Big Developer Update!
Hello folks
It's been quite a long time since our last update so today we have a lot of news for you! We divided it into sections so you could easily find the information that you are looking for.
[h2]What is the development progress?[/h2]
The progress of development is huge, we are after the first inside-game tests and as developers, we are very happy. Maybe it sounds weird but after 6 years of development it's really hard to have fun playing your own game, however testing it ourselves has been an absolute thrill, and we can't wait for you to play it. Now we are sure the game will be something big, especially in the adventure/mystery games category!
But let's make a short general list that better describes development progress:
[h3]What we accomplished in the last months:[/h3]
[h3]What job left to do before the game full release:[/h3]
If you would like to read more about certain changes implemented in the full version of the game, there is our earlier update:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/912840/view/3655289207381292254
[hr][/hr]
[h2]When will the game be released? [/h2]
That's probably the most common question asked to any game developer. As you can read in the earlier section there is an enormous number of elements during game development you can't predict. (and not even mentioned there things related to everyday office work)
The game will be for sure ready for June, but the release probably will be moved to Q3 2024 and this is why:
[hr][/hr]
[h2]New game promo banner! [/h2]
As you probably noticed The End of the Sun main promotion banner and Steam capsule has changed. Capsule on Steam is shown to thousands of players every day. That image has to say as much about the game as possible. Our earlier graphic was just a screenshot from the game and after asking players about it, their first thought was that our game is a crafting or exploration genre but for sure not a fantasy or story rich.
The new capsule is higher quality and contains fantasy elements and some characters which shows that this is a people-related mysterious story, not just an exploration game without gameplay. The new capsule brings more attention from players who like fantasy mystery adventures. It works and it gives us a much bigger click-through rate than ever before.
Hope you like the new banner as even creating such a simple element as a capsule took us over 3 days of long work. Thanks to all of you for your remarks about it!
[hr][/hr]
[h2]Polish Constitution Days Steam Festival![/h2]
We are proud to announce that “The End of the Sun” will be part of the Polish Constitution Days Steam Festival. It’ll be featured on the main Steam store page. We hope that it’ll bring additional attention to our game and many awesome games created in Poland that you probably never heard about before.
The Festival starts on May the 3rd.
The End of the Sun is a perfect fit for the festival as it is also based on old Polish legends and myths. Don't forget to visit our store that day to give our game some additional traffic! Let’s celebrate together!
[hr][/hr]
[h2]3 steps to do in 1 minute to help us in marketing: [/h2]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/912840/The_End_of_the_Sun/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2201430/The_End_of_the_Sun/
Thanks a lot!
This is just a few clicks for you and a huge help for us.
The End of the Sun Team
It's been quite a long time since our last update so today we have a lot of news for you! We divided it into sections so you could easily find the information that you are looking for.
[h2]What is the development progress?[/h2]
The progress of development is huge, we are after the first inside-game tests and as developers, we are very happy. Maybe it sounds weird but after 6 years of development it's really hard to have fun playing your own game, however testing it ourselves has been an absolute thrill, and we can't wait for you to play it. Now we are sure the game will be something big, especially in the adventure/mystery games category!
But let's make a short general list that better describes development progress:
[h3]What we accomplished in the last months:[/h3]
- We are after our inside dev game tests. That means we went through the whole game and pointed out elements of the puzzle, story, texts etc. that need to be improved. We are now working on it(improvements). In most cases, these are like 10-minute fixes but it’s still a job to do before main game tests. Overall these “inside dev tests” were mainly to improve the game difficulty level and to write proper “tip texts”. Those are texts of the main protagonist and investigation texts that lead the player through the game. After your remarks about the demo, we decided to put focus on that. Those texts are almost impossible to write before playing the game in the advanced stage, this is why we waited so long to create them.
- We finished writing all the narrator and interactive game texts. We could start translations of the game and narrator voice-over recordings now.
- We improved a lot of game elements that weren’t intuitive. We want to provide you with as smooth an experience as possible. When we watched some lets plays from the demo we noticed that some puzzles were hard not because of their difficulty level but because it was not intuitive enough for modern players. We improved all puzzles in the game to keep some standards. Our game prioritizes exploration and story, so puzzles are intentionally easier. We emphasize the riddle's quality and its connection to the narrative over difficulty.
- We visited the bee farm museum called “Sądecki Bartnik” in Stróże. We scanned there amazing old-fashioned beehives, but there will be a whole update about that soon. HERE you could read our Behind the scenes blog where we write more about the photogrammetry method that we use to scan objects.
- All cutscenes are ready, as well as all facial animations and emotions. Also, we finally finished and improved all mocap animations. Of course, all these elements are part of cutscenes, but it's important to mention how many elements stand behind it.
- We spend a lot of time on improving our Steam page, but it's related more to the release date, so I will write more about it in the next sections.
- There were so many small elements from our “to-do list” completed in the last months that it's hard to write about every single one so I’ll point out just a few of them like:
- Improving some elements of design to create a more unique atmosphere of a Slavic fantasy world.
- Fixing a big bug of volume light. It was really a miracle that we were able to so fast fix some crucial bugs that were strongly dependent on how the engine is working but now you’ll be able to enjoy beautiful volume light without any flickering. I'm pointing this out as this kind of bugs very often happens in gamedev and you just can't predict what problems you’ll encounter during the game tests.
