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Incline NEO Scavenger: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival RPG

Kron

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2009
Messages
642
Location
The dark throne in Algalord
Seriously, don't even think about removing the cart. This sort of details really get you into the game, at least for me.
It just feels natural and like something that would happen in the circumstances.

Edit: I will kill you if you even touch my cart!
 
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dcfedor

Blue Bottle Games
Developer
Joined
Mar 11, 2012
Messages
111
Location
Seattle, WA, USA
Glad you're enjoying the hobocalypse! As you can see, there are many modes of hobo couture to explore :)

dcfedor - if it isn't a secret, could you tell us how many copies did you sell through Steam Early Access (in comparison to the time before it)?

So far, it's been another world compared to before. Immediately after launching on Steam, I was selling more copies per day than I used to per month.

Things have settled down a bit, however (recent RPS article spike aside), and I'm still waiting to see where the steady-state settles. It's still way better now than before, but gradually slowing.

Surprisingly, I've still "sold" more copies of NEO Scavenger before Steam than I have after. However, this is due in large part to participation in the Groupees Be Mine 5 bundle in 2012. As you probably know, bundles move copies like crazy, but the margin is tiny. Hence the quotes around "sold."

Ignoring the bundle, Steam's December sales alone have beaten my lifetime sales of NEO Scavenger elsewhere. The real question is: now that Holiday Sale is over, what does "business as usual" look like on Steam?

In any case, it's nice to be earning a living wage again :) Thanks again to those here for getting my butt in gear with Early Access!
 

CyberWhale

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 26, 2013
Messages
6,058
Location
Fortress of Solitude
So far, it's been another world compared to before. Immediately after launching on Steam, I was selling more copies per day than I used to per month.

That's great to hear. :bro:


Ignoring the bundle, Steam's December sales alone have beaten my lifetime sales of NEO Scavenger elsewhere. The real question is: now that Holiday Sale is over, what does "business as usual" look like on Steam?

In any case, it's nice to be earning a living wage again :) Thanks again to those here for getting my butt in gear with Early Access!

NP, I'm glad it helped, but I also hope you are going to take the following pieces of advice as well...

Marketing:
- make sure you create a FB/Twitter/G+/Instagram account(s) and share all of the latest news about your game on every single one of them
- give interviews to as many sites as possible
- create topics (and update them regularly) for your game on all bigger mainstream/niche sites (reddit as well) and ask fans to do the same
- ask YouTubers who cover games to make a video about NEO S (offer them a free review copy in exchange)

Sales: (not really sure if these things are possible while in Early Access, but after the full release they should be)
- whenever your sales slow down make sure to offer a daily/weekend/seasonal discount on steam (this is equivalent of getting free marketing space)
- make hats for LoL and TF2
- create those stupid badges, cards, smileys (a hobo one would be great) and so on

Good luck, I hope that you can make for living by making games in future. :salute:
 

Gozma

Arcane
Joined
Aug 1, 2012
Messages
2,951
I got it, played a fair amount.

Quality of life stuff: Need to automate some critically dull things, like all the clicking associated with watering yourself. E.g. you stop at a water resource, you use it twice in the crafting interface by one of two click or click-and-drag heavy methods in a messy interface, you hold 2 and click a bunch of droplets. If you are sick, or a sickly character, you do all that and boil all of it every time which multiplies the click load. It's pretty intolerable to do it over and over every gameday even running on absurd RPG player patience. The dense messy inventory stuff/the alphabetically ordered crafting bin is fine for doing novel things once in a while but stuff that you will come to do all the time has got to circumvent it.

Balance stuff: I think combat is too immediately deadly. Cases where you are like desperately injured and have two infected cuts, you only get one action per turn, you're guzzling all your precious antibiotics, etc. are more in the survival spirit. I probably have 7-8 deaths and they're all basically instant kills (going from healthy to debilitated/unconcious in one shot) or me running facefirst into Choose Your Own Adventure story mode deaths to see them.

Writing stuff: I feel like the little vignette pieces (e.g. like the "give granny some water y/n moral choice things) are really coming out of left field as far as the player's experience of the gameworld. Like I got the begging kids vignette and my character suddenly knows about previously enigmatic post-apocalyptic sociology and enclaves that AFAIK are never in evidence in the game itself, where the only people you meet in the proper gamespace are looters/raiders/bandits. Just kinda offputting. You could make it so the PC gets an "offsceen" basic rundown of what's been going on (maybe once you get into Detroit) which the player only gets a fragment of, and then the vignettes become available to see and can be bits where the PC knows more than the player so you can slowly dole out exposition.

