Avernum: Escape from the Pit

Spiderweb Software is a small independent game company which has been making classic, 2 dimensional turn based RPGs for nearly two decades now. Avernum: Escape  from the Pit is a remake of their original game, Exile, from 1995. It has been remade with slightly better graphics and a new game engine, as well as new story elements and secrets in the game itself. If you have already played the first game in the series, it is nothing particularly revolutionary, but if you enjoy classic computer RPGs with a long, rich story, involved character creation, and a huge quantity of items, then in my opinion Avernum: Escape from the Pit might interest you very much.

You Will Never See the Sun Again

The premise behind Avernum is straightforward: the world is ruled by one gigantic, tyrannical empire with little tolerance for people who are a little different, or just annoy the wrong person. These people, who haven't committed a crime worth execution, are instead magically banished to a massive underground cave system. This is Avernum, a kingdom locked deep underground.

Gigantic firebreathing centuries old magical lizard of death.

Unsurprisingly, life is not hunky dory in Avernum. Humans are beset on all sides by other hostile races, such as the nephilim, the bandit-prone cat people, the slitherzaki, barbarian lizard warriors, and of course human brigands and murderers. In addition, powerful demons, the restless dead, callous dragons, brutish ogres, and many other factions are trying to exterminate humans from beneath the surface. This is where you will enter Avernum; you will start out weak, clueless, and unconnected, but with time, tact, cleverness, and just a bit of luck, you will become stronger and begin to unravel some of the mysteries of Avernum. Hidden in the caves are mighty relics, from peoples now mysteriously missing from the caves, in the treasure troves of dragons and demons, and lost from the surface; you will want to uncover these, as they are universally powerful and useful.

Combat in Avernum is turn and grid-based. Many of the systems are quite dated (and to me nostalgic), so people who are only interested in brand new triple A lifelike graphics will probably not be interested in Avernum. It does take a bit of patience to love this game, but if it is the kind of game you like, you will fall in love with Avernum. It has more than a hundred hours of content to delve into, and surprises await prudent adventurers.

If Avernum sounds fun to you, you can find out more about it on it's Spiderweb Software website.

Independent Game Distribution & Revenue

Recently I read an article published by Level Up Labs LLC, the independent game studio who developed and published Defender's Valley. Defender's Valley is a modestly successful indie game which I have not played, but that is not relevant to today's post. Today  we will be talking about the article itself, which discusses the methods of distribution which Level Up Labs used for Defender's Valley, the revenue they received over two periods of time, and some overall thoughts on getting your indie game out there.

Steam is Great for Gross (Revenue).

To the left is a breakdown of the gross revenues received from each distribution method. It is immediately obvious that getting your game available on Steam is an excellent objective to power sales - even though they did not sell their game on Steam for as long as other platforms (direct sales took place for several months before the other sales platforms made agreements with Level Up Labs), Steam had by far the biggest amount of revenue and most sales. Nevertheless, it is very important to notice how well selling direct worked for Level Up Labs, particularly taking into account the fact that direct sales generate the most revenue for Level Up Labs themselves - the company they used to process payments for direct sales took only 8% of the sale, and all other sales platforms took a larger chunk (which Level Up Labs was unable to share with us due to Non-Disclosure Agreements but is most likely around 30%, with Steam being the distributor most likely to take the biggest cut).

The most important things to take from this topic are that it is better to have a bigger variety of distributors, Steam is an extremely powerful revenue generator, and setting up direct sales is extremely important as it is still a significant cut of your overall revenue and it gives you a customer base with loyalty to the indie developer themselves, rather than to a platform first (like Steam).

Sales Sell

Lars Doucet of Level Up Labs also makes a very helpful graphic showing the relationship between discount sales and the number of sales that happen during the sale. From the graphic it is immediately clear and quite interesting that by far the most revenue was generated during the time where the game was discounted to the lowest per unit price. In other words, even though they temporarily lowered the actual price of the game to only five dollars per sale, they sold such a vastly higher quantity of units that they made by far more revenue than when the game was full price. Doucet does note later on that after reviewing the numbers of the sale they decided that they had most likely underpriced their game and they could have probably generated more overall revenue if they had kept the price a bit higher, but regardless these sales were clearly excellent overall for Level Up Labs - without any sale, they would have undoubtedly had much lower overall revenue.

