Probably some of you are wondering "what's happening with my indie game?". At least the ones of you that still remember you are subscribed to my newsletter 😄

I've been away for a while on a long cruise in the Norther Europe, with no access to my laptop and no time to continue progressing on my game. After that, for about two weeks I've been transitioning back into "work mode" by having to put out all the fires at my main job, with lots of new things coming up due to signing new big clients (who need a lot of things and have thin patience).

But there are still good news about my indie game, Quest of the Hero: it's progressing, but I will have to push it 1-2 months (again).

The feedback I got and next steps

I received some online feedback about the Steam Store page, and among the most common complaints are:

• the music in the trailer doesn't match the game at all. Apparently it's not a "hard rock" game, so I am currently looking for a better song to match its vibe (some fantasy epic music, not sure, I'm still searching).
• the content the page and the game resources highlight is too limited. I only highlight one hero and one enemy, while specifying in the description that the content is going be richer than that. Many said "well it's just one hero and an enemy, looks boooooring". So, to make it more appealing, even in the "demo" phase, I would need at least some "teaser" content to show potential players. So now I am waiting for a HUGE batch of new art (with heroes, backgrounds, etc) to showcase them in the main menu, to "tease" players about what's to come.

And there, there is one other major blocker: AI art placeholders that need to be replaced by real art made by the artist I am collaborating with.

I have added here and there minor AI generated things that now, when I am staring a Steam Demo release in the face, I realize I need to replace with real art. To do that, well, I need the actual art made first and then I need to integrate it. This might take 1-2 more months, a thing I haven't really considered in the beginning.

Conclusion

There's still some work to be done, to be even considering releasing the playable Demo on Steam. But if you are interested to try it out in the current format, I am publishing periodically updates on Itch.io, with the actual state the game is in (beware that it can be pretty unpolished and buggy on some edges).

Here is the Itch.io link to see the current state: https://vladcalin.itch.io/quest-of-the-hero

And this is the Link to the Store page where you can Wishlist it, to be first the line when I release it with a special discount (I plan to release it with 15€ price point, and discount it to ~10€ on release day): https://store.steampowered.com/app/3185230/Quest_of_the_Hero/?utm_source=blog&utm_content=devlog20241014

Popularity wise, it's not going so great mainly because I am not marketing it enough (yet). I tried to push it on some subreddits, but I ended up getting banned from one or two...

The game is staying now at ~85 wishlists, and gaining ~1 per day on average, while getting ~1000 impressions and 500 visits every week. I have seen that this is mostly the baseline Steam ends up sending your way by default.

I can't wait for the game to be Demo ready and start sending it to streamers. I have already compiled a list of ~100 streamers that play indie games or dungeon crawlers, and I am looking forward to getting the demo out and starting promoting it more efficiently.

So yeah, the demo most probably will come in January 2025, and after that I plan to release the full game in March 2025, since the difference between the demo and the full game is the content (it is mostly already planned, it's just a matter of assembling it into the game, which isn't that difficult once I have all the game play mechanics ready for the demo).