I really like the weird urban legend/ghost story stuff, very unique.
 

dcfedor

Blue Bottle Games
Developer
Joined
Mar 11, 2012
Messages
111
Location
Seattle, WA, USA
CyberWhale, thanks for the tips! I do have a few official channels that I maintain, namely bluebottlegames.com, @bluebottlegames and dcfedor on Twitter, dcfedor on YouTube, and official product pages on Desura and Steam. I also regularly visit NEO Scavenger discussions on the above sites, plus RPGCodex, SomethingAwful, Facepunch, Penny Arcade, NEOGaf, GOG.com, and a few Reddit subs.

I'm reluctant to open additional pages, though, as this load already has me spending hours each morning keeping up. Opening a Facebook page, for example, would probably mean dropping something else.

As for the rest, I'm doing my best! I think my plans are pretty in-line with what you're describing. Some will just come online sooner than others.

veryalien, I'm working on it! I usually try to get a build or two out each month. However, launching on Steam and the holiday vacation chewed up a lot of the past month+, so I'm a bit behind schedule. If you haven't yet, do check out the dev blog to see what's taking me so long!

Gozma, I'll admit the UI is far from perfect. It's full-on triage mode right now, though, so I'm not sure how much UI overhaul I can promise. Getting water from resources might see a change soon, however. If you have found the unlicensed power tap items near the DMC, I may be making rivers/marshes work in a similar way with their water output.

The combat insta-kills are a complaint I hear more than a few times, so it's something I'll have to monitor. I've erred towards realism in most cases, often at the expense of heroic narrative. However, I do try to ensure that there's always a "thing" one could've done to prevent death, even if that thing was a few turns before.

The CYOA deaths, on the other hand, I think are pretty generous with their warnings. The one exception I can think of is the diner, which I agree needs rework. However, there's a definite pattern employed in my design of the CYOA encounters involving death. Risky behavior is always the precursor to death, and usually follows some sort of warning. E.g. pressing-on when you had the option to run, or cheating when you had the option to play it straight. If there are any other encounters that break that mold, let me know, because insta-death in CYOA isn't meant to be random.

Re: exposition and character setting knowledge, you're right about this. I'm actually struggling with not only the introduction of factions in the vignettes, but recently, also in the faction NPCs themselves. The player can't know if the stranger ahead is a bandit or traveler just by looking at them, and modeling when this intel becomes known is tricky in code. The "offscreen run-down" might be a good way to ensure certain encounters only happen after getting such info, so that's something I'll look into. Thanks!

Mod support would be nice. Strong base and good gameplay is already there, game just lacks content at this point.

Preaching to the choir, man. Preaching to the choir. Now just call up Adobe and have them re-instate AIR on Linux so I can get Flash code to load files across all platforms :)
 

dcfedor

Blue Bottle Games
Developer
Joined
Mar 11, 2012
Messages
111
Location
Seattle, WA, USA
I think you're right!

Also, thanks for reminding me that I should probably revisit some of the NEO Scavenger threads I've been neglecting!
 

Cazzeris

Guest
This game was in my wishlist (that post-apocalyptic world...), and now it's in the Below Average Humble Weekly Bundle.
Obviously, I bought it. Hopefully it'll worth the dollar I've spent on it.
:takemyjewgold:
 

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
NEO Scavenger is now in the Below Average Humble Weekly Bundle

buyfordollar.jpg
 
Joined
Dec 31, 2011
Messages
674
Wasteland 2
It's a shame it's impossible to decide which developer receives how much money.

Except you can, customise -> click an arrow next to Developers. I gave my whole dollar to NEO Scavenger :obviously:

Discalaimer: I tend to throw more money later for stuff I get dirt cheap, in unlikely event that I actually end up playing and liking the game.
 
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pippin

Guest
I generally suck at roguelikes and this is no exception, but NEO Scavenger is very, very charming, mostly because how subtle the atmosphere is. It's on my Best Games of 2014 list for sure.
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest

Overboard

Arcane
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
Messages
719
I've played and enjoyed me some Neo Scavenger, but best combat? Really? Really really for reals and for true?

Dogman_%28avatar%29.PNG


It's probably the closest they get to fighting dickwolves dogmen.
 

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