Crafting A Release Plan
I put out beta 0.9.15 yesterday and while it's not quite final, it's pretty close. I've got a couple fixes and changes that need to go in, but otherwise it's close! Exciting times. Here's a new gameplay gif:
My current focus is now on making a trailer, which I'm still in the early stages of, but once that's done and I'm satisfied with the state of the game I'll come up with a release date and we'll be off to the races. I'm probably going to have it up for sale first (as a sort of soft launch) on itch.io with later launches on Steam, the App Store and probably places like Humble and other trustworthy sites. Most of my "marketing" plan involves just emailing a few sites and hoping they post about it, but really I'm most excited about actually launching.
It's been a fun journey, and the main advice I've seen is "just get the thing out there" and "make your own success metrics", which I think are both very wise. The indie games market is pretty flooded these days, and you don't get noticed unless you have something truly unique (and sometimes not even then). Getting a game out and getting just one sale are my goals. Very small goals for sure, but fortunately my livelihood doesn't depend on this. Hopefully I can meet them!