Alora Fane

I'm adding MARDEK to Steam, finally! Gasp! There are a ton of forms and things to fill out though, so I'd appreciate your thoughts about some things!

UPDATE 6
There's still more to do with this and I haven't set it as Coming Soon just yet, but I'm getting there. Someone sent me an email telling me he's the one who let Matt Roszak know I'm a cowardly nutcase who was putting off emailing him (embarrassing that my anxiety's both so crippling and so transparently exposed to people who follow me, but oh well; also I'm joking with my wording here, he was nice about it), so that's that mystery solved, but he also mentioned that there are only four Gold Ore items in the game, but five craftable items that require Gold Ore. I remember other people mentioning this in the past too.

I could fix this by adding it to a chest and as a low drop rate to some monster species, so if you have any specific suggestions about which chest and which species, I could do that quite easily.

I can also make some similar updates like this which would enhance players' experience without costing me any significant time or effort. So if you have any suggestions of minor things that would only require changing numbers, I'd be quite happy to make them to the Steam release of the game!

UPDATE 5
I've been looking at what Extras I can include, and I've dug up two Word documents of old notes: one's 16 pages long, the other's 74 pages long! I want to check through them to make sure they're okay to release to the wider world, since they were never meant for eyes other than my own, though that'll take time! I'm struggling to read them at the moment; I keep zoning out. I'm also wondering whether I should add comments in them from my perspective in the present (in a different colour), though I don't know if that'd be welcome or irritating.

What I'm thinking is that I could have the basic game for $9.99, plus an 'Extras' package for an additional $4.99 which includes the OST, Piano Collections, plus these notes as pdfs. I'd include concept art, but I never had any! There are some crude drawings of the characters' faces (including some I never got around to including) in one of the Word documents though.

I also need to update the description of the game from the one included further down in this post, though my mind's been foggy while trying to write that.

What I'll try to do is open up the base game to the couple of beta testers today just to make sure that's all working, then I'll set it to Coming Soon hopefully in the next couple of days. Steam requires a couple of weeks after that before actual release though, so it's likely the actual release date will be mid-to-late May.

UPDATE 4
Thanks to those of you who've shown interest in beta testing! I want to keep the number to a minimum since I only really need to see if it works at all, not for people to test the whole game, so I've chosen a couple of familiar people now and that should be enough for a start. If we find any issues, I'll need more people, but hopefully that shouldn't happen!

I still need to add some extras tomorrow. I'll include the old story notes as a pdf, I'll include the walkthrough, and I'll need to decide what to do about the soundtrack.

What I'm thinking from all the feedback I've got so far is that I'll set the price as $9.99, with maybe a 10% off sale for the first... while (what's the norm? A week? Longer?), but there'll be an option to buy the soundtrack + piano collections for an extra $4.99 for those who are interested.

UPDATE 3
I've finally got around to making the annoying 'capsule images' for the game. Here's what I had to make:

Time consuming. These things don't just appear out of nowhere!

Now all that's left is deciding on a release date and a price. Everyone seems to have a different idea of what price is appropriate, so I'm still currently undecided there. And release date is going to be at least two weeks from now because that's what Steam requires... so that's annoying.

I should have a couple of people "beta test" it before I confirm a release date though, just in case it doesn't even work. I say that in quotes because I'm not expecting the full beta testing experience, which would take ages and which was already done for MARDEK. Basically I just need a couple of people to check if the game runs without major issues at all, not to go through the whole game or anything. If you're able to play a few minutes and it feels as it should, that'll be enough.

If you're someone I'm already familiar with - that is, someone who's followed me for probably years and commented a lot - and you're interested in helping out with this ASAP, let me know here! I'd ask you specifically, but I don't want anyone to feel obliged so giving the option here seemed better to me.

Though since I'm editing a post rather than adding a new one, I hope people actually read this!

I've also been doing some major replanning of Divine Dreams these past few days, so I'll likely write a post about that later today. That'll replace the other Alora Fane one rather than this one (which got fewer views in three weeks than this did in two days, interestingly).

UPDATE 2
Steam gives me this checklist of things that I need to complete before I can move to Coming Soon, so I might as well post it here. I'll update it as I make progress so you can see how I'm coming along.

The annoying 'capsule images', 'library assets', 'community capsule', 'community icon', and 'client icon' involve making various bizarrely-sized images to represent the game, and I keep putting it off because it's such a chore. It'd be fine if I just had to make one or two, but there are loads of them! I'll get there eventually.

Steam tells me that it requires at least two weeks between setting the game as Coming Soon and actually releasing it, so maybe the release date will be further in the future than I assumed. At least you'll be able to add it to your wishlist in that time, I suppose. I've not even set the release date yet because of this.

I've not set the price yet either, because of uncertainty due to the comments here.

Oh, and I need to set the Original Release Date since this is a re-release, so if anyone knows what I could enter there, let me know! It's complicated by this being three games combined, plus I'm feeling too lethargic (lingering depression) to look up the games on Kongregate while some of you might have links to those readily available.

UPDATE 1
Friday 24th, morning: I've combed through the many, many hours of MARDEK gameplay footage I recorded and ended up with 123 screenshots, which I trimmed down to 34. That's still way more than would be necessary, but at least it gives a good idea of the scope of the game?

There have been varying thoughts about the price, which are valuable to hear. I'm aware that there's a free version still available, but I've been repeatedly told by people that they'd like a version they can have in their Steam library, as I suppose that feels more like owning it. This version also has uncompressed sound, which I feel is significant, plus I'll be including things like the walkthrough, development notes for the whole story (using a pdf format sounds good), and someone mentioned including the OST, which I could also do (plus the Piano Collections one). I'll include the walkthrough I made too, though I'm aware that's also already freely available; maybe I'll make it so you can easily summon and hide it in-game with a key, or something? I'd include concept art and stuff too, but back then all my notes and drawings were in physical notepads, which I've since lost. I'm open to ideas about what else I could include.

I've paid $100 to Steam for the privilege of submitting to their platform, so now I have to fill in a bunch of forms. I already did this for Sindrel Song, so I'm familiar with much of it, though indecisiveness - and the sheer drudgery of it - tends to make me drag my feet. Since some of you probably have strong feelings about MARDEK, and likely a better understanding of what players what might be interested in, I thought it could be interesting to ask for thoughts before finalising anything. It's not like I have teammates to discuss this with!

Let's go through the things I have to fill out in order. I'll keep updating this as I make progress, so check back if you want to see how things are coming along!

Description

What do you think's important to include in a description for this? Here's what I've written off the cuff:

MARDEK is a fantasy/sci-fi RPG inspired by retro JRPGs. It blends mild parody with a deeper story involving the main character sharing his body with the consciousness of an alien wizard who believes himself to be a just and noble healer who can save the world from the other members of his council who've turned to darkness.

It was built in Flash - by one person - and originally released on Flash portals in three parts between 2007 and 2010. Many people have expressed a desire to see it ported to Steam, so here it is!

Apart from combining the three released chapters and dramatically improving the sound quality, this version is essentially the same as the version as originally released, so as to maximise nostalgia.

This release also contains a full walkthrough, and some old plans I've managed to dig up about how the story would have continued!

That first paragraph's ugly and should definitely be rewritten. I don't really talk about the gameplay, though I'm only really expecting people to get it if they're already familiar with the game, for nostalgia reasons. There's inconsistent tense ("was originally released", "I've managed to dig up").

Oh, I'm planning to include the single planning document that I've found about all the chapters, by the way, to at least explain what would have happened later. I think that'll be interesting to some people. It also contains descriptions of the three released chapters that don't match how they actually turned out. I'm unsure what format to include it in though; it's a Word document, which feels very... unofficial?

Mature Content

Does MARDEK contain mature content? I'm honestly quite stumped by this! It's not something I'd call mature, but I suppose there are bits that aren't exactly child-friendly either?

This is annoyingly binary:

"View Example Products" shows these:

They're fairly unambiguously mature. But is MARDEK's occasional filthy humour enough to quality it as 'mature'? It's certainly more 'mature' than, say, Final Fantasy, but can you think of anything in it that might be disturbing enough to warrant a mature rating? Do usually implicit sex jokes count as 'sexual content'? It's not like it contains "graphic violence" and "frequent nudity", unless you count Solaar's appalling lack of clothing as such.

There's this list of more detailed options, but it's labelled "self-rating for distribution in Brazil", suggesting it's some requirement of Brazil's government rather than something that'll be applied to the game in a general sense (I wonder how many millions of people from Brazil would buy this):

Even with that, I'm not sure which of those apply to this. Does it include 'killing'? Technically, but not really? Are there any of those that you think MARDEK contains but which I haven't ticked here?

I worry a lot about these things as if they matter, even though they likely won't at all for a game that's unlikely to get many sales. I suppose they're more a concern for games that sell millions of copies. Still, I'd rather do it right rather than risk getting the game taken down, or getting in trouble in some more worrying way.

Do you know what games similar to MARDEK have done regarding mature ratings?

I remember on Flash portals you could just select between things like 'everyone', 'teen', or 'mature', which made things a whole lot easier. I wish I could just do that!

Minimum System Requirements

This was a pain for Sindrel Song too. I think I just ended up putting silly information in there after someone told me another game did that. I wish I could just leave it blank, but Steam won't let me!

Screenshots and Trailer

When I last played through MARDEK a few months ago, I recorded the whole thing, so I have that to use for getting screenshots and a video trailer.

Do you have any suggestions of which scenes might make good screenshots, to represent the game as a whole to someone who's not seen it, or as reminders for someone who last played it years ago?

I don't particularly want to make a trailer, but I think Steam might require it? That's annoying, since things like that take time. Any ideas about what a trailer could contain? I'm not going to make anything new for it (like new music), so it'll just be assembling stuff from what I've already recorded. Which bits do you think best represent the game, though?

Icons

I need to make a whole bunch of icons that represent the game, which is such a time-consuming chore. Not something you can really help me with though, unfortunately!

Cloud saves and achievements

As I talked about in a post yesterday, I likely won't be able to add support for achievements, unfortunately, but I've figured out a way to hopefully preserve save data.

I see from filling in this stuff now though that Steam already has a system for supporting the saves of legacy games, so maybe I've just wasted a whole lot of time on that when I didn't need to?? Hopefully though it should mean that there shouldn't be any risk of losing save data! A big relief.

Beta testing

I'll eventually need some testers eventually just to make sure everything works, but don't volunteer here; I'll save that for a separate post. I also don't want more than a handful, because most people who volunteer just never reply once given a code, so I lose a sale and get nothing in return (other than the feeling of being taken advantage of and a hit to my ability to trust people). Lovely.

Pricing

Speaking of sales, I'm planning to sell this thing, both because on a selfish level I never earned much from it before so it'd be nice to earn some now (especially since it's not like I'm earning from anything else), and from a player's perspective, I think that makes the game feel more 'official' and of value than something that's free.

How much would you be willing to pay? I'm thinking $9.99, but maybe that's too low? What do other, similar re-released games do?

I'll also run a sale of Sindrel Song alongside this release, because it's currently got just 135 sales, but it's on 670 wishlists.

Release Date and promotion

Maybe aiming for the 1st of May wouldn't be a bad idea? That's only a week off. I see that it's a Friday too, which isn't bad. It's not like I'll be having some kind of release event though really, so maybe I'll just release it 'whenever it's ready' and not make a big deal about it.

I've been wondering about that though. I'm not intending to do any promotion just because I feel that only new games are worth that, and this is essentially just a port. I'm assuming sales will mostly come from people being hit with nostalgia and deliberately seeking it out, a gradual trickle.

I don't know whether I should mention it somewhere or do anything though. For Sindrel Song, I sent out a press release, with help, but I don't know if that made any difference and it was a lot of stress which I'd rather just do without.

We're almost there now, but any thoughts about these remaining steps will be greatly appreciated! Like I said at the start, I'll update this post as I make progress.

79 COMMENTS

Ampersand68~5Y

I think the fight against the dragon in Chapter 1 and the Moric fight would make for good screenshots. Perhaps the Lake Hag fight as well for variety. The "actually four blokes" line could demonstrate dialogue, and is pretty iconic IMO (it even has a TV Tropes page associated with it!). Running around Moric's spaceship as the countdown is ticking down would be pretty nice to see in a trailer as well. I'm sure other people will suggest choice segments, these are just a couple off the top of my head.

As for the mature content label, if you want to be careful, I think the page for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord provides some insight as to what you would want to put in your Mature Content Description:

"This game is set in a fictional medieval world where the player assumes the role of an adventurer. The player engages in fights and battles and may kill or dispatch enemies and possibly horses using swords, axes, bows and other melee and ranged weapons. The game shows blood effects and rag-doll integrated death animations. Player can purchase wine and ale, and consume these in taverns. Game text includes moderate crude language such as bastard, piss, etc."

