The Birth of The Wizard

This is the first of a series of posts about the conception, development, release, and monetization of The Wizard, our first attempt at making money with games.

The Wizard started out as a small experiment I worked on to learn the Phaser HTML5 framework. Back then, Crabman and I had just decided to take a break from our work on Till Last Light after realizing that we wouldn’t be able to afford the graphics we had in mind. Obviously we needed a smaller project for our humble beginnings. So we came up with a plan: We’d each create a small prototype in four weeks’ time and then we’d choose one of them as our new project.

I’m no programmer, so I knew I had to find something to help me with the more complex stuff I usually delegate to Crabman. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy programming, I just hadn’t gotten a lot of programming experience as a game designer. For TLL we had worked in Javascript and HTML5 and it had been a lot of fun, so naturally I started looking for a HTML5 framework. At the time there weren’t many game specific HTML5 frameworks, but there was one that seemed especially promising: The Phaser Desktop and Mobile HTML5 game framework. I downloaded it and quickly realized that it was exactly what I had been looking for. Additionally, it had a nice little community (which grew a lot since then) and awesome support for something that’s basically maintained by one guy. It had me convinced right then and there. I never even tested anything else.

The next step was to get some graphic assets. I wasn’t sure what kind of game I wanted to make yet, but I had been in love with Oryx’ sprites ever since I played Dungeons of Fayte. This was the perfect opportunity to make a game with his 16-bit fantasy sprite sheet. Convincing Crabman that we absolutely had to buy the sprites was easy enough, now I just had to figure out what to do with them.

My first idea was a group-based RPG about monster game keepers. They would get called by villagers every time a monster population grew too large and threatened the ecosystem. So, nothing fancy, just a few different classes, a dozen monsters, a bunch of items, various NPCs with individual quests and an open game world. It didn’t take me long to realize that this idea was getting too big already. To keep things simple I decided to start as small as possible: A single character in a small level with just one enemy type. Using the 16-bit fantasy tiles and the Tiled Editor, I created a small sewer level. Choosing the enemy was a no-brainer: It had to be rats, the traditional first enemy type, which meant only the player character was missing.

I was staring at the sprite sheet, contemplating on what character to use and listening to my fantasy playlist to get in the mood. To be honest, I don’t remember if it was during “Wizard” by Uriah Heep, but I know it was on the playlist. I’m usually not a fan of wizards in games – it’s mostly because the actual spell casting seldom feels right – but the sprite of the wizard intrigued me. Why didn’t he have a face? From a practical standpoint it also seemed like a good idea. A wizard didn’t need an item progression, implementing different spells would be enough. Thus The Wizard was born, or at least his first basic incarnation as a simple sprite inside of a small sewer section with a bunch of rats.

Stay tuned for the next part in which we’ll find out how the wizard learned to walk, cast spells and who is responsible for his lack of a face!

Hackenstein

Where There’s an Award, There’s a Speech

Remember when we got that award for The Day the Laughter Stopped? Well, I finally got around to editing, uploading, and whining about everything I hated about my speech, so you can now admire us in person!

(English captions available.)

Lookin’ good, eh? Me with my Henry Rollins neck and Hackenstein holding the award like the boss he is, we sure broke some hearts that night.

Of course, if you missed any of this, you can read up on our DCP experience here, and if you’re dying to hear me go on and on about everything I thought was wrong with my speech, you may find sweet relief over at my personal blog.

Crabman out.

The Joys of Being an Award-Winning Studio

Oh have you not heard? It was my understanding that everyone had heard…

Two days ago, we won an award for The Day the Laughter Stopped. Or did The Day win an award? Well, someone certainly won an award and The Day was somehow involved. Which means we’re an award-winning studio now. And I hope it means I’m an award-winning writer, too. Because I like saying that. Award-winning. So fancy.

