April 2023 DevlogHey everyone, I hope you've had a fantastic 2023 so far.
It’s been a few months since the last update, but I’ve been hard at work, putting in many 10-12 hour days over the past few months. Recently I’ve been a little quiet across social media as I’ve felt my time is better spent at this point in development just finishing this project. It’s also a hard balance between showing off new stuff, and avoiding potential spoilers.
I spent a lot of my energy on marketing
CONSCRIPT in both 2021 and 2022, through both digital and physical events like Gamescom & PAX. Trying to balance promotion and development as a one man team was very exhausting, but also a necessary part of the process. Most developers neglect this, only to then wonder why their game didn’t sell. I’ve done everything in my power to avoid this.
Due to these efforts, I recently passed 70,000 wishlists on Steam which is a tremendous milestone for me - and not something I had ever believed to be possible when I first started out. I didn’t even think I’d ever even reach 20,000 back in 2020. Thank you all for spreading the word throughout the years. It has been a big help. It gives me a lot of comfort knowing that the likelihood of me recouping my investment (and then some) is high. Let's aim for 100,000!
Even though I’m thrilled about this, the marketing efforts also undoubtedly came at the cost of actual development time which has led to a longer development timeline than I could have predicted. Traveling overseas, preparing convention booths, making trailers, compiling demo builds, planning social media posts, grant applications, negotiating with publishers - this all takes a tremendous amount of time over the span of a few years. Then there’s also all that extra business management stuff like legal work, accountancy, taxes, etc (fun!!). This is also my first ever game, so managing scope and timelines has not been easy, especially when you have literally zero industry experience as I did when I first started. Keep in mind, it’s only me behind the wheel here.
So for 2023 I want to remove these distractions and focus purely on development, which is what I've been doing the past few months.
I do want to apologize for how long things have taken. Just know that not once during these last few years have I slipped or lost focus, I just underestimated the time it’d take to fully realize the vision I had for the game.
All this being said, I’m happy to finally say that the game is very close to being content complete and finishable from start to finish. Now in game development terms, this doesn’t mean I can just hit the release button. There will be a lot of QA needed to ensure the game flows correctly and lives up to the experience expected of both a high quality premium indie game and also a cult classic survival horror game. Given the 6 year time investment for myself, I want to do this right, with minimal chance of failure. And when this game launches, I need it to make as big of a splash within the survival horror community as it possibly can.
With every passing season, I'm getting closer and closer...
In total, the game will be six chapters long, with most of the six chapters taking place in a completely new area. The 2022 demo contained chapter 1, which is the shortest chapter, and also around a third of chapter 2. So hopefully this gives you an idea of the scope of the game compared to the demo. I’m quite happy with the amount of environmental variety I was able to squeeze out of just one single WW1 battle.
My trip to Verdun last year has paid dividends, and the reference photos and research that I did has really taken the authenticity of
CONSCRIPT to a level I wouldn’t have been able to reach otherwise.
Screen Australia Grant FundingEarlier this year I was very lucky to be approved for another development grant from Australian screen agency Screen Australia! This will help ensure I can complete this final year of development with little to no financial stress.
You can read more about it here.
A Note on PublishingI get asked a lot about my plans to potentially team up with a publisher to help release
CONSCRIPT. For a while I was quite anti-publisher, not because I didn’t understand their worth but because I knew that nobody could do a better job marketing my game than me - and I somewhat have proved that given the amount of wishlists I was able to earn throughout the years by myself.
But the time has come to put my ego aside and focus on what I am best at, which is actually making
CONSCRIPT. I don't want to be spending all this time organising marketing campaigns anymore!
So, I’m happy to say that I am currently in late stage negotiations with one of the leading publishers in the world to help me finally get this project out the door and release it to as large of an audience as possible. If I have been able to come this far by myself, I cannot wait to see what I’m capable of with a whole team. I can't say much more than that, but I look forward to talking more about this soon - so stay tuned.
That’s all for now, I just wanted to reassure everyone that things have been going great and I’ve had an insanely productive year so far. There’s still so much work to do, but for the first time I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Don’t fret if the social media updates are a bit sparse for the time being, it’s only because I’m deep in the trenches trying to wrap up the game.
I appreciate all your support and patience. Be safe and I'll update you all again in the coming months.
As always, you can follow me on
Twitter for more frequent micro updates and new development screenshots. I typically try and post on Saturdays for #screenshotsaturday.
You can also join the
CONSCRIPT Discord server. I'm fairly active on there and always happy to chat with the community.
Lastly, if you haven't already - be sure to add CONSCRIPT to your Steam wishlist! 