As for the mature content label, if you want to be careful, I think the page for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord provides some insight as to what you would want to put in your Mature Content Description:

"This game is set in a fictional medieval world where the player assumes the role of an adventurer. The player engages in fights and battles and may kill or dispatch enemies and possibly horses using swords, axes, bows and other melee and ranged weapons. The game shows blood effects and rag-doll integrated death animations. Player can purchase wine and ale, and consume these in taverns. Game text includes moderate crude language such as bastard, piss, etc."

oatnew3~5Y

I can't speak to whether this would spark ~mass appeal~, but some of the Dreamstones (the ones between Deugan and Emela in particular) set MARDEK apart from other games in terms of giving characters depth and offering a perspective on things that real people deal with (you know, rather than "the evil sorceror Morghaklf killed my parents and now I have to prevent him from destroying the world whilst also finding true love"). MARDEK has a lot of epic moments that would be great to highlight in screenshots/trailer, but maybe it would also be good to have a bit showing the emotional depth of the game.

I also like Clavis's dialogue a lot. He's the character I find most interesting, I think.

Also, the Governance de Magi have some pretty cool council moments, if you can find a good quote to screenshot.

vladandrei199647~5Y

You've come a long way, glad to see you are done with it (even if we're not gonna have achievements but that was just a little plus on the side) and now you can focus on Divine Dreams, or just chill for a bit because of this whole operation.

Either way, I know a bit of Adobe Premiere if you want me to help with a short trailer, I'll be happy to do it. As for the screenshots, you could put some from the early game (Goznor, Canonia) and some end-game ones (Miasmal Citadel, Earth Temple) so people will get an idea about how the zones look, spoiler-free.

About pricing, about $14.99 could be ok, if you feel like it you could do a "release discount" of 10% or something like that to boost the initial sale. With that price I'd get a copy for me and for a friend or two.

If I were to try my way on creating a trailer, how do I send it to you ?

Tobias 1115~5Y

Thanks for offering to help! It's probably best that I do it myself, though. I'm already familiar with video editing from when I made the Sindrel Song trailer (and the recent Divine Dreams video), but the bit that'll take time is sifting through the hours of footage I have and compiling appropriate clips into something less than a minute.

So thanks, but I don't want you to waste any of your time on that!

AdmiralLara49~5Y

Wait, you want to charge $10 for something from over 10 years ago that I can just access for free? I realize you put some work in to get it to Steam, but anything above $5 is too much imo, especially because you're essentially not adding anything to the game at all. Is there going to be HD fullscreen? Achievements? Controller support? I guess not. Still gonna be $10 tho? LMAO at "maybe that's too little?" - what are you adding to the experience that makes it worth my money?

I also don't get wanting money for it now "as a selfish thing" for not having made all that much off of MARDEK in the past - don't you see how petty and ridiculous this makes you look? "Pay $10 for this unfinished flash game series that I am not continuing anyway pls". The Epic Battle Fantasy guy put the third game (from 2010) up on Steam for free because he realized that...

If you want to exploit people's nostalgia so bad, make the game free (or at least less expensive!) and use it to drum up some publicity for your newer titles... I can understand why Sindrel Song would be 10$, but this? No way. Why don't you just call it the MARDEK: Give me your money collection?

I also don't get wanting money for it now "as a selfish thing" for not having made all that much off of MARDEK in the past - don't you see how petty and ridiculous this makes you look? "Pay $10 for this unfinished flash game series that I am not continuing anyway pls". The Epic Battle Fantasy guy put the third game (from 2010) up on Steam for free because he realized that...

If you want to exploit people's nostalgia so bad, make the game free (or at least less expensive!) and use it to drum up some publicity for your newer titles... I can understand why Sindrel Song would be 10$, but this? No way. Why don't you just call it the MARDEK: Give me your money collection?

Thank you for injecting this wonderful spark of joy.

No one is forcing you to buy it if you think 10$ is too much for a game that brought you joy 10 years ago. Older and shitty games are still selling for far more in the industry, yet no one is batting an eye.

"No one is forcing you to buy it"

Well, duh! I guess that completely invalidates my argument that the price is too high for the added value!!!

"Older and shitty games are selling for far more"

This is just whataboutism. "What about these other, older, shittier games (not going to mention any though) that sell for far more???" I didn't realize we've started comparing Mardek with "older and shitty games", but maybe you should hold Tobias to a higher standard!

Astreon152~5Y

I don't know shit about steam. But i know on the nintendo store, you can get "oldies" for any tag price ranging between 0.99 and 9.99 euros.

And they are not revamped in any way. Just the plain, pixel looking (and souding) games.

So unless there is a different custom on Steam, i'd go for 9.99, considering it's the price for the whole trilogy (but maybe stress that fact in the description).

The only point i see in AdmiralLara's message is the fact that Mardek is currently available for free elsewhere (and legally), whereas nintendo's oldies are not.

So maybe you should take down Mardek from the free platforms it's still on, like Kongregate or CrazyMonkey ?

I mean, what's not normal is not asking for steam players to pay for it, it's having it free to play as well (at all, in fact, nowadays).

I really love your reply, Astreon. Of course, the solution is that Tobias should take MARDEK down so everyone who wants to play it has to pay HIS price! Darn those freeloaders who have had the privilege of playing MARDEK for free for years!!! Certainly a good display of business sense. Who cares if that's insulting to the fans?

I for one have downloaded the .swf files ages ago and will keep playing MARDEK for free regardless.

In all seriousness, MARDEK would have never(!) taken off the way it did if it had not been a free flash game. I think the series should pay respect to its origins. Anything else just smacks of opportunism and greed. Your comparison with Nintendo is lacking - those games were never free in the first place! Most MARDEK players weren't wealthy console owners, they were kids who had nothing better available than to go on newgrounds.com and find some games there!

I'm not even saying that it should HAVE to be free, but paying 10$ just for having a more convenient save system is certainly not good value. I realize that might not matter to most people in this comment section populated by fanboys, but a 10$ price tag (which is on the high end even on the range that you gave) sets standards that just putting the game in an .exe wrapper does not fulfill.

I for one have downloaded the .swf files ages ago and will keep playing MARDEK for free regardless.

In all seriousness, MARDEK would have never(!) taken off the way it did if it had not been a free flash game. I think the series should pay respect to its origins. Anything else just smacks of opportunism and greed. Your comparison with Nintendo is lacking - those games were never free in the first place! Most MARDEK players weren't wealthy console owners, they were kids who had nothing better available than to go on newgrounds.com and find some games there!

I'm not even saying that it should HAVE to be free, but paying 10$ just for having a more convenient save system is certainly not good value. I realize that might not matter to most people in this comment section populated by fanboys, but a 10$ price tag (which is on the high end even on the range that you gave) sets standards that just putting the game in an .exe wrapper does not fulfill.

I really don't see the problem, except from a moral standpoint, which is per se subjective, as you yourself said in another comment on this thread.

It has been free for ages, great ! Thanks to the game maker for making it that way.

It's not free anymore: well, that's ok too, since there was no obligation to make it free in the first place.

Plus you create it, you own it, for everyone else playing it is either a privilege (free) or a right (pay). The fans owns nothing. Only customers do.

As for the analogy with nintendo's games, your argument could be reversed: they started off as buyable games, so throughout the years the company has made money with them. Since it's "retro" gaming, as a display of respect to fans, nintendo could have given them away for free.

I really don't see why the initial state has to remain the status quo: what you had to pay for should always have a price, what was free should remain free.

It's like saying to someone whom you lent a room to for free: "well, now you can still stay, but you'll have to pay a rent".
If i were the tenant, i'd just think the good old freeloading days are over, too bad. Then either i pay and stay, or i leave (and maybe freeload somewhere else).
No reason to call the landlord names.

All the more if, like you say, i started off as a poor teenager that couldn' afford any rent, but now earn enough that i can pay 10 bucks for the right to stay.

I really don't see the problem, except from a moral standpoint, which is per se subjective, as you yourself said in another comment on this thread.

It has been free for ages, great ! Thanks to the game maker for making it that way.

It's not free anymore: well, that's ok too, since there was no obligation to make it free in the first place.

Plus you create it, you own it, for everyone else playing it is either a privilege (free) or a right (pay). The fans owns nothing. Only customers do.

As for the analogy with nintendo's games, your argument could be reversed: they started off as buyable games, so throughout the years the company has made money with them. Since it's "retro" gaming, as a display of respect to fans, nintendo could have given them away for free.

I really don't see why the initial state has to remain the status quo: what you had to pay for should always have a price, what was free should remain free.

It's like saying to someone whom you lent a room to for free: "well, now you can still stay, but you'll have to pay a rent". 
If i were the tenant, i'd just think the good old freeloading days are over, too bad. Then either i pay and stay, or i leave (and maybe freeload somewhere else). 
No reason to call the landlord names.

All the more if, like you say, i started off as a poor teenager that couldn' afford any rent, but now earn enough that i can pay 10 bucks for the right to stay.

Elfangor8~5Y

I must disagree with the fact that Mardek would have never taken off if it had not been free. I'm pretty sure that, if Steam was a thing 10 years ago and if the game was published there, it would have gathered has many if not more followers.

Of course that's subjective and I can understand your reaction of making a free product not free anymore. I'd say, anyone wanting to play it free still can. Steam is juste a way to really have it, own it if you want, in a better way -for me- than taking the .swf. I'm not a hundred percent sure how things goes, but I'm pretty sure that, if something is free, you do not legaly have the right to take it in such a way. There's still intellectual property and stuff.

I don't see Tobias or anyone going after you for that. But I still feel that's not right and much prefer having it on Steam. To each its own, and I don't see how being aggressive as you are is a good thing. Then again, I'm a fanboy as you say, so I have no objectivity.

Still, have a nice day :) !

Of course that's subjective and I can understand your reaction of making a free product not free anymore. I'd say, anyone wanting to play it free still can. Steam is juste a way to really have it, own it if you want, in a better way -for me- than taking the .swf. I'm not a hundred percent sure how things goes, but I'm pretty sure that, if something is free, you do not legaly have the right to take it in such a way. There's still intellectual property and stuff.

I don't see Tobias or anyone going after you for that. But I still feel that's not right and much prefer having it on Steam. To each its own, and I don't see how being aggressive as you are is a good thing. Then again, I'm a fanboy as you say, so I have no objectivity.

Still, have a nice day :) !

xXDivineDreamerXx12~5Y

In my opinion, $10 isn't that much. That's the same cost as a lunch (assuming that you live in a developed country). But who decides how much something is worth anyway? Why do you think anything above $5 is too much for this game? Why not $7? What about $4, or $3?

I believe that people spend money on games for different reasons. From my point of view, I would be giving the developer money in exchange for entertainment (because I am fortunate enough to have $10 that I can spend on entertainment). Or because I feel he should deserve to receive money for the work that he does. And with that money, he can use it for sustenance or for enjoying life (and I would like to think that he wouldn't do anything unethical with it).

You said, "Anything above $5 is too much" because
1) I would not pay $10 for something that is free and has been free for â‰ˆ10 years - I agree with you. In my opinion, I guess I would be--in a sense-- donating money to the developer. I also would not pay $10 for something free, but I would not mind donating â‰ˆ$10 to the developer.
2) "You're essentially not adding anything to the game at all" - yes, I agree, but we would be getting the ability to play a downloadable version. That's also what multiple people have wanted, to play this game again with no changes lol. The new additions to the game would be in Divine Dreams I imagine.
3) nothing is being added to the game that is worth your money - I would be interested to hear what you think is worth your money and why! (I struggle with answering this question for myself)
4) The EBF guy put up his older game for free because he realized that - at least from this post, it's not clear that you know the reasons why the EBF guy did this.

So basically, if your reasons for paying for a re-release are 1) whether or not the game is currently free and 2) whether or not the re-release will have additional features, then I agree with you that the re-release should be free. But I don't believe that everyone would think this way (I am one person who does not think this way). I would not mind paying $10 because I have $10 to spend, and I like the games that the developer has made. That would be my reasoning.

I don't think that the developer would be exploiting other people (assuming that by "exploit" you mean "to use a a situation in an unfair or selfish way"). I don't think what he plans to do is unfair because everyone would have the option to buy the game on Steam. They wouldn't be forced to buy it. If people wanted to experience nostalgia, they could just play the game on Kongregate. They don't have buy the game on Steam to experience MARDEK-associated nostalgia. Anyone who searched for Mardek on google would be able to find the free flash-game version. What would you consider as exploitation? Where would you draw the line between what is acceptable vs. not acceptable?

I believe that people spend money on games for different reasons. From my point of view, I would be giving the developer money in exchange for entertainment (because I am fortunate enough to have $10 that I can spend on entertainment). Or because I feel he should deserve to receive money for the work that he does. And with that money, he can use it for sustenance or for enjoying life (and I would like to think that he wouldn't do anything unethical with it).

You said, "Anything above $5 is too much" because
1) I would not pay $10 for something that is free and has been free for â‰ˆ10 years - I agree with you. In my opinion, I guess I would be--in a sense-- donating money to the developer. I also would not pay $10 for something free, but I would not mind donating â‰ˆ$10 to the developer.
2) "You're essentially not adding anything to the game at all" - yes, I agree, but we would be getting the ability to play a downloadable version. That's also what multiple people have wanted, to play this game again with no changes lol. The new additions to the game would be in Divine Dreams I imagine.
3) nothing is being added to the game that is worth your money - I would be interested to hear what you think is worth your money and why! (I struggle with answering this question for myself)
4) The EBF guy put up his older game for free because he realized that - at least from this post, it's not clear that you know the reasons why the EBF guy did this.

