
Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem - jarcane
http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2015/06/releasing-commercial-ascii-roguelike-post-mortem/
======
Pyxl101
After seeing the demo, I felt like the Reddit commentator who wrote, "I've
never gone so quickly from seeing something to buying it" [or wanting to!].
Unfortunately, the buy page is pretty complicated:

[http://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/buy.html](http://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/buy.html)

The page has a lot of graphics and characters using strikethrough which
confused me and looks somewhat unprofessional. I suspect the author might be
losing conversions due to the complexity of this page. I would prefer a
simpler buy page that put the actionable content right at the top. (I'm just
looking for a regular commercial-type purchase of an early access game, not
being a backer per se.)

I'm sharing this as constructive feedback in the hope the author might see it.
A customer like me will appreciate a simpler, direct buy page that doesn't
require a lot of thought from "oooo this looks fun" to making the purchase.
Capitalize on impulse buys coming out of your demo.

Anyway, very polished and fun from the few minutes I've had to play it so far.
Nice work!

This game is easily as polished as, or more polished than plenty of games on
Steam Greenlight. Steam was the first place I looked for it, actually, after
reading the article. A game like this should attract huge interest among the
right audience if it's replayable. You have flashy and normal enough graphics
with an easy-to-understand interface that regular gamers can enjoy it, and it
also seems like it will appeal to the hardcore roguelike gamers. I'd highly
recommend you try to get it on Steam as soon as you think it's ready (speaking
as a person who makes a lot of video game purchases on Steam and not many
outside it).

~~~
bebna
If one has to scroll down to see the buy button, all the impulse buyers are
lost.

~~~
Kyzrati
Dev here. Yeah, that page turned into a mess compared to what it was
originally designed to be, but at the current stage I'm actually trying to
ward off impulse buyers. The game isn't even done yet!

I mentioned in the post-mortem that I only want quality players right now who
are very familiar with what they're getting into, and I haven't even been
advertising the game to a general audience, only the primary target audience.

The Steam/GOG launch next year will be cheaper, and for a different audience.
"Problem" is, players are having so much fun with it that news about Cogmind
continues to spread...

~~~
Pyxl101
I'm both an impulse buy and also (I think) your primary audience, as someone
who's played Nethack, Dungeons of Dredmor, DCSS, Darkest Dungeon, FTL, Dwarf
Fortress, Project Zomboid, The Escapists, Atom Zombie Smasher, etc. (forgive
me for assuming I know what your audience is - I'm guessing). What I mean by
impulse purchase is that, having made the decision to purchase it, I want to
go quickly from making that decision to having the game in my hands. This is
one area of user experience where Steam really excels. This includes assessing
the risk of making an alpha purchase. Once I figured out how to purchase, your
system that emailed me a download link delivered. :-)

But yes, I understand what you mean about discouraging random people who
stumble across it from not knowing what they're getting into. Early access
games are a phenomenon these days from Steam however, so a lot of people are
familiar with the idea and comfortable with the purchase being a gamble,
especially when the developer is making an effort to engage with the
community, and you have a sense that the game will continue to be improved
over time. (I am really looking forward to Terraria 1.3 for example, and find
it amazing and delightful that Re-Logic continues to add so much content.
They've already secured my purchase of Terraria:OtherWorld.) I also understand
that it wouldn't be fun to have a bunch of unsatisfied people harassing you
and consuming your time with returns. Just sharing my thoughts as someone who
saw the demo and thought "I want this NOW" :-)

The level of polish in the video, in overall slickness and animation and sound
effects, gave me a good sense of what I was getting into, and I can say from
the game's "loading" screen, first level, animation & sound effects, and
interface polish (including item & effect descriptions) I am not at all
disappointed. It's great!

I like the fact that you've put a lot of effort into making the game playable
without a reference, with inline help. A lot of other games fall down there,
including AAA titles.

I haven't played more than a few minutes, so I don't know if by unfinished you
mean you need to add a lot of content, or you mean the game isn't playable
from start to finish. If it's playable from start to finish then I'd say
you're in good shape (if not, then that's understandable as an alpha, and I
agree with keeping it away from the mainstream until then). If you mean you
can finish the game, but there isn't as much content as you'd like, then I'm
sure you will improve it! One thing I'll be interested to see is whether the
item drops result in a character that plays in a way that "feels" different,
e.g., legs vs. wheels. Movement taking different amounts of time is something
that I can grasp as a roguelike player, but I think items will offer the most
variety if they can "feel" different somehow (that's the best I can describe
it). FTL teleporters and stealth are an example of items that drastically
change the feel, leading to completely different gameplay. Project Zomboid
melee weapons vs. firearms is another example. (With wheels, can I effectively
roll up and melee things when I couldn't on legs? I would hope to find tactics
like this.) It's the emergent gameplay that makes tactical games or games with
sandbox elements so beautiful and interesting.

Thanks for posting! Good luck!