If interested in the entire article, you may find it here. They cover some more topics which are less related to the distribution platform but are still interesting. For anyone looking into developing and selling an indie game, this article provides some great information on how and where you should focus on selling your game: attract Steam, continue to sell direct, and utilize sales to create interest and purchases.

Upcoming Game: Maia

Welcome to Maia.

Maia is an upcoming game by indie developer Simon Roth. Maia is a science fiction god game with citybuilding elements.

Not the Friendliest Neighborhood

Maia is humanity's first extra solar colony. Maia is not as comfortable for homo sapiens as Earth; your first order of business upon arriving on Maia will be to dig, because your colony starts out underground, where you are protected from the elements. When you start in Maia you will have to mine the necessary resources to construct a safe shelter for your colonists, to feed them, to power the technology you need to survive on an alien world. In addition, you will need to keep your colonists entertained so that they do not go insane and kill each other, while building defenses to protect yourself from hostile lifeforms.

Simon Roth's goal in making Maia is to resurrect the god-game genre and showcase the power of independent game developers. Many indie games have subpar graphics, so one of the areas that Simon Roth is focusing on is making Maia look great. Furthermore, Maia has a powerful and realistic physics engine, as well as cool touches like realtime daylight lighting.

There isn't a ton to write about on Maia but it is looking like it will be a lot of fun if you enjoy god-games or citybuilders, as it combines elements of both. Maia's alpha release is currently expected within the next month  or so, so if you are interested you will be able to try it out then. News on Maia can be found on the game's website.

Spelunky: Cave Exploration Adventure

Spelunky is a cave exploration roguelike game, where you take control of a brave spelunker and delve into an ancient cave in an attempt to plumb it of it's secrets and treasure. In Spelunky, death is brutal, relentless, unforgiving, hideously fast, and quite common. Every time you start a new game of Spelunky, the cave is randomly generated anew, but with practice you will learn how to survive and collect riches.

What Lies Beneath?

A typical entry cave.

When you first start playing Spelunky, you will probably have no idea what you are doing; as a direct consequence, you will most likely die within 15 seconds. Do not let this discourage you, as it is expected. Each map type has the same kinds of dangers; for instance, the first cave type has snakes, bats, spiders, giant spiders, arrow traps, golden shrines, cave men, spikes, and falling rocks. In addition you might blow yourself up with bombs or throw something at yourself. Also, theft is generally punished quickly and violently by the merchants. As you play (and then die), you will get experience with all of these dangers and learn how to survive them.

How exactly does a rain forest grow so far underground?

You have two goals in Spelunky: collect treasure, and delve deeper into the cave. After you get through five cave levels, you will get to the jungle levels, which will introduce a brand new variety of generally more dangerous threats. You will once again get the opportunity to die many more times while you learn to survive the jungle, and once you delve deep enough into the jungle, you will get to the next type of cave, and so on.

Depth in Simplicity

Although the concept and controls for Spelunky are extremely straightforward, and the basics will be grasped quickly, the randomness and unforgiving nature of the game mean that skill is extremely important in Spelunky. As you play Spelunky, you will develop the skills you need to survive longer and further; or you will die and you will not advance. Spelunky is relentless unforgiving, and that is what makes it so fun - as you advance, you know you are advancing because you are getting better, and that is a great feeling.

If Spelunky sounds fun, you can download it for free here at it's website.

Upcoming Game: Stardew Valley

If you loved Harvest Moon, then Stardew Valley will be right up your alley. Stardew Valley is an upcoming "country life" RPG that bears many similarities to Harvest Moon, and it is being developed for PC. We'll talk a little about what a country life RPG is for anyone who missed Harvest Moon, and why you should be excited for Stardew Valley.

It's the simple life for me.