So basically, if your reasons for paying for a re-release are 1) whether or not the game is currently free and 2) whether or not the re-release will have additional features, then I agree with you that the re-release should be free. But I don't believe that everyone would think this way (I am one person who does not think this way). I would not mind paying $10 because I have $10 to spend, and I like the games that the developer has made. That would be my reasoning.

I don't think that the developer would be exploiting other people (assuming that by "exploit" you mean "to use a a situation in an unfair or selfish way"). I don't think what he plans to do is unfair because everyone would have the option to buy the game on Steam. They wouldn't be forced to buy it. If people wanted to experience nostalgia, they could just play the game on Kongregate. They don't have buy the game on Steam to experience MARDEK-associated nostalgia. Anyone who searched for Mardek on google would be able to find the free flash-game version. What would you consider as exploitation? Where would you draw the line between what is acceptable vs. not acceptable?

"Who decides what something is worth anyway"?

In this case, it's Tobias! He decides what his MARDEK re-release is worth. The only thing I can comment on is if I think that's fair value or not. What I consider to be fair value is obviously subjective. Your conceptions might differ from mine. But that's why we're all here! You might say, "Wow, only 10$! That's the price of ordering pizza!" Whereas I might say, "10$? That's the price of Undertale!" It really matters what you compare it to. I would think it's fairly uncontroversial that the added value in the Steam re-release is less than that of Undertale. Again, it matters what you compare it to.

"Consider the 10$ like a donation"

I would be fine if he would link to his Patreon account or something and ask people to donate (I might even do that!), but trying to monetize something that has been free for years to this degree is something that, in my view, shows a disregard for the origins of the game and the platforms that are responsible for MARDEK's success in the first place. He could make the game 5$ add an extra "donation pack" DLC for 5$ with all the extra content and the soundtrack split off as well, and I would be ok with that.

"We would be getting the ability to play a downloadable version"

We already have that. You can already download the .swf from Kongregate right now and put it in a .exe wrapper using a flash decompiler like this [ [LINK] ] one, and that's supposed to be worth 10$? I can do that in 5 minutes! What am I paying the 10$ for? To have cloud saves???

"I would be interested to hear what you think is worth your money and why! (I struggle with answering this question for myself)"

Something is worth my money if I consider it to be fair value. There's different ways you could try to express that, but obviously if I'm going to "buy" MARDEK for 10$ for reasons other than just donating, I'm going to ask myself what it offers to me. And maybe there is someone out there who is fine spending 10$ just to get cloud saves! Or spending 10$ to have it offline because that's easier to do than the way I described! Or spending 10$ for the *privilege* of having the game in their Steam Library! There could be infinite reasons. But I am not convinced, and I think a 10$ price tag warrants the question of how much I'm getting in return. Psychologically, what matters to many people are points of comparison, and I'm not seeing a lot of 2000s era flash games getting re-released with 10$ price tags. There are so many great indie games getting released now that are selling for that price or less.

I obviously don't have a window into the EBF guy's brain, but I do have respect for the way he did it, quoting from the store page: "Epic Battle Fantasy 3 is completely free, but if you enjoy it, please consider buying the sequels and spinoff games!"
That's the type of approach that I consider to be more respectful, as opposed to slapping a 10$ price tag on it. In fact, MARDEK has the disadvantage here, since it never got any true sequels and was discontinued. It's more viable as a snapshot of the era than a complete product for sale.

Saying he just wants to exploit people's nostalgia is somewhat hyperbolic, but to some extent I think it fits the way Tobias is acting at this point in time. None of his other games have been successful, so "on a selfish level" (his words) he's trying to capitalize on the success of MARDEK, a free (and unfinished!) flash game series from over 10 years ago, without really adding anything to the experience. And while it's not objectively unacceptable for him to do that, I can't help but be deeply confused as to how he thinks he's justified asking for that price.

"Who decides what something is worth anyway"?

In this case, it's Tobias! He decides what his MARDEK re-release is worth. The only thing I can comment on is if I think that's fair value or not. What I consider to be fair value is obviously subjective. Your conceptions might differ from mine. But that's why we're all here! You might say, "Wow, only 10$! That's the price of ordering pizza!" Whereas I might say, "10$? That's the price of Undertale!" It really matters what you compare it to. I would think it's fairly uncontroversial that the added value in the Steam re-release is less than that of Undertale. Again, it matters what you compare it to.

"Consider the 10$ like a donation"

I would be fine if he would link to his Patreon account or something and ask people to donate (I might even do that!), but trying to monetize something that has been free for years to this degree is something that, in my view, shows a disregard for the origins of the game and the platforms that are responsible for MARDEK's success in the first place. He could make the game 5$ add an extra "donation pack" DLC for 5$ with all the extra content and the soundtrack split off as well, and I would be ok with that.

"We would be getting the ability to play a downloadable version"

We already have that. You can already download the .swf from Kongregate right now and put it in a .exe wrapper using a flash decompiler like this [ https://github.com/jindrapetrik/jpexs-decompiler ] one, and that's supposed to be worth 10$? I can do that in 5 minutes! What am I paying the 10$ for? To have cloud saves???

"I would be interested to hear what you think is worth your money and why! (I struggle with answering this question for myself)"

Something is worth my money if I consider it to be fair value. There's different ways you could try to express that, but obviously if I'm going to "buy" MARDEK for 10$ for reasons other than just donating, I'm going to ask myself what it offers to me. And maybe there is someone out there who is fine spending 10$ just to get cloud saves! Or spending 10$ to have it offline because that's easier to do than the way I described! Or spending 10$ for the *privilege* of having the game in their Steam Library! There could be infinite reasons. But I am not convinced, and I think a 10$ price tag warrants the question of how much I'm getting in return. Psychologically, what matters to many people are points of comparison, and I'm not seeing a lot of 2000s era flash games getting re-released with 10$ price tags. There are so many great indie games getting released now that are selling for that price or less.

I obviously don't have a window into the EBF guy's brain, but I do have respect for the way he did it, quoting from the store page: "Epic Battle Fantasy 3 is completely free, but if you enjoy it, please consider buying the sequels and spinoff games!"
That's the type of approach that I consider to be more respectful, as opposed to slapping a 10$ price tag on it. In fact, MARDEK has the disadvantage here, since it never got any true sequels and was discontinued. It's more viable as a snapshot of the era than a complete product for sale.

Saying he just wants to exploit people's nostalgia is somewhat hyperbolic, but to some extent I think it fits the way Tobias is acting at this point in time. None of his other games have been successful, so "on a selfish level" (his words) he's trying to capitalize on the success of MARDEK, a free (and unfinished!) flash game series from over 10 years ago, without really adding anything to the experience. And while it's not objectively unacceptable for him to do that,  I can't help but be deeply confused as to how he thinks he's justified asking for that price.

A bunch of people have asked me to put MARDEK for sale on Steam ("it's easy money!", they've said), and I've resisted it for a long time. Several people have told me that the 'privelege' of having MARDEK 'officially' in their Steam library - as opposed to just dowloading the swf - is something they actually really want. Personally I can't say I fully understand that, but there are certainly people who are interested in what I'm doing here, and I'm doing it because they've essentially asked me to.

There'll always be egocentric people like you who react like this, but there are also people who'd actually get something out of giving something back for the years of entertainment they'd previously got for free, now that they're older and capable of paying.

It's definitely true that MARDEK wouldn't have been noticed at all if it wasn't originally free. It's also true that I didn't finish the series. But I'd also say that the amount of content that is there is significantly more than almost all Flash games from that era.

Also, unlike the version you boast about playing for free, the sound quality in this version is dramatically improved, plus it displays at a pixel-perfect resolution surrounded by black, which to me feels more immersive than playing in a window, at an ugly stretched fullscreen resolution, or on some website surrounded by distractions. I'm also including the soundtrack and notes about where the story was going to go.

Surely you can't think of me as some kind of opportunistic moneygrubber. I'm reluctant to charge anyone for anything at all; it's why I earned so little from MARDEK (I took the lowest offer and didn't negotiate), and why I'm still delaying cleaning up my Patreon. I'm really struggling financially though, so if people are willing to pay for something like this, that'd help me out a whole lot. So I've spent a stressful couple of weeks figuring out the technical stuff to present the opportunity for people who are interested.

I wonder what you do for a living.

There'll always be egocentric people like you who react like this, but there are also people who'd actually get something out of giving something back for the years of entertainment they'd previously got for free, now that they're older and capable of paying.

It's definitely true that MARDEK wouldn't have been noticed at all if it wasn't originally free. It's also true that I didn't finish the series. But I'd also say that the amount of content that /is/ there is significantly more than almost all Flash games from that era.

Also, unlike the version you boast about playing for free, the sound quality in this version is dramatically improved, plus it displays at a pixel-perfect resolution surrounded by black, which to me feels more immersive than playing in a window, at an ugly stretched fullscreen resolution, or on some website surrounded by distractions. I'm also including the soundtrack and notes about where the story was going to go.

Surely you can't think of me as some kind of opportunistic moneygrubber. I'm reluctant to charge anyone for anything at all; it's why I earned so little from MARDEK (I took the lowest offer and didn't negotiate), and why I'm still delaying cleaning up my Patreon. I'm really struggling financially though, so if people are willing to pay for something like this, that'd help me out a whole lot. So I've spent a stressful couple of weeks figuring out the technical stuff to present the opportunity for people who are interested.

I wonder what you do for a living.

Wait, the MARDEK re-release actually doesn't even have fullscreen resolutions? Will it be like a tiny window completely surrounded by black? I was hoping you'd at least improve on that... in that case I might really prefer my own version.

By the way, come on, if I want to give you money and get absolutely nothing for it, I can already contribute to your Patreon! You wouldn't have had to pay the 100$ to get it to Steam ;)

Also, nice jab at me with the "I wonder what you do for a living". Can't I just think your pricing decision is inappropriate? I'm not trying to take food from your mouth here. Price the game too high, and fewer people will buy it. Surely you realize that the people commenting right now are the ones who will buy it regardless of the price, right? They don't care, and that's fine. But most people, even the ones that remember the game, might see 10$ and ask where the added value is. I think whatever you can add to the package in terms of soundtrack, notes, sketches, a "digital artbook" if you will, might go some way to sweeten the deal for some. I would still prefer to see that as a DLC and have the original game priced at 5$, but you do you. I honestly do hope as many people as possible buy the game.

By the way, come on, if I want to give you money and get absolutely nothing for it, I can already contribute to your Patreon! You wouldn't have had to pay the 100$ to get it to Steam ;)

Also, nice jab at me with the "I wonder what you do for a living". Can't I just think your pricing decision is inappropriate? I'm not trying to take food from your mouth here. Price the game too high, and fewer people will buy it. Surely you realize that the people commenting right now are the ones who will buy it regardless of the price, right? They don't care, and that's fine. But most people, even the ones that remember the game, might see 10$ and ask where the added value is. I think whatever you can add to the package in terms of soundtrack, notes, sketches, a "digital artbook" if you will, might go some way to sweeten the deal for some. I would still prefer to see that as a DLC and have the original game priced at 5$, but you do you. I honestly do hope as many people as possible buy the game.

The re-release offers 100%, 150%, and 200% resolutions, since anything other than those causes graphical glitches due to how the tile-based maps work. Double resolution is 1440x1056, which mostly vertically fills a 1920x1080 screen.

I wonder what you do for a living because you're combative and come across as entitled, so I wonder how much of whatever you do you'd be willing to do for free. You also don't seem to be aware of how much work is involved in things like making or porting a game.

I'm aware people who actively follow and comment on my site are the ones most likely to buy it. But I'm expecting most people to not be interested at all, and the number of people who'd be more conditionally interested likely isn't high enough to justify the work involved in satisfying them. Maybe I'll be surprised though. Mostly I'm doing this for the people who've already requested it rather than to win over new or wary people.

Anyway, if you're actually concerned about helping in some way, being an arsehole is not a very effective path to that goal.

I wonder what you do for a living because you're combative and come across as entitled, so I wonder how much of whatever you do you'd be willing to do for free. You also don't seem to be aware of how much work is involved in things like making or porting a game.

I'm aware people who actively follow and comment on my site are the ones most likely to buy it. But I'm expecting most people to not be interested at all, and the number of people who'd be more conditionally interested likely isn't high enough to justify the work involved in satisfying them. Maybe I'll be surprised though. Mostly I'm doing this for the people who've already requested it rather than to win over new  or wary people.

Anyway, if you're actually concerned about helping in some way, being an arsehole is not a very effective path to that goal.

1 reply...

I don't even know why you are still so eager to discuss this topic about the $10 price tag, you can easily earn that in a day of working almost anywhere in the world. That is pretty alright for a game that has been in work for some time, Tobias didn't create MARDEK in a day, I'm sure of that.

If you think that price tag is so outrageous, I wonder how you're paying for internet to post such aberrations.

Tama_Yoshi82~5Y

Get over yourself, he's just trying to get out of poverty. Poverty is something that can happen if by accident you get really popular on a platform that isn't engineered to provide livelihood for its creators.

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

Oh please, get over yourself first, had he been trying to get out of poverty he would have made and sold MARDEK 4. I guess after all this time making stuff like Sindrel Song instead repackaging and selling a free unfinished flash game for money was the only option he had left that people might pay money for.

Also, how would socialism change Tobias' situation? He already lives for free as it is.