- Aging the buildings and some items. At an early stage of development that wasn't in plans at all, but the quality of the game is now so high that we decided we have to do this. So now the influence of time will be also visible on buildings.
- Improving some elements of design to create a more unique atmosphere of a Slavic fantasy world.
[h3]What job left to do before the game full release:[/h3]
- Fixing small bugs and problems that appeared after inside test
- Translating game to all languages(That will be done by external translators but still English translations needs little bit of our attention)
- Recording main protagonist voice overs(again something external but needs our small engagement)
- Creating the last kickstarter easter egg and we must say it’ll be a really interesting one. (another one is already in game and its big too! )
- Making an additional part of the story? One of the in-game missions is ready to play but we have a fantastic idea how to make it much better. There is a question mark here, as it’ll depend on our available time and pressure related to the game release date.
- Preparing Steam achievements, cloud saves and trading cards.
- Making final tests of the game(Win, Mac, Linux) .
- Game release :)
If you would like to read more about certain changes implemented in the full version of the game, there is our earlier update:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/912840/view/3655289207381292254
[hr][/hr]
[h2]When will the game be released? [/h2]
That's probably the most common question asked to any game developer. As you can read in the earlier section there is an enormous number of elements during game development you can't predict. (and not even mentioned there things related to everyday office work)
The game will be for sure ready for June, but the release probably will be moved to Q3 2024 and this is why:
- We analyzed our Steam wishlist situation. At this moment the game has about 15500 wishlists. That's great for an indie game. Unfortunately as mentioned above we have been developing The End of the Sun for over 6 years so we need more sales than a typical Indie studio to be able to stay in business. Also, it seems Steam isn’t the best place for adventure/mystery/walking sim games. Some genres like city builders or RTS get much more organic traffic from Steam without making any special marketing. This is because the Steam audience is more hardcore and that's ok, the problem is somewhere else. Even if there is a huge niche for adventure games and story rich games, the Steam algorithm isn't optimized to give traffic to niche instead it gives traffic to genres that are popular even if some players like only Indie games. This is why niche genres creators have a harder life on Steam. For example, even if you like and play only adventure games Steam still will recommend you huge triple A RPGs even if there is only one similar tag with the adventure game you played. We can't do anything about that. Providing outside Steam traffic is only one way to be noticed by the Steam algorithm and that needs a lot of marketing work, and this just slows down smaller teams' development process. You can notice huge wishlist spikes on the chart below. These are moments when we spend all our time on marketing (Kickstarter, New Trailers, Updates, Steam Next Fest).
- For the last few weeks, we got some better organic traffic because we improved our Steam store. We prepared a new capsule (more about it in the next section), re-montage trailer, improved tags etc. But still, it's quite small visibility if you compare it to other genres, like horror, survival or strategy games. It is what it is so let's go to the next point.
- We are considering cooperation with a publisher, not only to be able to get better marketing but also to be able to add more languages to the game. As our game is story driven this is a very important thing. So we are now between self-release and a publisher's help. We have to make some decisions.
- All of it forces us to make a big marketing campaign before the game's release. We would like to fully finish the game development at first and then start marketing. So when we finish game development in June we need at least 2 months to make proper marketing. We are aiming to have a minimum 20 000 wishlist 2 weeks before the game release.
Follow Us On TikTok. Seems like it's nowadays the best marketing tool for video games.
- All these circumstances lead to the conclusion that the game release probably will take place during the Summer Holiday. Soon you'll see Q3 2024 in the store page. We will for sure announce the date together with a new awesome trailer soon!
[hr][/hr]
[h2]New game promo banner! [/h2]
As you probably noticed The End of the Sun main promotion banner and Steam capsule has changed. Capsule on Steam is shown to thousands of players every day. That image has to say as much about the game as possible. Our earlier graphic was just a screenshot from the game and after asking players about it, their first thought was that our game is a crafting or exploration genre but for sure not a fantasy or story rich.
The new capsule is higher quality and contains fantasy elements and some characters which shows that this is a people-related mysterious story, not just an exploration game without gameplay. The new capsule brings more attention from players who like fantasy mystery adventures. It works and it gives us a much bigger click-through rate than ever before.
Hope you like the new banner as even creating such a simple element as a capsule took us over 3 days of long work. Thanks to all of you for your remarks about it!
[hr][/hr]
[h2]Polish Constitution Days Steam Festival![/h2]
We are proud to announce that “The End of the Sun” will be part of the Polish Constitution Days Steam Festival. It’ll be featured on the main Steam store page. We hope that it’ll bring additional attention to our game and many awesome games created in Poland that you probably never heard about before.
The Festival starts on May the 3rd.
The End of the Sun is a perfect fit for the festival as it is also based on old Polish legends and myths. Don't forget to visit our store that day to give our game some additional traffic! Let’s celebrate together!
[hr][/hr]
[h2]3 steps to do in 1 minute to help us in marketing: [/h2]
- Click THUMB UP under this update. With more thumbs, more players will see it.
- FOLLOW and WISHLIST our game.
- [color]Follow us on TikTok HERE[/color][color].[/color] This is really important for us.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/912840/The_End_of_the_Sun/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2201430/The_End_of_the_Sun/
Thanks a lot!
This is just a few clicks for you and a huge help for us.
The End of the Sun Team