Log In or Create Account
Back to Blog
DEVELOPMENT

4

2,375
Question re Tech Specs
5 years ago - Edited 5 years ago574 words
I'm currently working on adding Sindrel Song to Steam, and it's taking ages since there's so much stuff to fill out! I'm currently stuck at having to enter minimum and recommended system requirements, because I know nothing about specs or hardware in general and wouldn't have a clue what to even make up to put in there. If you've tested Sindrel Song on a lower-end computer and it worked, it'd be useful to hear from you! Or if you're tech-savvy and know what kind of stuff I could enter here, that'd be useful too!

I thought adding Sindrel Song to Steam would take 'maybe an hour or two' once I put my mind to it, but I've been at it for days and there's still work left to do. (Though that's largely because I've been struggling to focus lately. Filling in forms is hardly an engaging thing.)

I've spent the past several hours adding things like achievements to the game; Steam's achievement adding system (uploading images for all of them, etc) is really clunkily-made and not exactly user-friendly, though I suppose it doesn't have to be since only a few techy people will ever be using it.

I also had to upload - and make - at least a dozen differently-sized 'capsule icons' for when the game's displayed in various places on Steam, which required manually retouching the logo to have a higher resolution... All these things that I hadn't even thought about before, but which do take a lot of time and effort. I suppose proper games have minions to do this drudge work, but obviously I have to do it all myself.

There's a big checklist of things I need to do before I can mark the game as Coming Soon. There are only a handful of things left, but I'm saving most of them until last because I think they trigger yet another several days of review before they go through. One that I'm completely stuck at though is entering minimum and recommended system requirements, which is apparently compulsory, but for which no instructions are provided because everyone filling this stuff out is expected to be entirely familiar with such things. I'm not, though.

Here's what I see:



I don't know what to enter for any of those fields at all. I know little about hardware.

I don't think it matters at all what these are, considering the game's hardly graphics intensive, and of the few people who even look at the game, maybe most will pay no attention to this. But I need to provide values that at least look like they'd make sense.

If you've played Sindrel Song on somewhat low-powered hardware, and the game still worked, do you know what specs your computer has, which I could provide here? Or do you know what a relatively low end modern computer's specs might be? Any help would be appreciated!



Even after I've done this, apparently the absolute earliest date for release has to be both 30 days since I first paid Steam $100 for the privilege of uploading this game on there (I can't remember when that was; a week ago, something like that?), and two weeks after setting it as 'Coming Soon'. So I'm thinking maybe the 6th of December could work? Because it's got a 6 in it. I'm not expecting much attention anyway so I'd rather go with something amusing like that.

4 COMMENTS

MontyCallay101~5Y
Regarding hardware, I think the Kartridge store page describes the requirements pretty accurately:

CPU
- Dual-core CPU @ 2.4 GHz
RAM
- 2 GB
GPU
- Integrated graphics or dedicated graphics card with 512 MB of VRAM
OS
- Windows 7
Storage
- 145.42MB on Windows

This lines up with my own observations, and that probably covers all of the fields you really need. I wouldn't bother adding recommended requirements.

I've tested the game with a variety of different devices so far, including a number of low-end laptops, and the only one that refused to run it in a reasonable resolution (on 320x200, my toaster could probably run Sindrel Song as well) was a positively *ancient* business laptop from 2009 (this [LINK] thing, if you're curious - you can find some *hilarious* game benchmarks for its graphics chip here: [LINK] Other than that, anything with somewhat modern integrated graphics will be fine, to be honest.

Edit: by the way, any opinion on free steam keys for beta testers? So we can leave good reviews, of course ;)
1
Tobias 1115~5Y
Thanks for this, I was able to finally finish the form with this information! I didn't know it was shown on Kartridge; it must have been automatically generated or something.

And thanks for testing on multiple devices too; I couldn't do that myself, so it's good to know it works on essentially anything!

Regarding free keys, I'm conflicted. On the one hand I do appreciate testers' help and want to reward that, but on the other I'm scared of not making any money at all from this (like with Kartridge) so giving anything out for free considering that just... hurts, honestly. So I'm not sure. It'd be a different story if I was anticipating thousands of sales.
1
MontyCallay101~5Y
I absolutely get that! I'll be glad to buy the game either way, since I do value the game a lot and I think you deserve the sales.

Still, I wish there was a way to buy a Steam Key through you directly (using PayPal or however) so that all of those 10$ went to you rather than only 7$ after considering the cut Valve takes. Not that it matters that much, I suppose, considering that you're not anticipating that many sales yet.

Anyway, I'll be looking forward to the launch on Steam :) you made a really fascinating and unique game, and I hope it gets the sales it deserves. I think you mentioned at some point that you gave an interview to some website, but were waiting for the Steam launch? I hope that helps to interest some people!
1
Astreon152~5Y
And..december is month n°12, which is 2 times 6.

Just saying :)

I can't help you overcome this tech hurdle, but i'm with you there...SELF publishing to its fullest, go go go !.

The good side is, if the followers from this site who said they'll buy the game really do, you'll earn back your 100 bucks in no time.
Now that i think of it: you don't mention the sale price of Sindrel Song ?

Well, hopefully, whatever the price, you'll be rewarded for all this hard work with at least a mild success of the game (though we all hope you'll become filthy rich and the new trend of indie games, of course...but hey, how will you do better with Belief after that then ^^).
1
Log in to comment!