Not sure how to respond to you now. Do you realize this is the kind of talking points that have been thrown at Tobias for years now, and which have already been answered? We may stereotype you here, because your qualms fit neatly in a category of specific kinds of interventions that have been had before.

I didn't imply that socialism would make his situation better here specifically (although we could definitely have this conversation, but this is mostly tangential here). I was merely making the point that given our current reality, there's no way to escape poverty and not feel like a profiteering hack in some way or another. The alternatives would be, abandon yourself to living off government money (let's agree this is not optimal), or choose some release strategy (which, unless I am wrong, none of us have expertise for, so this basically amounts to choosing differently weighed dices. Let's at least let Tobias pick the dice he feels most comfortable with, no? None of us have opinions that really matter here, unless we can bring expertise or opportunity to the table).

"had he been trying to get out of poverty he would have made and sold MARDEK 4"

Yes, because Tobias definitely wants to stay in poverty and/or the only reason he stayed in it was because of how much of a couch potato lazy person he is. Yes.

This might be a trivial question, but some people genuinely believe this: do you think most people living in poverty actually deserve to be poor?

Do consider the following factors affecting Tobias:

=> There is stress in living at home and depending on his parents' wealth, a safety net which will inevitably disappear.
=> Brain tumor
=> He suffers from depression and social anxiety (for reasons that are not exactly surprising, if you consider his life story), which no therapist has been able to help him with so far.
=> While he tried going to university for arts and psychology, the experience was difficult because of the above.
=> He has fallen out of love with MARDEK, and given the tremendous effort and little return on investment that chapter 3 represented. Not doing mardek 4 was both rational financially, and rational for his mental health (which, implicitly, could also be a financial incentive, because you won't work as well if you're burnt out or suffer from depression)
=> Pretty much cannot be bothered to work on things he does not find meaningful (you don't want to deal with soul-crushing work when your life isn't going great in the first place).
=> Not even sure if games are the smartest way to make money (historically a very risky business, even for large enterprises).

I didn't imply that socialism would make his situation better here specifically (although we could definitely have this conversation, but this is mostly tangential here). I was merely making the point that given our current reality, there's no way to escape poverty and not feel like a profiteering hack in some way or another. The alternatives would be, abandon yourself to living off government money (let's agree this is not optimal), or choose some release strategy (which, unless I am wrong, none of us have expertise for, so this basically amounts to choosing differently weighed dices. Let's at least let Tobias pick the dice he feels most comfortable with, no? None of us have opinions that really matter here, unless we can bring expertise or opportunity to the table).

"had he been trying to get out of poverty he would have made and sold MARDEK 4"

Yes, because Tobias definitely wants to stay in poverty and/or the only reason he stayed in it was because of how much of a couch potato lazy person he is. Yes.

This might be a trivial question, but some people genuinely believe this: do you think most people living in poverty actually deserve to be poor?

Do consider the following factors affecting Tobias:

=> There is stress in living at home and depending on his parents' wealth, a safety net which will inevitably disappear.
=> Brain tumor
=> He suffers from depression and social anxiety (for reasons that are not exactly surprising, if you consider his life story), which no therapist has been able to help him with so far.
=> While he tried going to university for arts and psychology, the experience was difficult because of the above.
=> He has fallen out of love with MARDEK, and given the tremendous effort and little return on investment that chapter 3 represented. Not doing mardek 4 was both rational financially, and rational for his mental health (which, implicitly, could also be a financial incentive, because you won't work as well if you're burnt out or suffer from depression)
=> Pretty much cannot be bothered to work on things he does not find meaningful (you don't want to deal with soul-crushing work when your life isn't going great in the first place).
=> Not even sure if games are the smartest way to make money (historically a very risky business, even for large enterprises).

Maniafig222~5Y

Good to hear you've made progress on getting MARDEK on Steam!

First and foremost, it's important to be clear on what the game is, what the game is not and why people should buy it.

The most glaring omission from your description is that this is a full-fledged RPG with over 30 hours of content! This won't surprise people who've played MARDEK already, but to people who MARDEK is something they've never heard of before this would be a pretty big deal!

MARDEK's not just some half-assed JRPG after all, you put years of work into that third chapter, and it shows. You should feel free to call it polished and a loving homage and whatnot!

It is also, however, just three chapters of what was planned to be a full series, so people shouldn't buy into it and then reach the end and be left wondering what's next. Better to be as transparent about that as you an possibly be.

I'm excited to finally get to see that planning document of yours! Perhaps you could just add it all to the walkthrough instead? That one does have a page for commentary, after all, and it already has a nice UI that fits with MARDEK's style.

Does MARDEK contain mature content? No. It's a Teen-rated game by any metric, not a Mature game. I'm sure one could add 'if's and 'but's, but when presented with a binary pick the answer is no.

I think you ticked all boxes that need ticking.

I think good places for screenshots are the Dragon fight in chapter 1, the World Saviours in chapter 2, the fight against GdM Moric and you could reuse some screenshots you've already been using from chapter 3, such as from the Temples or the Guardians.

If you use a trailer, you could totally have like a montage of the three Guardians while the Guardians theme plays!! Everybody loves the Guardians theme, it's really good. You could also do the same for Moric and Qualna and the GdM theme.

You could also show off the P-dialogue system, some basic waking around a map, opening a chest, some irreverent NPC banter, maybe finish it off with the panning shot of the GdM council meeting from chapter 1.

I never got to beta test for the original release... But now I shall finally get the chance to beta test MARDEK!! I've not touched the game since back when we were testing Taming Dreams, and I shared my comments on my playthrough in the beta testing area. That was fun~

EBF4 on Steam costs â‚¬11,99 so that seems like a valid price range, I'd consider that to be roughly equivalent to MARDEK.

You should probably at least mention to release on whichever accounts you do have, such as dA, FB, Twitter, YT, Patreon and such. You'll be relying on word of mouth, so the more places you can light a spark in people, the better!

There's one more thing I would like to see for this, and it kind of ties in with your idea of adding notes, and that is developer commentary!

You could talk about characters from the bestiary, such as what inspired characters like Deugan and Emela, plans for what was going on with characters like Muriance and his dreams of crystals and Bernard's whole deal, characters who were fun to write for, difficult to write for, etc. What was going to become of the recurring antagonists like Steele and The World's Saviours, stuff like that!

Something like how Clavis wasn't originally part of the game, yet became super integral to the plot, those sorts of things are really interesting and would be a good incentive to buy the game!

There could be bits about areas of interest, such as the wrecked spaceship and what was planned for it, how Aeropolis wasn't originally planned to exist, stuff that was added or cut. Stuff about writing for the Dreamstones and getting into character's headspaces, the crystals, what was planned for the other continents, Belfan, etc.

And of course commentary on the music! I remember how on the old, old, old FH site you'd upload all music from your games with a little bit of commentary on each one, what sort of feeling you were trying to convey and how easy or difficult some compositions were and how satisfying getting this or that track done was!

I'm sure old fans of MARDEK would like to read stuff like that, especially since people theorizing about later chapters was always such a popular activity back in the heyday!

Good to hear you've made progress on getting MARDEK on Steam!

First and foremost, it's important to be clear on what the game is, what the game is not and why people should buy it.

The most glaring omission from your description is that this is a full-fledged RPG with over 30 hours of content! This won't surprise people who've played MARDEK already, but to people who MARDEK is something they've never heard of before this would be a pretty big deal!

MARDEK's not just some half-assed JRPG after all, you put years of work into that third chapter, and it shows. You should feel free to call it polished and a loving homage and whatnot!

It is also, however, just three chapters of what was planned to be a full series, so people shouldn't buy into it and then reach the end and be left wondering what's next. Better to be as transparent about that as you an possibly be.

I'm excited to finally get to see that planning document of yours! Perhaps you could just add it all to the walkthrough instead? That one does have a page for commentary, after all, and it already has a nice UI that fits with MARDEK's style.

Does MARDEK contain mature content? No. It's a Teen-rated game by any metric, not a Mature game. I'm sure one could add 'if's and 'but's, but when presented with a binary pick the answer is no.

I think you ticked all boxes that need ticking.

I think good places for screenshots are the Dragon fight in chapter 1, the World Saviours in chapter 2, the fight against GdM Moric and you could reuse some screenshots you've already been using from chapter 3, such as from the Temples or the Guardians.

If you use a trailer, you could totally have like a montage of the three Guardians while the Guardians theme plays!! Everybody loves the Guardians theme, it's really good. You could also do the same for Moric and Qualna and the GdM theme.

You could also show off the P-dialogue system, some basic waking around a map, opening a chest, some irreverent NPC banter, maybe finish it off with the panning shot of the GdM council meeting from chapter 1.

I never got to beta test for the original release... But now I shall finally get the chance to beta test MARDEK!! I've not touched the game since back when we were testing Taming Dreams, and I shared my comments on my playthrough in the beta testing area. That was fun~

EBF4 on Steam costs â‚¬11,99 so that seems like a valid price range, I'd consider that to be roughly equivalent to MARDEK.

You should probably at least mention to release on whichever accounts you do have, such as dA, FB, Twitter, YT, Patreon and such. You'll be relying on word of mouth, so the more places you can light a spark in people, the better!

There's one more thing I would like to see for this, and it kind of ties in with your idea of adding notes, and that is developer commentary!

You could talk about characters from the bestiary, such as what inspired characters like Deugan and Emela, plans for what was going on with characters like Muriance and his dreams of crystals and Bernard's whole deal, characters who were fun to write for, difficult to write for, etc. What was going to become of the recurring antagonists like Steele and The World's Saviours, stuff like that!

Something like how Clavis wasn't originally part of the game, yet became super integral to the plot, those sorts of things are really interesting and would be a good incentive to buy the game!

There could be bits about areas of interest, such as the wrecked spaceship and what was planned for it, how Aeropolis wasn't originally planned to exist, stuff that was added or cut. Stuff about writing for the Dreamstones and getting into character's headspaces, the crystals, what was planned for the other continents, Belfan, etc.

And of course commentary on the music! I remember how on the old, old, old FH site you'd upload all music from your games with a little bit of commentary on each one, what sort of feeling you were trying to convey and how easy or difficult some compositions were and how satisfying getting this or that track done was!

I'm sure old fans of MARDEK would like to read stuff like that, especially since people theorizing about later chapters was always such a popular activity back in the heyday!

MontyCallay101~5Y

I wouldn't consider MARDEK a mature title at all - "mature title" to me would be something that would usually be rated 18+, not a game with a rare silly innuendo thrown in every once in a while. But, if you want to be absolutely certain, I guess Matt Roszak would know better, since his latest game (and I'm quoting the store page here) contains "anime fanservice" but doesn't have a mature content description or warning of any kind (that I can see). I would certainly put it on the non-mature content side compared to the games in that list of examples, all of which are 18+ and have numerous warnings.

Also, I don't think it would include "killing" in the more detailed checklist (for those many Brazillian fans of yours), since "killing" is under the "realistic violence" category here, and MARDEK certainly doesn't have that. Does Mario have "realistic killing"???

If you want to include a summary of the "future" story, make it a PDF rather than a word document! Doesn't get much more official than a PDF!

I don't have a lot of issues with the description, since, as you said, most people who land there will know what it is. As for screenshots, I remember the old version of Fighunter having some pretty interesting ones! I would absolutely include some screenshots from MARDEK 3 - the Dreamrealm, Lifewood and Warport are so iconic to me because I spent so much time there, and MARDEK 3 seems to have much more interesting locations compared to the other two games.

Cloud saves are cool! Looking forward to those. Any plans to interact with the Steam trading cards system at all? That's usually an additional way to support the developer, since you would get a cut off of any card sales/purchases.

As for system requirements (was I the one who told you to put silly information? I can't remember) - I guess the information would have to be even sillier this time! Looking at what other games in the same category would have, I think you'd be fine with something like:

OS: Windows 7
Processor: 2 GHz Dual Core or better
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Storage: [...]

I just checked and saw that the Epic Battle Fantasy 3 store page has "Graphics: Probably doesn't matter" in its requirements. Silly indeed! From what I saw from other titles, you might even be able to leave the Graphics part blank.

I think charging $10 is mostly fair, considering the work you put in originally, although it's higher than what I see most other games from the era charging on Steam. I probably wouldn't ask for more than that, though!

Releasing it as soon as possible might even be preferable! Could give people some time to seek it out and maybe even find your blog.

At any rate, good on you for finishing this up! Probably ended up being more of an annoyance than necessary, but hopefulyl worth it in the end if it draws people (the good ones, hopefully!) to your current online presence. Looking forward to replaying the game!

Also, I don't think it would include "killing" in the more detailed checklist (for those many Brazillian fans of yours), since "killing" is under the "realistic violence" category here, and MARDEK certainly doesn't have that. Does Mario have "realistic killing"???

If you want to include a summary of the "future" story, make it a PDF rather than a word document! Doesn't get much more official than a PDF!

I don't have a lot of issues with the description, since, as you said, most people who land there will know what it is. As for screenshots, I remember the old version of Fighunter having some pretty interesting ones! I would absolutely include some screenshots from MARDEK 3 - the Dreamrealm, Lifewood and Warport are so iconic to me because I spent so much time there, and MARDEK 3 seems to have much more interesting locations compared to the other two games.