~~~
Kyzrati
Yup, there's a full game in there. You can (if you're good enough =p) play all
the way through to the end. We have only two known winners on record since the
game's launch. It's hard.

What's missing is the mid/late-game optional branches that will add
interactive story elements, multiple endings, and lots more robots and
components (the latter objects are all complete, but you can't access them yet
until the new maps are added).

And yeah you'd be the target audience; anyone who plays DCSS and DF would fall
into that category :D.

There are absolutely the types of strategic differences you mention here, and
wide spectrum of approaches. The good thing is it's not entirely based on luck
--you can hunt down specific robots and take what you need; at the same time,
if caught in the wrong place you could end up getting beat up and forced to
switch strategies on the fly. This is a big part of the appeal I think.
Comebacks from a partial defeat are commonplace, but not always in the way you
intended.

------
tempodox
Regrettably, this is one of those posts that are extremely hard to read
because of the eye-unfriendly color scheme. Light content on dark background
is obviously hard to do well, so _please_ stick with what you're good at?

This is meant as sincere constructive critique, so feel free to downvote ad
libitum.

~~~
jpatokal
Think of it as fair warning: if you can't stand the post's color scheme,
you're unlikely to like the game either.

[http://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/index.html](http://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/index.html)

~~~
tempodox
OK, I haven't checked that out yet :)

It's just that I haven't given up hope yet to make (at least some) authors of
such blogs aware of this bar to reception. If the color scheme doesn't have a
designed function to enhance the content, it's apt to become a liability.

Edit: I cheched it out now and must say, the Cogmind page is actually way
better than the article in question. It makes less use of white and reduces
contrast (mostly) to acceptable levels. As an aside, I like the game idea. My
favourite roguelike still uses ascii graphics :)

------
ZenSwordArts
Out of curiosity I have to ask another question..

When you started the project did you consider using libtcod (
[https://bitbucket.org/libtcod/libtcod](https://bitbucket.org/libtcod/libtcod)
,
[http://roguecentral.org/doryen/libtcod/](http://roguecentral.org/doryen/libtcod/)
) ?

Did you even know it at the time and if so why did you decide not to use it? I
always thought libtcod was THE way to go for fancy ascii games. I would be
very interested in your opinion on this.

~~~
Kyzrati
I actually contributed a bit to libtcod back when it was in active development
:D

The roguelike I worked on before Cogmind was originally written to work with
libtcod's frontend, but I wanted to do a few unorthodox things and rather than
continually patch up libtcod decided to build my own frontend from scratch.
that bit was all I was using from libtcod as I already had my own game library
and roguelike engine at the time. My version supports mixed font sizes out of
the box and is written in C++ rather than C.

------
ZenSwordArts
That game looks really great. I've played so many roguelikes and was instantly
interested. Reading a good post mortem was another plus to check it out.

Then I remembered the general problem with commercial games.. went straight to
the FAQ and searched for "linux".. bummer.. I guess somehow I expected a
roguelike to work on Linux :)

I will observe the game and hopefully someday a Linux version will emerge.
Good luck to your quest as indie dev!

~~~
Kyzrati
Yeah, it's an unfortunate limitation of the custom engine :'(

But the alpha does have a rather large number of Linux players since it works
great under Wine.

And thanks!

~~~
outworlder
Installing (and using) Wine on OSX is a major pain in the rear. A bundled
installer would help with that.

I'd love to read more about the custom engine :)

~~~
Kyzrati
Yeah, I want to eventually have a wrapper to simplify installation for those
players. For now there are step-by-step guides on the forums that keep the
process pretty simple with regard to Cogmind.