Either way, the event ended up being not quite as cringeworthy as I had feared (still was of course), I gave a speech I hated but everyone else seemed to be ok with, and we got drunk off our asses, mingled, and met some pretty cool people. As always, my heart broke a little every time someone came up to me to tell me about their friends and family who went through the same as the girl in the story, but their support and display of gratitude were overwhelming and beautiful, so all in all, pretty sweet experience!

Award-winning Crabman out.

Gallery

Hooray, the Owl Turns One!

Exactly one year and ~4 hours ago (on a much nicer and warmer day, by the way), we sat in a very old man’s super fancy office, listening to him read a 1000-page contract at a pace slower than hair grows. It was the last of a series of tedious steps which I, gracious as I am, let Hackenstein handle entirely on his own, so this is all I know about what happened there.

But now here we are, one year later, during which literally nothing happened (except for The Day, The Wizard, our nomination, the cancelling of our nomination, and some other small stuff of course), ready and psyched for another year of sort of being around!

So I guess, yay for us and Happy Easter to you!

Crabman out.

To Be or Not to Be Nominated: A Totally Official Statement

Well, cat’s out of the bag then, eh? Time for a Totally Official Statement™!

In case you missed it, The Day got nominated for Best Serious Game in the German video game awards (Deutscher Computerspielpreis), along with Scorpius Forge’s Evolution: Indian Hunter and Kalypso’s Rise of Venice. Naturally, we were pretty excited about that, which is, also naturally, when things went awry.

Long story short, bureaucracy happened. That’s how we roll in Germany, after all. The details are not at all exciting and, in our opinion, the DCP’s business how they want to communicate them to the public, but since there’s some vaguely misleading information going around, we’re gonna give you a brief rundown of what happened.

1. The jury couldn’t settle on a winner, so after long discussion they decided to drop the category. We’re all a bit sore about that, but it’s not as simple as “Just pick one!”, sadly. It certainly had nothing to do with none of the games being worthy of recognition though.

2. We were all consulted on how we wanted to handle this going forth. They offered to treat us as regular nominees and to include us in all promotional campaigns and whatnot, and while Kalypso voiced some concerns over that solution, they initially agreed to go along with it since the rest of us agreed it was for the best.

3. Some other things happened that we’ll discuss at another time, but while all of this has been a little frustrating and disappointing, the staff has been nothing but kind and courteous during their efforts to work out a solution, so I’m not all too happy about some of the articles’ implication that there was any kind of funny business or cover-up going on. We were all blindsided by this, staff included, and they handled it with as much compassion and consideration as one could’ve hoped for.

Bottom line, we’re not psyched it played out like this, but we can’t fault the people who are now taking flak over this either, and while a controversy is always good publicity, it doesn’t feel quite right to throw those who did their best to help us out under the bus.

That is all.

Official Crabman out.

The Day “The Day” Got Nominated

The Day the Laughter Stopped is nominated for Deutscher Computerspielpreis in the category Best Serious Game, alongside Rise of Venice and Evolution: Indian Hunter. Yes, that’s a thing that happened.

For all you lovely people not familiar with the DCP, it’s basically the biggest award show we have in Germany. It’s huge. As such, getting nominated, too, is huge. And I’m speechless. Then again, what is there to say other than “thank you?” Exactly, so let’s just do that:

First of all, there’s all the people from Ludum Dare who made my first jam a really great experience; moonbeamwhim who posted it to reddit; Rute who saw it and wrote its first review; Angelica Norgren and Thomas Arnroth who brought it to Sweden’s attention; Rami Ismail and all the other wonderful people on Twitter who passed it along and provided some fantastic quotes for me to brag with; Lena LeRay who wrote one of the first articles; Alexis Trust and Mike Bithell who gave it its next big push, which I think might’ve been responsible for Meg Turney hearing about it and recommending it on SourceFed Nerd; Amy Silbergeld who repeatedly lent her support when things became a little tough to process; Becky Chambers who reviewed it for The Mary Sue; Leena van Deventer and Amy Gray who quadrupled our Australian audience; Lara Luccas who surpassed them all and brought us the most hits we’ve ever gotten in a single day; everybody else who supported and shared the game, everybody who wrote, argued, discussed, everybody who played and everybody who couldn’t but passed it along anyway—everybody except 4chan. I mean, two threads and not even a little increase in publicity? I expected better from you.