The premise of Stardew Valley is straightforward: you have come into ownership of a small farm in a rural town, dilapidated but ready for renovation and sowing. You have many choices in games like this, and the game is intended to be quite open-ended with the player deciding on which plot points to pursue, but some things available to do in Stardew Valley will include the following:

•  Turn your run down farm into a vast, productive ranch! This game is about farming, and farm you shall!
• Explore a vast, mysterious cave network - this is a combat and mining side of things.
• Become a part of the town community, and if you decide to, court and marry a fellow town member. Social aspects of this game are important, too.
• Help determine whether Stardew Valley remains a small-town paradise or a member of the powerful Juju Corporation. Politics are part of the game.
• Other things, like Archeology, Fishing, Cooking, and designing the appearance of your house and farm.

 I played Harvest  Moon, why should I be interested in Stardew Valley?

While Stardew Valley looks like it has a similar basic concept as Harvest Moon, the developer of Stardew Valley has expanded on it and added a ton of new things. Some of the main decisions you make in Stardew Valley, like the politics and caves, look like great new additions. Also, Stardew Valley is multiplayer! You can tend to your farm and explore the cave with your friends. Multiplayer is an awesome addition to the farming RPG genre.

If you want to follow the news on Stardew Valley, you can do so at their website. Links to their twitter can be found there too. I am excited about Stardew Valley and can't wait for it to come out, hopefully sometime this year.

Crowdfunding for Indie Developers: Kickstarter

 Almost by definition, an indie developer is probably going to have a very limited budget for producing their game. One exciting new source of funding is crowdfunding, like Kickstarter. It has been successful for several indie games already, including FTL. We'll talk about what exactly crowdfunding is today.

What is Crowdfunding and Kickstarter?

Funding by the people, for the people.

Crowdfunding is seeking funding for a specific project from the general public, sometimes in exchange for certain rewards (for instance, many games funded by Kickstarter will give you the full game for slightly less than the planned retail price at release). If you have the media to demonstrate your project, and an exciting, interesting, or revolutionary new concept, Kickstarter could work great for you.

Crowdfunding is a powerful tool because it lets you get the funds you need to complete your project without having to to go through a major publishing company and shackling yourself to their creative overview. By creating a Kickstarter project, you can also gauge public interest in your concept; if your project cannot garner public support on Kickstarter, it's possible it would not be financially successful regardless.

In addition to being a useful option for generating funds to create your game, Kickstarter is great at creating positive word-of-mouth among the gaming community, as that is where funding outside of close friends and family will generally come from; using Kickstarter can be an effective part of advertising your game while seeking funding for it at the same time.

If you are interested in creating a Kickstarter project or looking at current and past successful Kickstarter projects, you can of do so right here at the Kickstarter website.

Upcoming Game: Starbound

First contact with this guy will probably involve lasers.

2013 is shaping up to be an exciting year for indie games. My most anticipated game of 2013 is definitely Starbound. Starbound is an open world sandbox platform game about exploration, collection, combat, and building. Starbound is a new kind of game, but it is similar in some ways to Minecraft, and more so Terraria. However, Starbound is much more directed and story driven than either of those games - you have clear goals which you will probably want to pursue, although you are also free to just sit down and build.

What am I doing in Space?

Home sweet metal-space-can home. For now.

Starbound will start everyone off on an abandoned space station, fleeing the destruction of your homeworld by an as-yet mysterious adversary. Once you start playing, one of the things you will want to do is improve, repair, and upgrade your new space station. Eventually, you may want to found a new homeworld as well, which you will colonize and terraform.

You will be the Krabmikaze Jane Goodall.

Starbound is going to be a game of exploration - you will explore the galaxy and catalog what you find. Starbound will provide the players with the tools to examine and record everything, if they want. Every plant, animal, and weird rock you find will be able to be examined, and some of them will be useful. Maybe that tree can be harvested for an oil you desperately need to fuel your space stations hydraulic centrifugal blackhole machine. 

The Stars are the Limit

Although a lot of things about Starbound are still unknown, the clear thing is that Starbound will be a game about exploration and options for the player. I am personally very excited about Starbound as it looks like it is a new and fascinating type of game, with amazing depth and complexity.

If you are interested in following development on Starbound, check out their website. You can sign up for their monthly newsletter if you want to be kept up to date on developments.