I may one day write more about the engine. I've written small bits here and
there in the past, though nothing comprehensive. Getting busier and busier
after release, so less time to write and publish articles :(

~~~
kbenson
By the time you are ready to release, you could probably compile to
WebAssembly and ship with a bundled webkit/chrome app wrapper (like how
Slack's native clients build on a bare bones browser that is bundled with it).

It's crazy how much JS is out-competing Java in some areas.

------
zimpenfish
No native Mac support planned moves it from "SUPPORT NOW!" to "eh, not this
time."

~~~
contingencies
Same story here, but 'Mac or Linux'.

------
coldpie
Neat game, though that's the weirdest ASCII font I've ever seen ;)

If you're interested in porting your binary to Linux/Mac/SteamOS using a Wine
wrapper, throw my company an email. That's exactly what we do :)

~~~
Kyzrati
It's possible I'll be using a wrapper for the full version, yeah. I've got
your info and I'll look you guys up when it comes to that!

As for fonts, there are 82 font bitmaps included with the game, so for those
seeking more traditional options, we've got 'em:
[http://www.gridsagegames.com/forums/index.php?topic=165.0](http://www.gridsagegames.com/forums/index.php?topic=165.0)
(The game is highly customizable, with new optional features added every new
version.)

------
shocks
Is it cross platform? Is it DRM free?

Couldn't quickly tell from the website and I would've instantly bought it if I
knew the answers...

~~~
Kyzrati
The System Requirements section on the buy page addresses the cross-platform
issue (as does the FAQ). I don't make a big point of it because while it works
fine through Wine etc., it's not natively cross-platform.

As for your other question, I should really put a notice on the website that
Cogmind is _completely DRM free_. That's not currently indicated anywhere...
(I'll add it tomorrow, thanks!)

Edit: Just quickly added it to a header since the site's getting a lot of
traffic right now.

~~~
shocks
DRM free is what really matters to me. Cross platform would be nice, but
Windows is my main platform anyway. ;D

Game looks great. Expect a purchase from me!

~~~
Kyzrati
Whew, many thanks for your support :D

GOG asked me the same thing when they wrote me last weekend to see if I was
interested in joining their platform =p

~~~
shocks
No problem.

Do you think you'll be joining GOG? They seem like a great company to me but
I've only ever been on the consumer side of the equation. I greatly enjoyed my
DRM free copy of The Witcher 3!

~~~
Kyzrati
I assume I will, yeah, as they have a good, loyal customer base and are known
for quality. Still in early talks, and it wouldn't happen until next year, I
don't think, because we'd need to wait for a price drop, and I don't want to
really push and advertise Cogmind until it's about done.

------
Derpdiherp
Been watching the development of this title for a while now - brilliant stuff.
I'm so pleased the release has worked out well for you so far - even if only
alpha.

When I have the spare funds I'll be sure to pick up a copy!

~~~
Kyzrati
Many thanks! And feel free to wait until the price drops next year if you need
to :). I've got enough funds to see it through to completion, though I'd like
to use any surplus to hire a professional composer for the OST.

~~~
kh_hk
I too have been following the development of Cogmind since having a post of
mine about dungeon generation using BSP trees being linked on your dev blog.
The game looks impressive.

Congrats on the release!

~~~
Kyzrati
Thank you, and yeah for that first post in the mapgen series I linked to a
bunch of good online examples for others to check out, so thanks for that :D

~~~
kh_hk
Your game dev blog is worth alone a good read. Specially the 5 part series on
map generation. Most sources online are pretty obscure, being either just a
brief on what algorithms steps involve or a crude demo attached on a forum.

If anyone is interested, these are the series I am talking about:

[http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/06/procedural-map-
gen...](http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/06/procedural-map-generation/)

[http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/06/mapgen-
tunneling-a...](http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/06/mapgen-tunneling-
algorithm/)

[http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/06/mapgen-cellular-
au...](http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/06/mapgen-cellular-automata/)

[http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/07/dungeon-
metrics/](http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/07/dungeon-metrics/)

[http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/07/dungeon-
prefabs/](http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/07/dungeon-prefabs/)

------
marak830
Thankyou for the link, great timing for me as im releasing my first soon, and
i was really beginning to feel overwhelmed at the non-code side of things.
Heck it even effected my code i was so concerned, i kept being distracted.

This helps a lot though, so i think ill be back on after work tonight to put
some more polish on!