Cloud saves are cool! Looking forward to those. Any plans to interact with the Steam trading cards system at all? That's usually an additional way to support the developer, since you would get a cut off of any card sales/purchases.

As for system requirements (was I the one who told you to put silly information? I can't remember) - I guess the information would have to be even sillier this time! Looking at what other games in the same category would have, I think you'd be fine with something like:

OS: Windows 7
Processor: 2 GHz Dual Core or better
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Storage: [...]

I just checked and saw that the Epic Battle Fantasy 3 store page has "Graphics: Probably doesn't matter" in its requirements. Silly indeed! From what I saw from other titles, you might even be able to leave the Graphics part blank.

I think charging $10 is mostly fair, considering the work you put in originally, although it's higher than what I see most other games from the era charging on Steam. I probably wouldn't ask for more than that, though!

Releasing it as soon as possible might even be preferable! Could give people some time to seek it out and maybe even find your blog.

At any rate, good on you for finishing this up! Probably ended up being more of an annoyance than necessary, but hopefulyl worth it in the end if it draws people (the good ones, hopefully!) to your current online presence. Looking forward to replaying the game!

I think the description could be way better! (Although, I say that without providing a better description myself.) I think that I have this belief because I remember seeing so much content for MARDEK in the past.

Are there any descriptions from your old website or things you had to submit to Kongregate when you published your game with them?

Here are some ideas I have for things that I think may be worth mentioning,
-hours of gameplay per chapter with good replayability and post-game content
-complete wiki with xx entries (figverse) and also a guide that you published on Kongregate (for those people too lazy to discover all the content that you put in the game for themselves xD)
-how many plays the game has, how popular it was and how highly ranked it was on Kongregate
-an immersive fantasy world with sci-fi/magic/medieval lore (2 continents, x zones, x dungeons)
-number of items, monsters (bestiary), quests, NPCs, skills/attacks
-character development with â‰ˆxx lines of dialogue for multiple characters that spans 3 chapters and ~15 years in game time
-battle, party, and overworld system inspired by final fantasy and other JRPGs
-reaction-time mechanic for skills and defending against enemies in battle
-6 element system for skills, magic, equipment, weaknesses, and resistances

Aw heck, I decided to try to take a crack at a description. Here's my attempt at rewriting the first paragraph of the description that you just posted.

"The story of MARDEK begins with a young boy named Mardek living on the medieval fantasy world of Belfan. Mardek and his childhood friend, Deugan, encounter a runaway belonging to an advanced, sentient, alien race. The runaway, Rohoph, crash lands on Belfan and ends up possessing Mardek's body but decides to not take over Mardek's mind completely. Mardek grows up sharing his consciousness with Rohoph, and Rohoph gives Mardek light element powers and the ability to cast healing magic. As Mardek grows older, the story becomes more centered on the plots of Rohoph's pursuers, the Governance de Magi. Follow the story of Mardek as well as the stories of his companions and enemies in an epic JRPG-style quest!"

I'm not sure if that description is too centered on Mardek...I think I said "Mardek" 8 times in 6 sentences, but I didn't want to give away too much of this game that I thought was awesome 10+ years ago (and still think is awesome but I have a huge bias bc of nostalgia now). This is just my opinion of how you would describe the game. There are probably many opinions, and you would definitely know the story of MARDEK the best. I hope that what I said was helpful and can give you some ideas.

Also, regarding the performance specs. Maybe you could just use the same things as other ported flash games, like EBF.

Screenshots and trailer: There must be cool screenshots or something online somewhere! right? I think the following screenshots would be good,
1) Title screen
2) Battle system with party members and normal looking monsters
3) Quest dialogue (maybe from the king?)
4) a battle showing a cool skill (maybe of someone blocking using the reaction mechanism) with cooler looking monsters or a boss
5) Overworld map (showing the continents)
6) walking around in one of the towns or villages
7) walking around in a cool dungeon (gem mine? dream forest?)
8) Funny dialog/cutscene with one of the Governance de Magi (or a non-human character like one of the Reptoids)
9) One of the characters reading a book in a bookcase or discovering some kind of secret
10) one of the characters opening a chest and finding a cool looking item (maybe the sand caves in mardek III?)
11) inventory showing off items
12) Menu system with stats, etc.
13) bestiary entries or that one menu with character profiles

Are there any descriptions from your old website or things you had to submit to Kongregate when you published your game with them?

Here are some ideas I have for things that I think may be worth mentioning,
-hours of gameplay per chapter with good replayability and post-game content
-complete wiki with xx entries (figverse) and also a guide that you published on Kongregate (for those people too lazy to discover all the content that you put in the game for themselves xD)
-how many plays the game has, how popular it was and how highly ranked it was on Kongregate
-an immersive fantasy world with sci-fi/magic/medieval lore (2 continents, x zones, x dungeons)
-number of items, monsters (bestiary), quests, NPCs, skills/attacks
-character development with â‰ˆxx lines of dialogue for multiple characters that spans 3 chapters and ~15 years in game time
-battle, party, and overworld system inspired by final fantasy and other JRPGs
-reaction-time mechanic for skills and defending against enemies in battle
-6 element system for skills, magic, equipment, weaknesses, and resistances

Aw heck, I decided to try to take a crack at a description. Here's my attempt at rewriting the first paragraph of the description that you just posted.

"The story of MARDEK begins with a young boy named Mardek living on the medieval fantasy world of Belfan. Mardek and his childhood friend, Deugan, encounter a runaway belonging to an advanced, sentient, alien race. The runaway, Rohoph, crash lands on Belfan and ends up possessing Mardek's body but decides to not take over Mardek's mind completely. Mardek grows up sharing his consciousness with Rohoph, and Rohoph gives Mardek light element powers and the ability to cast healing magic. As Mardek grows older, the story becomes more centered on the plots of Rohoph's pursuers, the Governance de Magi. Follow the story of Mardek as well as the stories of his companions and enemies in an epic JRPG-style quest!"

I'm not sure if that description is too centered on Mardek...I think I said "Mardek" 8 times in 6 sentences, but I didn't want to give away too much of this game that I thought was awesome 10+ years ago (and still think is awesome but I have a huge bias bc of nostalgia now). This is just my opinion of how you would describe the game. There are probably many opinions, and you would definitely know the story of MARDEK the best. I hope that what I said was helpful and can give you some ideas.

Also, regarding the performance specs. Maybe you could just use the same things as other ported flash games, like EBF.

Screenshots and trailer: There must be cool screenshots or something online somewhere! right? I think the following screenshots would be good,
1) Title screen
2) Battle system with party members and normal looking monsters
3) Quest dialogue (maybe from the king?)
4) a battle showing a cool skill (maybe of someone blocking using the reaction mechanism) with cooler looking monsters or a boss
5) Overworld map (showing the continents)
6) walking around in one of the towns or villages
7) walking around in a cool dungeon (gem mine? dream forest?)
8) Funny dialog/cutscene with one of the Governance de Magi (or a non-human character like one of the Reptoids)
9) One of the characters reading a book in a bookcase or discovering some kind of secret
10) one of the characters opening a chest and finding a cool looking item (maybe the sand caves in mardek III?)
11) inventory showing off items
12) Menu system with stats, etc.
13) bestiary entries or that one menu with character profiles

MF11~5Y

Well, I'm from Brazil and a long-time MARDEK fan who would certainly buy it, so that's at least one person!

Regarding the trailer, I think you should show a little bit (a few seconds?) of everything, and it could go somewhat like this:

-A bit of movement around the maps
-Equipping items in the inventory (and showing the description/skills/properties tabs)
-Moments of battles against random enemies (attacking, defending, healing, with the proper reaction timing)
-Equipping reactions and showing a bit more of the menus (quests/party/encyclopedia) (which I think look gorgeous, it was an awesome improvement to the first MARDEK 1 and 2 releases)
-More movement around the maps, this time taking a chest or two and showing the map menus
-More battling, this time against bosses (with some status effect, stat change, item use, one skill being mastered as it is used)
-Ending with the defeat of one of the guardians, victory screen and all that
-Some examples of dialogue here and there, and one or two P-chats

That's what I would do, I think, and it would be cool if the trailer started with MARDEK 1, then showed 2, then 3. And maybe the screenshots could just be taken from the trailer?

I don't think I can suggest a price, since they vary bizarrely on Steam depending on currency.

Anyway, it will be really nice to play the game on Steam, I will be glad especially because it represents one more victory (even if minor) against your demons. Wish you all the best, Tobias.

Well, I'm from Brazil and a long-time MARDEK fan who would certainly buy it, so that's at least one person!

Regarding the trailer, I think you should show a little bit (a few seconds?) of everything, and it could go somewhat like this:

-A bit of movement around the maps
-Equipping items in the inventory (and showing the description/skills/properties tabs)
-Moments of battles against random enemies (attacking, defending, healing, with the proper reaction timing)
-Equipping reactions and showing a bit more of the menus (quests/party/encyclopedia) (which I think look gorgeous, it was an awesome improvement to the first MARDEK 1 and 2 releases)
-More movement around the maps, this time taking a chest or two and showing the map menus
-More battling, this time against bosses (with some status effect, stat change, item use, one skill being mastered as it is used)
-Ending with the defeat of one of the guardians, victory screen and all that
-Some examples of dialogue here and there, and one or two P-chats

That's what I would do, I think, and it would be cool if the trailer started with MARDEK 1, then showed 2, then 3. And maybe the screenshots could just be taken from the trailer?

I don't think I can suggest a price, since they vary bizarrely on Steam depending on currency.
 
Anyway, it will be really nice to play the game on Steam, I will be glad especially because it represents one more victory (even if minor) against your demons. Wish you all the best, Tobias.

Spectre35~5Y

I don't think MARDEK should be labeled as a mature game because I think 'mature' here means 18+ which is a category MARDEK clearly doesn't belong to.
System requirement should be very low for a decade old flash game.
$10 should be ok because you didn't add anything to the game, a higher price might scared off some new players. You want them to notice you and your plan for Divine Dreams.

swatllama15~5Y

Is Mardek mature? Mmrrow baby, sure doesn't seem like it!

To get a sense of screenshots to show, I looked at FFV's page, and they only have five - and only one is of combat. I suppose a few boss fights from Chapters 2 and 3 would be valid, and maybe some of the funnier dialogue bits. Speaking of FF, I've been playing some of them and really think Mardek is much more polished - which makes sense, since it's what, 10, 15 years newer?

I'm fanatically excited that you're including plans for where you wanted the plot to go! The rest of the description seems fine.

I would definitely pay $10 for it, and maybe a little more for bundling a high quality version of the OST, which I know you sell on bandcamp, but this'd just be another way to get it out there. I think you can put up package deals or something on Steam.

purplerabbits148~5Y

I'd say $10 is a fair price. You are getting all 3 games in a package, and those 3 games can lead to over 100 hours of playtime. To me that's justified.

I saw someone mention that EBF 3 is free. However having played both the free and steam versions of EBF 4 and EBF 5, There is a difference in play. There's essentially more stuff to the two paid games, while EBF 3 is pretty much unchanged from the free version.

I'd say that with the packageing of the games together and other other stuff. I'd be fair for a price to be added, because it took time amd effort to make ancient code into the format where you can do the things you want it to do now. And using a real world example, programmers are paid a ton to do the things they do. even though some things they get paid for may seem easy, like putting a comma to fix an error in code, however it took an entire journey to get there. Which is why they are paid that much because normal people can't even phathom what it took to get that fixed.

So you could argue that the $10 is the price for the week of trying to get decade old code to work with the saves.
;P

I'd say $10 is a fair price. You are getting all 3 games in a package, and those 3 games can lead to over 100 hours of playtime. To me that's justified.

I saw someone mention that EBF 3 is free. However having played both the free and steam versions of EBF 4 and EBF 5, There is a difference in play. There's essentially more stuff to the two paid games, while EBF 3 is pretty much unchanged from the free version.

I'd say that with the packageing of the games together and other other stuff. I'd be fair for a price to be added, because it took time amd effort to make ancient code into the format where you can do the things you want it to do now. And using a real world example, programmers are paid a ton to do the things they do. even though some things they get paid for may seem easy, like putting a comma to fix an error in code, however it took an entire journey to get there. Which is why they are paid that much because normal people can't even phathom what it took to get that fixed.

So you could argue that the $10 is the price for the week of trying to get decade old code to work with the saves. 
;P

astralwolf92~5Y

$5 seems to be too little, $10 seems to be too much. But prices often drop after steam converts it to my local currency, so I think even at $10 I'd only be paying around $5, which is more than fair

Falcon64~5Y

Other people have already given many good ideas on how to improve the description, but here's my two cents:

I believe there should be less emphasis on how it's "exactly the same", and far more emphasis on how it's improvedâ€”something like "This version has uncompressed sound, fullscreen resolution, and includes a full soundtrack and development notes on the game, including the direction the story would have gone afterwards!"

In my opinion, there is little need to mention how it's the same for nostalgia's sake, as it will be plainly visible for the people who seek it out for that reason, and can also be deduced from the description of what exactly is different about it. Personally, that third paragraph would make me feel like the game wasn't worth paying for.

Also, while I'm contesting the entire paragraph, the phrase "the same as the version as originally released" is, while not incorrect, not exactly what I would call grammatically clear; so I believe that, if nothing more, it could use some rephrasing.

