I’ve had a bit of breathing room since Spinnortality launched, so I’ve been spending my free time working on two little projects.
You are the last person on the last planet orbiting the last dying star in the universe.
What was it all for?
I’m Jamie, and a year and a bit ago I ran a Kickstarter for Spinnortality, a cyberpunk management sim. 6 months earlier that notion seemed ridiculous! Kickstarters are for established game developers who want to revisit cult classics, or designers with an established rep who are trying to do something different, right?
Then I had a chat with experienced game dev Alexis Kennedy who said “You could actually do this, you know” and gave me some advice. I ran the Kickstarter, it raised 140% of its goal, and all was well. I worked on the game for 6 months, got some government funding, worked on it for another six months, and released it about a month ago. It’s doing quite well.
On March 5th I gave a presentation at the Vienna game dev meetup about Spinnortality, from its first week of development to launch week. It includes some tips on how to run a Kickstarter, an overview of how my life has changed from before the game to after its launch, and how I managed PR and general project stuff in the run up to launch.
If you’d like to know how I made a successful indie game that is making enough money to let me do another game, this is a good indicator. (Note, however, that I got really lucky and not all of this will be replicable for you.)
You can download the presentation here:
I thought I’d share how Spinnortality’s launch went.
Let’s cut right to the chase, shall we? I’m free to reveal my sales numbers since neither itch.io nor Steam (as of last year) forbid me from doing so, so why not?
In its first week, Spinnortality sold about 7000 copies on Steam, and 33 on itch. It made about $70,000 on Steam. (Bear in mind they take a hefty cut of that.) I’m not sure how much it made on itch but I think it was around $300.
(It has now, one month after launch, sold nearly 9000 copies on Steam and itch combined, for a total of $90,000. But let’s work with the first-sales-week figures for now.)
Hi everyone,
Spinnortality is out now! Technically it was out about 18 hours ago but suddenly I had a bajillion things to do come launch, so this update is a little tardy.
What is Spinnortality, I hear you ask? (Well, not all of you – some lovely people have bought the game already!)
Spinnortality is a cyberpunk management sim where you run a giant evil megacorporation in a dystopian future. You can look forward to:
If this sounds like your thing, the game is out on Steam and itch now.
Hi everyone! I’ve been neglecting this blog a bit but I wanted you to know that my cyberpunk management sim Spinnortality is launching on February 1st!
What can you expect in Spinnortality?
I’ve been working on it for more than 3 years, and I’m very excited that it’s finally launching! Squeeeeeeeee! I’m also very stressed because if it doesn’t sell reasonably well then there goes my dream of being an independent tiny game dev. So I’ve got my fingers crossed!
You can find out more here and sign up for updates if you like, but I’ll let you know when it launches anyway.
So yesterday I gave a fun talk at the Vienna gamedev meetup! It’s about making a game when you have no resources or budget except for yourself and your time, and you maybe don’t have a traditional way into the game dev industry.
Continue reading “From Nothing to Something: Making a Game with Zero Budget”
Hi everyone!
Big news first: Spinnortality, my cyberpunk management sim, now has a final release month! It’ll be out in January 2019. It’ll have German localisation, too, because I got a public grant! Woop!
Hi guys,
Just a reminder for anyone who hasn’t pledged yet but would like to: Spinnortality is on Kickstarter for only a few more hours! If you’d like to grab a pledge, you’d better be quick quick quick 😀
The campaign has already been a big success, though: not only did we make our goal, we also made our stretch goal of colonising the moon! Wooo!
So what does this mean for me and the game’s development? Well, this means I’ll be able to work on the game full-time, which is FANTASTIC. I’ve wanted to be a real-life make-enough-to-do-this-full-time game developer for years, and now I at least have enough to make it to the game’s launch (which should be in August, but that’s just a rough estimate right now).
Anyway, like I said, the Kickstarter’s here for anyone who’s interested, I hope you guys have a nice holiday season (rapidly approaching) and a great new year 🙂
The title says it all, really:
That’s right, after 2 years of part-time development Spinnortality is now on Kickstarter! Follow that link to see the campaign and maybe perhaps make a small pledge? 🙂
