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Sindrel Song Release - Week 0

5 years ago863 words

Gasp! I'll be releasing Sindrel Song out into the world tomorrow. I've wondered a lot in previous posts here about how it might go, but I'm going to do that again just because, well, it's actually going to start happening tomorrow, and I'd like to be able to look back in a month or two and see how my predictions/expectations compare with the reality.

The previous Taming the Mind post was about the inner demons that constantly pester me. I wrote that while I was in a dark spot, but began feeling better almost immediately after, and have been okay for the past few days. Venting does help! I had some nightmares and cringing about traumatic memories this morning, but even that wasn't that bad. Or maybe I'm just used to it since it's so constant.

Mostly I've been distracting myself by working on my new game and composing music, rather than doing anything Sindrel-Song-related. I've got a few pieces of music that nobody but me has ever heard - I spent pretty much all day yesterday working on one - and I keep wondering whether to upload them to Soundcloud, but I also don't really expect any interest, so I haven't. I'm still not sure where to release Sindrel Song's soundtrack though! Bandcamp? Somewhere else?

I'll start posting on forums etc promoting Sindrel Song once it's out there and ready to buy, so then if people are interested they can do that immediately rather than intending to remember it then forgetting. I'm not really sure what else I could do with it now.

So, how might the first week go? What are your thoughts or predictions?

I've had my expectations warped so much by how well my previous games did in terms of plays; MARDEK 3 was played by literally millions of people, so getting 10,000 people to play this didn't seem beyond the realm of possibility. Even if the price tag put the majority off, then that fraction would still be a big number! Right??

Well, no. MARDEK's view count was as high as it was due to a number of factors, like it being on the front page of Kongregate, getting badges, being sponsored by them so it likely got more promotion and notice. My history as a developer who'd recently released the previous episodes in a series that people were attached to. I imagine a lot of the numbers were people coming back multiple times as well, so I wonder how many individuals actually played the game, and how many got to the end.

Everything's different this time. The market's changed, for one thing. I've gone years without releasing anything. Sindrel Song isn't just a clone/parody of a familiar genre, or the continuation of an ongoing series. The market's oversaturated, and even putting aside the quality of the game, it's hard just to get noticed at all.

The fact that it deals with mental health issues in some sense, and was made by someone with brain cancer, might give enough of a hook for people to talk about it, journalists and maybe youtubers included. What if it were talked about in a video by a famous youtuber? While unlikely, that's not impossible, and that'd probably amount to a whole lot more sales. Maybe that's the best outcome?

The worst outcome would be getting terrible reviews, and attracting people whose mental illness is more hostile and obsessive than my own, who'll stalk me and torment me. I've dealt with people like that before, and it's difficult. Hopefully it won't come up, at least not with this.

Realistically, I'm expecting less than 100 sales on Kartridge in the first week. $1000. That's not great of course, after all the time and effort that's gone into this, but I'm making that a sort of goal just so then anything more will be a nice bonus, and I'm not setting myself up for too much disappointment.

The Steam and iOS releases, which will come later, would hopefully earn more, but I'll have to do some more things before I can get to that point, so I don't know when they might be. Hopefully soon.

As I've said before, I'll likely post quite openly here about how well it does, so then we can all see its progress together.

Apart from the money side of things, I'm afraid of people just not liking it! There were certainly comments to that effect during testing, mostly from friends of the testers they'd let have a go. But there were also positive comments too, and while I can't help worrying to some degree whether they were insincere, just attempts to make me feel better which someone less interested in me personally wouldn't be inclined to make (a negativity bias that stems from depression), I'll have to hope that there was some genuine appeal in the experience that other people will be able to experience as well.

I personally like the game a lot, and I'm pleased that I made it. So that's something, at least.

Anyway, let's see how it goes. Maybe I'll write a post like this at the end of every week for the next few weeks.