I feel like pricing in the range of $10-$15 would be expected for this kind of release.

Other people have already given many good ideas on how to improve the description, but here's my two cents:

I believe there should be less emphasis on how it's "exactly the same", and far more emphasis on how it's improvedâ€”something like "This version has uncompressed sound, fullscreen resolution, and includes a full soundtrack and development notes on the game, including the direction the story would have gone afterwards!"

In my opinion, there is little need to mention how it's the same for nostalgia's sake, as it will be plainly visible for the people who seek it out for that reason, and can also be deduced from the description of what exactly is different about it. Personally, that third paragraph would make me feel like the game wasn't worth paying for.

Also, while I'm contesting the entire paragraph, the phrase "the same as the version as originally released" is, while not incorrect, not exactly what I would call grammatically clear; so I believe that, if nothing more, it could use some rephrasing.

I feel like pricing in the range of $10-$15 would be expected for this kind of release.

Interesting. When I started talking about Divine Dreams, a lot of people seemed irritated, asking me what I was changing from the original MARDEK, and after a lot of discussion it seemed that what people really wanted was something that was exactly the same as what they remember. It's a big part of the reason I decided to do this re-release, to appease people who wanted the old experience exactly as they remember it, as well as people who are interested in the novelty of a reimagining.

I'll see if I can find a happy medium in the description, which states enhancements to the familiar to make it clear it's both worth paying for and that it's not going to be surprisingly different.

When 50% of a blog's comments is taking up by one thread I think people should start wondering whether adding even more replies to said thread has any added value, beyond the perceived value of dunking on someone in an Online Argument.

It's very reminiscent of FH in all the worst ways.

zhutz5~5Y

The original release date for everything in the new engine (1st, 2nd & 3rd chapter, the walkthrough too btw) is July 06, 2010.
As for the old engine - 1st chapter was first released on June 8, 2007 and the 2nd on November 2, 2007.

Thanks, that saves me some searching around! I'll use the 2010 one as the original date.

MaxDes45~5Y

For pricing, I would argue that $14.99 is a solid pick. I see $9.99 as a safer option, though, and definitely for me that's what the absolute minimum price of this game would be.

This is more subjective, but when I see $9.99 indie games on Steam, the low price makes me very skeptical if they're worth my time. For me, I really associate higher price with higher quality, and just seeing that a game's price is higher than being in the single digits goes a long way for me. I don't think it's too extreme to make it more than $10, since even EBF5 is $20.

Besides that, I heavily agree with the recommendation for the four blokes line someone gave in the comments.

Other funny moments that I remember which I think could go well as short clips in the trailer or something:

- Talking to the Shaman (?) in the Lifewood Forest: Verhn recommends cutting down the trees to make a path for his side quest. The way that the Shaman responds to that is pretty comical.

- When pressing 'P' to talk with Legion and learning their backstory. At a certain point, the Yellow-personality comes out and says some gibberish, before saying a variation of "I am hard to write dialogue for." I thought this was pretty humorous and could be fun to slap somewhere in the middle of the trailer, but if you're going for a more polished and less laidback tone on the game's Steampage, this might not be the best choice.

- Donovan's "Look for the one with the funniest hat" line is very recognizable due to how he says it right in MARDEK 3's beginning. It also doesn't spoil anything as much since it's so early on so I'd recommend showing it.

- A very interesting and spoiler-free part is where in MARDEK 3, the saucer cult surrounds the fallen saucer. I think this possibly could make for a funny screenshot.

- I really like it in MARDEK 3 when Mardek's mother makes comments on your party after you show them to her. I don't know how well it would fare as a screenshot, but I think it might could look good as one.

- This is pretty vague, but Aeropolis is such a beautiful location that I think there should definitely be some clips of it on the Steampage.

There are so many beautiful locations in the game... places like Lifewood and the Airport (What's it called? The Warport?) come to mind because of their great colors, but the element-" temples also have great vibes. Are you planning to show pictures of the elemental temples? I would recommend showing as little of them as possible since I wouldn't want them to be spoiled too much.

I don't recommend showing Emela's cameo in MARDEK 3 since that spoils the surprise.

Just to note... I don't think the shock humor aged very well so if I would disagree if anyone recommended using it to advertise the game, lol.

Also, I'm just curious, did you actually finish the Mardek walkthrough in Flash? On Kongregate, the flash game that is the walkthrough is incomplete.

For pricing, I would argue that $14.99 is a solid pick. I see $9.99 as a safer option, though, and definitely for me thatâ€™s what the absolute minimum price of this game would be.

This is more subjective, but when I see $9.99 indie games on Steam, the low price makes me very skeptical if theyâ€™re worth my time. For me, I really associate higher price with higher quality, and just seeing that a gameâ€™s price is higher than being in the single digits goes a long way for me. I donâ€™t think itâ€™s too extreme to make it more than $10, since even EBF5 is $20.

Besides that, I heavily agree with the recommendation for the four blokes line someone gave in the comments.

Other funny moments that I remember which I think could go well as short clips in the trailer or something:

- Talking to the Shaman (?) in the Lifewood Forest: Verhn recommends cutting down the trees to make a path for his side quest. The way that the Shaman responds to that is pretty comical.

- When pressing â€˜Pâ€™ to talk with Legion and learning their backstory. At a certain point, the Yellow-personality comes out and says some gibberish, before saying a variation of â€œI am hard to write dialogue for.â€ I thought this was pretty humorous and could be fun to slap somewhere in the middle of the trailer, but if youâ€™re going for a more polished and less laidback tone on the gameâ€™s Steampage, this might not be the best choice.

- Donovanâ€™s â€œLook for the one with the funniest hatâ€ line is very recognizable due to how he says it right in MARDEK 3â€™s beginning. It also doesnâ€™t spoil anything as much since itâ€™s so early on so Iâ€™d recommend showing it.

- A very interesting and spoiler-free part is where in MARDEK 3, the saucer cult surrounds the fallen saucer. I think this possibly could make for a funny screenshot.

- I really like it in MARDEK 3 when Mardekâ€™s mother makes comments on your party after you show them to her. I donâ€™t know how well it would fare as a screenshot, but I think it might could look good as one.

- This is pretty vague, but Aeropolis is such a beautiful location that I think there should definitely be some clips of it on the Steampage.

There are so many beautiful locations in the game... places like Lifewood and the Airport (Whatâ€™s it called? The Warport?) come to mind because of their great colors, but the element-â€œ temples also have great vibes. Are you planning to show pictures of the elemental temples? I would recommend showing as little of them as possible since I wouldnâ€™t want them to be spoiled too much.

I donâ€™t recommend showing Emelaâ€™s cameo in MARDEK 3 since that spoils the surprise.

Just to note... I donâ€™t think the shock humor aged very well so if I would disagree if anyone recommended using it to advertise the game, lol.

Also, Iâ€™m just curious, did you actually finish the Mardek walkthrough in Flash? On Kongregate, the flash game that is the walkthrough is incomplete.

I suggested earlier that a 15 dollar price tag could include a downloadable OST as part of a package, with the "base" game being $10. I still think this would be a good option for people who want to support Tobias while also having more "flexible" pricing options. Of course, this is significantly less than the Bandcamp version, but the increased exposure could lead to more sales overall.

TheJop32~5Y

Glad to see you're making progress with this! For the description, you may want to leave some of the story out to make it more surprising to any new players who pick it up, like the part about the Governance de Magi turning to darkness. Also maybe instead of saying the game is made to maximize nostalgia, maybe you can say it provides the most "authentic" version of the original, or something similar.

I don't think the game qualifies as mature. Even if you technically kill some people, there is never any gore. I mean, Dead by Daylight is in the mature category, and that's a game where you play as a serial killer who puts people on meat hooks, so MARDEK probably wouldn't be in the same realm. Plus any sexual jokes will probably just go over kids' heads. Some of the pictures I think would look good on the page are the Zombie Dragon, Karnos, Fire Guardian, and maybe Moric in the Catacombs. 14.99 seems like it would be a good price for the whole collection. If you do make it 9.99 then, it will be more appealing to some people since it'll be 33% off (some people only buy games on sale).

I'm looking forward to seeing your notes on the future of the series too. I remember you posted a little bit about this years ago on Fig Hunter, but those posts were lost to the ages.

I don't think the game qualifies as mature. Even if you technically kill some people, there is never any gore. I mean, Dead by Daylight is in the mature category, and that's a game where you play as a serial killer who puts people on meat hooks, so MARDEK probably wouldn't be in the same realm. Plus any sexual jokes will probably just go over kids' heads. Some of the pictures I think would look good on the page are the Zombie Dragon, Karnos, Fire Guardian, and maybe Moric in the Catacombs. 14.99 seems like it would be a good price for the whole collection. If you do make it 9.99 then, it will be more appealing to some people since it'll be 33% off (some people only buy games on sale).

I'm looking forward to seeing your notes on the future of the series too. I remember you posted a little bit about this years ago on Fig Hunter, but those posts were lost to the ages.

Oh- a really fun and unique thing in MARDEK that I don't see in other games is how you can walk through certain walls to find hidden stuff. I feel like including a bit of that (like entering the hidden walls in the M3 sandcaves?) could be really fun to see in the trailer.

Alban12320~5Y

Good work Tobias!! I can't wait to buy Mardek on steam and play it, but what about other games like Deliverance will they be added to Steam too ?

Now here's an idea. I would love to see Clarence's Big Chance too being ported to a more future-proof platform. CBC was the shit! It's another one from Tobias that I really loved

Just woke up and saw that you've been editing this post and the game is ready for testing. I'm open to do it and give feedback about it if you'll give me the chance, and if not, I hope the testing phase will be a success so we can all enjoy playing MARDEK on Steam.

I'd be able to help with testing ASAP! Since I have multiple machines, I could also check if the cloud save system works as intended. Hope you're doing fine despite the unpleasantness in your comment section during the last few days.

Thanks for considering my wellbeing! It's certainly not something I wanted to have to deal with so soon after spending a week in bed due to crippling depression. It does get to me, largely because of fear that those sentiments will be echoed by many more people once the game's available outside the bubble I've built for myself, but I'm just trying to tell myself they'll just be a minority... or something.

If you email me, I'll reply to that with a beta key or however it works! I still need to add the extras though, so I'll do that first, tomorrow. It'll be really useful to know if it works across multiple machines, as I'm unable to test that myself! Thanks for offering!

Just sent you an email!

I'd be able and willing to test MARDEK. I've been meaning to play that game again anyway, what with all the talk about it recently.

I'm curious what your replanning has been about! You must be eager to get back to Divine Dreams once MARDEK's out of the way!

Thanks for volunteering! If you email me, I'll reply to that with a beta key - or however it works, I forget - though I've yet to add the extras like the story notes and the soundtrack, so I'll try to figure that out first.

I'm definitely eager to get back to Divine Dreams! I tried to write a blog about what I'm planning for it today, but depression's got in the way again so I haven't finished it. Hopefully the MARDEK extras won't take very long tomorrow and I can write that as well, but we'll see.

Gyroger5~5Y

OMGGGG this is so awesome!!!!! I can't wait. I say 10 dollars is pretty reasonable, you can literally get tons of hours in, and it's super replayable.

codyfun12329~5Y

Please don't let that detractor's bellyaching get to you. There are plenty of other games that are downloadable for free but have *paid* Steam versions that add little more than Steam compatibility. You'll be joining the likes of Mindustry and Tales of Maj'Eyal (both of which people are too busy playing and enjoying to shit on for the business decisions their devs make).

That's useful to hear! (Also, I've never heard of either of those; should I look them up?)

If you want. They're not unpopular, SteamSpy puts them both in the 200,000 .. 500,000 Steam owners range.

I can help test the game if you need someone. I certainly have enough free time!

I'm down to do some play testing if you'd prefer me to. I have access to two computers right now so I could definitely test cloud saving on my end.

Also, I've thought about it more and I definitely see the greater appeal in charging $9.99 and then more for different added content. It does make more sense in the long run- even undertale is only $9.99.

ALazyTotodile14~5Y

I'm so late on all of this news, but I'm glad things have been looking up for you lately--best of luck in these last couple of steps!! I look forward to the chance to support ya~

Replying to Update 4 to this thread now, I hope my comment won't count as spamming.

Your pricing idea seems solid, $10 for the game, $15 for the Game+Soundtrack and a 10% discount for the first week.

What I highly suggest, and I know you hate this part, but you should try to make it known that it's gonna be released on Steam. When it's released, post about it on some subreddits or something, people are always searching to find some hidden gems like this one.

If it's not too late. I'll be down to beta test. If not that's fine. I'll be ready and waiting to tell my friends about it. :D

Agreed. Tobias should do something to promote his games and future plans for Divine Dreams. The most recent post about MARDEK on Reddit is 2 months old. I really hope MARDEK can get the recognition it deserves.

JohnnyBoi45~5Y

Hi Tobias! I've been lurking this thread for the past few days - I hope a certain user's comments haven't gotten under your skin - as you've seen you have several people here who certainly plan to buy the game at your very reasonable price suggestion.

I would love to help beta test the game if you still need people - it's about the time of year I play through the whole thing again.

