Many/most/all of you are game developers, so please excuse this short trip down gamedev road. Game marketing is hard! The short version is, Gem Worlds isn’t doing well in terms of metrics.
- Around 10 likes per tweet
- Around 2 wishlists per day (despite lots of traffic from Steam)
My goal was to really connect to gamers and build a base/core audience that I can connect to and build something fun for. It looks like I won’t be able to achieve that with this game. I suspect that - like Oneons - it will remain in obscurity, despite the more mainstream elements (roguelike + boulder-dash).
So of course, despite the motivation crash, I decided to do what I do best: cut scope. While the original game featured 10 worlds and 20+ skills, I cut that in half: 5 worlds, and maybe 6-7 skills. At the very least, this will save me a couple of months worth of work, and force me to focus on other areas of the game (like audio and accessibility).
I don’t have a lot of experience/insight into Early Access. It’s possible that if the game does well (in terms of building a fan base), I may end up releasing more worlds, skills, and interesting monsters as time goes on. We’ll see.
I’m very curious to know your feedback, so if you have a minute, hit reply and let me know your thoughts (or hit me up on Discord).
P.S. you can still wishlist the game, it means the release is sooner than later
