the outcome of the game. I thought it would be easy to get it on steam and have some sales. Even if I wasn’t expecting much more than a hundred sales. But seeing the legal procedures and stuff like that. It made decide to just release it for free and deal with the consequences. I just hope that it won’t somehow invalidate the worth of this project as a work experience.

• The game is not as polished as it should be. I thought that given the time, I would be able to do it well. But it turns out I’m not good at it. I’m not good at making content, I’m not good at balancing, I’m not good at polishing effects.

What went right:

• I didn’t give up. This might sounds cheesy but I still consider this as important. Since I don’t plan on living of it, game dev is could now be considered as a hobby of mine. It’s been hard to justify powering through 40 hours a week of often tedious “hobby”. But I did it anyway, and I’ll have the result to show for it.

• Released the alpha on time. I didn’t blow my deadline! I even got the time for some QA and PR. I’m pretty proud that I was able to correctly estimate the time it took me.

• I’m waiting for the feedback, but I think the game really come to life this couple past month. I’m happy with the result. It’s not perfect but I think it’s becoming decent.