Maybe this is only midly relevant, but i wonder if you should decide on the price for the original with the release of the remake in mind.

I mean, if all goes well :
--chapter 1 of the remake is planned for next year or so.
--the people that buy the original will play it for quite a while, since the trilogy is quite long to finish.
--then, when it's still quite fresh in their minds, you'll ask them to buy a remake of that game.

Maybe their respective prices should be consistent with one another ?
Or maybe not, those who actually use steam will know better than me if such a comparative approach is at all relevant :-)

Lildoof2~5Y

Price... I think my view of price is a bit skewed, because I've only fully played mardek 1 and 2... and if I were to put a price on those games (even though I played them for free...) it'd be $2 and $6 respectively... So from my understanding the 3rd game is just as long, if not longer, than the 2nd? So if it's arbitrarily another $6... the price should be $14? So I think having it be $10 is very decent.

Also speaking of the prices being broken up separately, what are your thoughts on having each game being sold individually and able to be bought as a bundle? I imagine the only downside would be you'd have to go through this process 3 times... and pay $100 per game right? So... maybe that's out of the question. I would imagine it'd be easier for new customers to make a small purchase (or even a free chapter 1) to get into the franchise and potentially buy into the following chapters, or see that there's a deal if there's if you buy the bundle. Perhaps it wont be out of the question if your fans help contribute to pay for the steam fees? And all those who contribute get copies of the game? Just a thought... it all sounds good hypothetically and that's assuming each component works perfectly... well... here's to wishful thinking ^-^

Also! I'm down for a steam version since my old save file is on another computer... and isn't flash going to not be supported after this year? So whatever happens, I think this whole move sounds like a good decision. (Also I think that means I get to finish chapter 3! Finally!)

Also speaking of the prices being broken up separately, what are your thoughts on having each game being sold individually and able to be bought as a bundle? I imagine the only downside would be you'd have to go through this process 3 times... and pay $100 per game right? So... maybe that's out of the question. I would imagine it'd be easier for new customers to make a small purchase (or even a free chapter 1) to get into the franchise and potentially buy into the following chapters, or see that there's a deal if there's if you buy the bundle. Perhaps it wont be out of the question if your fans help contribute to pay for the steam fees? And all those who contribute get copies of the game? Just a thought... it all sounds good hypothetically and that's assuming each component works perfectly... well... here's to wishful thinking ^-^

Also! I'm down for a steam version since my old save file is on another computer... and isn't flash going to not be supported after this year? So whatever happens, I think this whole move sounds like a good decision.  (Also I think that means I get to finish chapter 3! Finally!)

He could make a free"demo" of the game that is playable until the Chapter 1 ending, that chapter is like 30 minutes short and people could make an idea of what to expect from the rest of the game.

MysteriousMan3~5Y

Hi Pseudo! I played Mardek for the first time in 2008, and I play the game again once a while. I always loved the series, it's definitely one of the best games I ever played. I wanted to be a beta tester of your game, how can I do that?

Ptyrell37~5Y

Congrats on getting this on steam! I assume you will be taking it down from other websites it is currently on? I just wandered over to Kongregate, and there are still tons of people commenting who love those games :)

I can't imagine that would be well-received by anyone! It wouldn't be feasible anyway, due to how casually Flash games were distributed back in the day. The Steam version will exist as a possibility for people who want it - and I do think it makes for a more immersive and 'official'-feeling experience - but if people can't or don't want to pay for that version, they can still play the browser ones... until Flash eventually becomes completely obsolete, anyway.

Talking about minor suggestions...

As far as I know, there are x4 Gold Ore(s) in the game while being 6 craftable items in the game : Golden Mirror
Buzzsaw Arm
Titan Plating
Eagle Wings
Regal Crown
Golden M Helm

The Regal Crown can be dropped from either King Cuthbert or King of Goznor (though the latter is quite useless because after that you've beaten the game).

One of the main issues is that a lot of people won't know that item is used for crafting, and if you see that selling price (10k gold) you're pretty tempted to sell it and forget about it... until you need it. I guess you could add it as a rare (~5%-10%) drop to Golems, if that helps.

Another thing that kind of made a small deal of trouble, is the "point of no return" of the chapters 2&3. If you want to do some side content after the "ending" , but you have no other save prior to beating the chapter, you're pretty much doomed on playing solo (only Mardek in team). I guess that could feel as a negative for some people that skip through the side content for after the main story, and are surprised that instead of 4 team members they are meant to solo it.

I don't remember if there were any announcements of this before the "point of no return" , but I hope you could address this in some way. Maybe after the ending, a dialogue box will tell you , breaking the 4th wall : "Congrats, you've beaten Chapter 2/3. You are free to play the remaining content with any team members you want, but canonically Mardek should be alone at this point in the story."

Talking about minor suggestions...

As far as I know, there are x4 Gold Ore(s) in the game while being 6 craftable items in the game : Golden Mirror
Buzzsaw Arm
Titan Plating
Eagle Wings
Regal Crown
Golden M Helm

The Regal Crown can be dropped from either King Cuthbert or King of Goznor (though the latter is quite useless because after that you've beaten the game).

One of the main issues is that a lot of people won't know that item is used for crafting, and if you see that selling price (10k gold) you're pretty tempted to sell it and forget about it... until you need it. I guess you could add it as a rare (~5%-10%) drop to Golems, if that helps.

Another thing that kind of made a small deal of trouble, is the "point of no return" of the chapters 2&3. If you want to do some side content after the "ending" , but you have no other save prior to beating the chapter, you're pretty much doomed on playing solo (only Mardek in team). I guess that could feel as a negative for some people that skip through the side content for after the main story, and are surprised that instead of 4 team members they are meant to solo it.

I don't remember if there were any announcements of this before the "point of no return" , but I hope you could address this in some way. Maybe after the ending, a dialogue box will tell you , breaking the 4th wall : "Congrats, you've beaten Chapter 2/3. You are free to play the remaining content with any team members you want, but canonically Mardek should be alone at this point in the story."

I was thinking Golems myself, but which ones? Other people seem to be more familiar with a lot of the game's details than I am myself!

I think it makes it very clear that you're passing beyond a point of no return; I remember being careful about that in both MARDEK 2 and 3. But if someone just skips that dialogue, that's their own fault? Having some post-game free exploration with all your allies would be signficantly harder to do than just changing around a few numbers, so unfortunately I don't think I can do that (there's too much chance of breaking something).

Well, the basic golems could have a chance of 5% of dropping one while Mythril Golems could have a 10% chance (mainly just bigger than the regular golems, cause the latter can only be encountered in the Miasmal Citadel and Arena). I don't see any other monster dropping it and making sense.

About the point of no return, I guess you're right, no more need to talk about it.

A small thing that revolves around numbers is the grinding for mastering some skills. Most of them have understandable requirements, but some are pretty boring and time-consuming to the point of exhaustion to master, and for min-maxers that's a nightmare. The attack/defense reactions are mostly well placed, ranging from 20-40 uses to master them, but I'm mostly talking about the mastering of passive skills. These usually have high numbers and you only get 1 AP/won fight. I know we have the "Double AP" passive from EveningStar, but that takes 10 Reaction Points out of you, so it still slows you down and I chose not to use it at all.

If you want to address this, I thought of a quick fix. You could either minimize the amount of fights needed for mastering passive skills (a lot of them require 40-50 fights, that's tiresome and requires precisely grinding for it, cause you'll rarely want to use the same piece of armor for 50 fights when you come across something better, but you lose that skill).

Another fix is not touching the amount, but instead reward the team member with 1 AP for each "turn" they are alive instead of each fight won. So if my Mardek just beat a monster in 4 turns, he will get 4 points towards his progress on his passives that are activated.

About the point of no return, I guess you're right, no more need to talk about it.

A small thing that revolves around numbers is the grinding for mastering some skills. Most of them have understandable requirements, but some are pretty boring and time-consuming to the point of exhaustion to master, and for min-maxers that's a nightmare. The attack/defense reactions are mostly well placed, ranging from 20-40 uses to master them, but I'm mostly talking about the mastering of passive skills. These usually have high numbers and you only get 1 AP/won fight. I know we have the "Double AP" passive from EveningStar, but that takes 10 Reaction Points out of you, so it still slows you down and I chose not to use it at all.

If you want to address this, I thought of a quick fix. You could either minimize the amount of fights needed for mastering passive skills (a lot of them require 40-50 fights, that's tiresome and requires precisely grinding for it, cause you'll rarely want to use the same piece of armor for 50 fights when you come across something better, but you lose that skill).

Another fix is not touching the amount, but instead reward the team member with 1 AP for each "turn" they are alive instead of each fight won. So if my Mardek just beat a monster in 4 turns, he will get 4 points towards his progress on his passives that are activated.

I can change easily change numbers in a database (eg costs to mastery), but changing fundamental mechanics - like how often AP is generated - isn't a simple case of number tweaking, so that's not a possibility. So I'm willing to change some costs, but do you have any requests for specific skills with their original costs and a revised suggestion? Something more general would require me to search through the database without knowing what I'm looking for or even what changes I should be making.

It's like the difference between "your essay has some spelling errors, could you fix those?" and "you misspelled 'their' at the start of the second paragraph". The latter correction would take significantly less time and mental effort than the first!

[LINK]

Looking here, I'd say that nerfing the values down shouldn't make the grinding that time-consuming but nor too quick.
My ideas are in general for the number of won fights needed for mastering, so I will just list the AP that should be numbered down a bit as in my vision :

20 AP skills -> 15 AP
30 AP skills -> 20 AP
40 AP skills -> 30 AP
50 AP skills -> 40 AP

I think the more special cases, like Double AP passive (that requires 200 AP but it is lowering itself to 100 after activating it) and Double Gold passive (100 AP needed) should stay the same.

This way, players can master skills without too much burnout from wearing a piece of gear that's worse than what they have in inventory right now just for the sake of mastering a skill.

I agree with the gold ores, but I wouldn't want the passive skills to be changed. I guess there are different opinions on this though. You don't need those passive skills to complete most of the game. Also, I found the grinding part fun (as a min-maxer), although I don't know if that was actually more fun because it was hard to max out those skills and I spent a lot of time doing it lol.

Maybe the passive skill system could be revamped in the remake? (if passive skills will even be in the remake). Otherwise, I think if something doesn't make it so that you can't complete something in the game, like the gold ores, the game should just be the way that it is. That way the people who want a pure re-release will be satisfied, and people who want new things can play Divine Dreams. I think that would also be easier for Tobias to manage. (I'm not sure if he would agree with that).

I have some minor suggestions Tobias...

You can make the unobtainable items available for characters like make all of them obtainable on a shop or something.

Some of the items :

- Wolfblade
- Bandit Leather +5
- Boots of Speed
- Sage's Wand
- HeartStaff
- TopazEarring
- Golden Circlet
etc.
The items doesn't have to be obtained at the begining of the game you can make them obtainable only after we finish the game for example.

These items have some skills that can be mastered so it would be both cool and useful.

Talking about skills there are many skills that you made in mardek but you didn't use them because you had saved them for Mardek 4 probably but seeing tham M4 is not coming then why not add some new skill to some items it would really make a great difference between the free and the payed version.

Some of the skills (reactions) :

Physical attack reactions:
- DMG+40%
- P+Confuse 20%
- P+Numb 20%
Magical defense reactions:
- The One Who Lived
- M DMG Soak 30
- M DMG-50%
Passive skills :
- Auto-P.Shield
- Auto-M.Shield
- Auto-Haste
etc.

Also you talked about changing numbers:
Donovan and Sharla have only one ultimate weapon Obelisk so we can not use it for both of them at the same time and they have many synergies together, so why not add an other obelisk.

Meraeador can not master his skills which is very annoing because he can be very useful if he could just Master the skills from the inventions.

Also if you ever started to make anything new for Mardek 4, like we see many doors that can not be oppened then you can add it for example after we finish the game just for fun so that we can see and experience what you had in plan.

And i have a question, you said that you will also include the plot for the rest of the story, are we going to be able to know more about some of the characters that we didn't see in the game like Enki or where he was all this time?

That's all, sorry for getting carried away :D it's just whenever i see Mardek millions of ideas come to my mind, and thank you Tobias for this wonderful game i wish you succes in your next games.

I have some minor suggestions Tobias...

You can make the unobtainable items available for characters like make all of them obtainable on a shop or something.

Some of the items :

- Wolfblade 
- Bandit Leather +5
- Boots of Speed
- Sage's Wand 
- HeartStaff
- TopazEarring
- Golden Circlet 
etc.
The items doesn't have to be obtained at the begining of the game you can make them obtainable only after we finish the game for example.

These items have some skills that can be mastered so it would be both cool and useful.

Talking about skills there are many skills that you made in mardek but you didn't use them because you had saved them for Mardek 4 probably but seeing tham M4 is not coming then why not add some new skill to some items it would really make a great difference between the free and the payed version.

Some of the skills (reactions) :

Physical attack reactions:
- DMG+40%
- P+Confuse 20%
- P+Numb 20%
Magical defense reactions:
- The One Who Lived
- M DMG Soak 30
- M DMG-50%
Passive skills :
- Auto-P.Shield
- Auto-M.Shield
- Auto-Haste
etc.

Also you talked about changing numbers:
Donovan and Sharla have only one ultimate weapon Obelisk so we can not use it for both of them at the same time and they have many synergies together, so why not add an other obelisk.

Meraeador can not master his skills which is very annoing because he can be very useful if he could just Master the skills from the inventions.

Also if you ever started to make anything new for Mardek 4, like we see many doors that can not be oppened then you can add it for example after we finish the game just for fun so that we can see and experience what you had in plan.

And i have a question, you said that you will also include the plot for the rest of the story, are we going to be able to know more about some of the characters that we didn't see in the game like Enki or where he was all this time?

That's all, sorry for getting carried away :D it's just whenever i see Mardek millions of ideas come to my mind, and thank you Tobias for this wonderful game i wish you succes in your next games.

Here's my list of stuff to add/change:

-Replace the Topaz/Moonstrone drops from Antares with a 100% Gold Ore drop, it's an idol and it looks like it's made of gold, this seems like the best place to put it and it gives players just enough Ores to craft one of every item bar the Regal Crown which is a 100% drop from King Cuthbert anyway.

-Add another Jade somewhere, for whatever reason this is a simple and plain gem yet you can only find one in the whole game! One of the street merchants in Aeropolis could sell one, you only need two copies in case you want to make multiple Elemental Glyph Shields.

Another post mentioned passive skills, and I think they take too long to master overall, it further incentives people to stick with one party for the whole game.

-The HP/MP +X% ones could all be cut in half, so 10% needs 10 AP, 20% needs 20 AP and 30% needs 30 AP.

-All the status immunity ones could also all stand to be 20 AP instead of 40 AP, it's really not worth the effort of mastering them as-is.

-The STR/SPR/VIT/AGL boosters could also be 10 AP per +1 instead of the current awkward 15 AP.

-The basic elemental resistance skills could be cut down to 25, that's a nice round number and should be long enough to master the skill when doing an appropriately elemental area.

-Rainbow Aura's good as-is, it should take longer to master than other skills since it gives a total of 160 resistance percentage points.

-Double AP and Double Gold are currently both really not worth investing in! Their RP cost should be brought down to 4 to bring them in line with the similar actually worthwhile EXP +20% and Loot Finder and they should cost 80 and 40 AP respectively.

In its current form Double AP takes way too long to master and eats up way too much RP to actually meaningfully help you farm AP on your passives. Meanwhile, Double Gold is just way outclassed by the money earned from selling extra drops given by Loot Finder, so there's no reason it should cost so much, especially since money's really easy to come by anyway.

Here's my list of stuff to add/change:

-Replace the Topaz/Moonstrone drops from Antares with a 100% Gold Ore drop, it's an idol and it looks like it's made of gold, this seems like the best place to put it and it gives players just enough Ores to craft one of every item bar the Regal Crown which is a 100% drop from King Cuthbert anyway.

-Add another Jade somewhere, for whatever reason this is a simple and plain gem yet you can only find one in the whole game! One of the street merchants in Aeropolis could sell one, you only need two copies in case you want to make multiple Elemental Glyph Shields.

Another post mentioned passive skills, and I think they take too long to master overall, it further incentives people to stick with one party for the whole game.

-The HP/MP +X% ones could all be cut in half, so 10% needs 10 AP, 20% needs 20 AP and 30% needs 30 AP.

-All the status immunity ones could also all stand to be 20 AP instead of 40 AP, it's really not worth the effort of mastering them as-is.

-The STR/SPR/VIT/AGL boosters could also be 10 AP per +1 instead of the current awkward 15 AP.

-The basic elemental resistance skills could be cut down to 25, that's a nice round number and should be long enough to master the skill when doing an appropriately elemental area.

-Rainbow Aura's good as-is, it should take longer to master than other skills since it gives a total of 160 resistance percentage points.

-Double AP and Double Gold are currently both really not worth investing in! Their RP cost should be brought down to 4 to bring them in line with the similar actually worthwhile EXP +20% and Loot Finder and they should cost 80 and 40 AP respectively.

In its current form Double AP takes way too long to master and eats up way too much RP to actually meaningfully help you farm AP on your passives. Meanwhile, Double Gold is just way outclassed by the money earned from selling extra drops given by Loot Finder, so there's no reason it should cost so much, especially since money's really easy to come by anyway.

For my minor suggestions:

- I'll echo the same sentiments about gold ore drops, but I would also add silver ore, jade, and candriathope, all of which are limited and have more uses than supply. I think jade could easily be dropped from a monster in the lifewood, silver ore could just be added in more quantity to a shop in aeropolis, and candriathope could be put into one of the secret dungeons, perhaps?

- I also agree with tweaking the AP costs for skills. I would personally go for something like this:

AP 5 -> 5
AP 10 -> 10
AP 15 -> 10
AP 20 -> 15
AP 25 -> 20
AP 30 -> 20
AP 40 -> 25
AP 45 -> 30
AP 50 -> 35
AP 60 -> 40

Because reactions are gated (more heavily, in my opinion) by RP than AP, I don't think lowering the mastering time would *dramatically* affect balance. Additionally, the lower time spent mastering means less experience due to grinding, rebalancing the party automatically. I think these rebalances should just affect passive skills, as reactions can more more easily be mastered.

- I would love to see increased drop rates for a few items, namely the keyblade, sun axe, and mahogany staff.

The keyblade is currently a 50% drop rate from the zombie locksmith, but I would just make it 100%. It's a boss/miniboss, after all.
The sun axe is currently a 5% drop rate from a rare spawn in the sun temple, and is completely missable if you place the warding stone too early. As a completionist, this axe has been the bane of my (and many others) existence. I would love to see it brought up to something like 20%. Still requires multiple battles, but more reasonable. I would also bring the mahogany staff from the 10% rate it's at to 20%. These are both mainly due to the rarity of seeing the monster spawn at all. I also wouldn't mind seeing the Silver Axe (5% drop from axolotl chief) be increased to like 10%, but that one matters significantly less.

- I also agree with Alban123's Obelisk suggestion. Sharla and (especially) Donovan are often considered the least useful party members, and this would help at least a bit.

My opinions definitely come from a place of having played the game several times and now having a desire to complete it 100% whenever I replay it, so I leave it up to your discretion whether these seem reasonable or if they would make the game too easy.

For my minor suggestions:

- I'll echo the same sentiments about gold ore drops, but I would also add silver ore, jade, and candriathope, all of which are limited and have more uses than supply. I think jade could easily be dropped from a monster in the lifewood, silver ore could just be added in more quantity to a shop in aeropolis, and candriathope could be put into one of the secret dungeons, perhaps?

- I also agree with tweaking the AP costs for skills. I would personally go for something like this:

AP 5 -> 5
AP 10 -> 10
AP 15 -> 10
AP 20 -> 15
AP 25 -> 20
AP 30 -> 20
AP 40 -> 25
AP 45 -> 30
AP 50 -> 35
AP 60 -> 40

Because reactions are gated (more heavily, in my opinion) by RP than AP, I don't think lowering the mastering time would *dramatically* affect balance. Additionally, the lower time spent mastering means less experience due to grinding, rebalancing the party automatically. I think these rebalances should just affect passive skills, as reactions can more more easily be mastered.

- I would love to see increased drop rates for a few items, namely the keyblade, sun axe, and mahogany staff.

The keyblade is currently a 50% drop rate from the zombie locksmith, but I would just make it 100%. It's a boss/miniboss, after all.
 The sun axe is currently a 5% drop rate from a rare spawn in the sun temple, and is completely missable if you place the warding stone too early. As a completionist, this axe has been the bane of my (and many others) existence. I would love to see it brought up to something like 20%. Still requires multiple battles, but more reasonable. I would also bring the mahogany staff from the 10% rate it's at to 20%. These are both mainly due to the rarity of seeing the monster spawn at all. I also wouldn't mind seeing the Silver Axe (5% drop from axolotl chief) be increased to like 10%, but that one matters significantly less.

- I also agree with Alban123's Obelisk suggestion. Sharla and (especially) Donovan are often considered the least useful party members, and this would help at least a bit.

My opinions definitely come from a place of having played the game several times and now having a desire to complete it 100% whenever I replay it, so I leave it up to your discretion whether these seem reasonable or if they would make the game too easy.

I kind of liked that the Sun Axe is hard to get (probably harder than intended?). It makes it feel kind of like a secret easter egg item. I was really lucky and got it during my first playthrough. Then, in my 2nd playthrough, it was really frustrating when I found out that I couldn't get it after completing the sun temple, and I had to go back to a previous save and grind for what seemed like ages. Do you think that the Sun Axe is unnecessarily hard to get? I mean, it only matters for completionists like us, right? lol

I think the drop rate itself would be reasonable, except revenants are a rare spawn in the sun temple and only occur 1 at a time, meaning you could easily fight hundreds of battles before getting a drop, maybe more. In a game like this, where battle grinding isn't usually encouraged, that to me seems like too much. I'd say it's just an easter egg item, but it provides a very useful buff to Ss'lenck in the dark temple, and because it can be missed completely, I'd rather it at least be a more likely drop. Again, players just going through the game are unlikely to see more that one revenant in the entire sun temple, so you'd still need to put in effort to acquire it.

[LINK]
Some "no effort" fixes you can do (mostly just typos). I even added the approximate places where they should be in your version.

I personally only really remember finding it a pain that monster teeth were a bit annoying to grind for Legion's weapon. I know I grinded them eventually on the 3 times I've 100%'ed MARDEK, but it took so long. So There are 2 solutions I can think of, either lower the cost in order to craft it, or by increasing the spawn chance.

If possible since Sharla and Donovan both use spears would it be possible to obtain 2 of each spear? I remember finding it a bit annoying that after mastering the spear on one character I'd still have the other character still go through the same thing. Balancing wise this may be a bit broken, so it's alright not to have 2 all the time because it's my lazy side speaking.

This is probably a far reach and not exactly what you were asking, but if possible could there be a way to easily keep track of which characters have mastered which item/armor/weapon/skills? If not, I'll use my grid paper to keep track of things then xD

Unrelated to changes to the actual game itself, I think it would be helpful for you to update some of your descriptions on Kongregate in preparation for your Steam release. That might also be a good way to direct some traffic too!

I was rereading the game descriptions on Kongregate,
Mardek 3: "An homage to and affectionate light parody of 'retro RPGs', but a full, deep game in itself, with many hours of gameplay.

And some people thought this would never come out! But hey, look! It did! Gasp.

This is the longly-delayed third chapter in the MARDEK saga. Numerous setbacks have caused it to take years to complete.
It's a long game, and since it's a full RPG, it requires a lot of time to play through fully. There's a lot of talking.

There may be bugs. Please report any that you find and I'll try to upload an update as quickly as I can. If you do report bugs though, please try to reproduce them and tell me HOW you get them to occur."

Mardek 2: "MARDEK is an epic Flash RPG in the style of NES and SNES RPGs, like the early Final Fantasy games. It is highly story-driven, featuring a setting that merges swords-and-sorcery Fantasy with sci-fi. It will be eight chapters long.

This is the second chapter. Eight years have passed since the events of chapter 1, and Mardek and Deugan have joined the Royal Guard of Goznor!"

I'm not sure how many plays the games are still getting on Kongregate (I only looked at total plays), but I think updating this description could save you some headaches potentially! It still says that there will be "eight chapters" which is likely to cause some confusion. Maybe you could post an update saying something like, "I was young and foolish and Mardek 3 ended up being as long as 5 chapters." or something lol, idk, however you would like to say it. Then you could link to your blog and talk about how you're making a remake called Divine Dreams! (and maybe link to Steam, I think Kongregate should be ok with that) and that could get you some more followers for your blog as well as Steam sales. You could also mention the notes and extras you're planning to add to Steam.

I was rereading the game descriptions on Kongregate,
Mardek 3: "An homage to and affectionate light parody of â€˜retro RPGsâ€™, but a full, deep game in itself, with many hours of gameplay.

And some people thought this would never come out! But hey, look! It did! Gasp.

This is the longly-delayed third chapter in the MARDEK saga. Numerous setbacks have caused it to take years to complete.
Itâ€™s a long game, and since itâ€™s a full RPG, it requires a lot of time to play through fully. Thereâ€™s a lot of talking.

There may be bugs. Please report any that you find and Iâ€™ll try to upload an update as quickly as I can. If you do report bugs though, please try to reproduce them and tell me HOW you get them to occur."

Mardek 2: "MARDEK is an epic Flash RPG in the style of NES and SNES RPGs, like the early Final Fantasy games. It is highly story-driven, featuring a setting that merges swords-and-sorcery Fantasy with sci-fi. It will be eight chapters long.

This is the second chapter. Eight years have passed since the events of chapter 1, and Mardek and Deugan have joined the Royal Guard of Goznor!"

I'm not sure how many plays the games are still getting on Kongregate (I only looked at total plays), but I think updating this description could save you some headaches potentially! It still says that there will be "eight chapters" which is likely to cause some confusion. Maybe you could post an update saying something like, "I was young and foolish and Mardek 3 ended up being as long as 5 chapters." or something lol, idk, however you would like to say it. Then you could link to your blog and talk about how you're making a remake called Divine Dreams! (and maybe link to Steam, I think Kongregate should be ok with that) and that could get you some more followers for your blog as well as Steam sales. You could also mention the notes and extras you're planning to add to Steam.