But there’s one person in particular I should mention. I don’t talk about her often because she wants to be kept out of it, understandably, but please don’t forget that there is a real person at the heart of this, a person who had to live through and with it, who trusted me with her story and allowed this game to be made. It’s she who’s to thank for this, so here it goes:

I hope you realize what happened here. There are people writing how much the experience changed them, how they had to confront some truths about themselves they weren’t comfortable with, people who say, “I get it now.” There are victims whom this helped come to terms with what happened and to accept that it really wasn’t their fault, that what the other people say about them wasn’t true after all. I’ve gotten many messages of this nature, from men and women alike, and I’m sure there’s even more who didn’t write. This story gave them something, changed them, and all of that because of you.

Yes, you. Without you, none of this would’ve happened. While this’ll never make the past less horrifying, it will and does do some good. You did what so many people strive for and the fewest ever achieve. You changed the world for the better. Maybe just by a small amount so far, but it’s mind-blowing nonetheless, and don’t forget, all of this from only 25.000 players. As we go forward, these numbers will rise. Every future game we’ll make will generate new attention for The Day. More attitudes will change, more people will find solace, maybe it’ll inspire even more to speak out and tell their own stories (which, if any of you do, let me know and I’ll help you in any way I can to get it out there).

We can’t single-handedly fix all the world’s problems overnight, but we can contribute, and you did. So if you ever feel small and insignificant, remember the hundreds of people whose lives you bettered, and the attitudes you’ve changed for the good of other victims. You matter. Not just to me, your friends, your family, but to people all over the world, you matter. I mean, Robert tap-dancing Pattinson, if that isn’t incredible!

So yeah, from me, and everybody else I’m sure, all the thanks, love, and happiness in the world to you. God knows you deserve it.

Crabman out.

Business Owl: Donationware

I’m tired and this is boring, so I’ll keep it short: We need to earn money if we want to keep this going. We’ll be good for a while, but we’re paying out of our own pockets and they’re only so deep, so that’s not a long-term solution.

Now, there’s a few ways to finance something like this, but we’re picky. We don’t want to be at the mercy of investors or publishers, we don’t want to be in debt, and we don’t want to deface our beautiful site with ads. There are no guarantees that we won’t have to resort to any of these things if all else fails, but as long as we can help it, we’re trying to stay clear of that.

So what’s left? Selling our games, of course. But producing a quality that we’d feel good about selling is already expensive, and then there’s some things we just don’t want to sell. The early beta of The Wizard that we’ll release during the next few weeks would be one example, or The Day the Laughter Stopped, for which charging money would be downright wrong.

Instead, we’re making those titles donationware. That means you can play them for free, and if you enjoy them and would like to support us, you can do that, too. As a thank-you, we’ll add some small perks to the donation—standalones, source code, soundtrack, things like that—which you then can download. Or not, whatever tickles your fancy.

Long story short: Support us if you like, don’t if you don’t, get the games (and our love!) either way. Sound fair?

Crabman out.

Hypnotic Holidays to All

Xmas Owl

You know, the last week has been a pretty serious and happysad one. But it’s Christmas for Chrissakes, time to have some fun!

So whether you are with your family, your loved ones, or, if you’re reeeeeeeaaaaally lucky, by yourself (I so envy you), I hope y’all have a fantastic time and get whatever it is you wished for!

We’ll be back next year with The Wizard, which will go into closed beta then. Or something like that. I really should pay more attention when Hackenstein’s talking at me. Anyway, video games!

Take care, folks! Crabman out.

The Moment the Choices Stopped

As you, by this point, probably know, I have created a short interactive fiction game for Ludum Dare #28. If you don’t, or you haven’t played it yet but plan to, you might want to do so first. I am going to answer some of the questions people have asked and will expand on my explanation of my motivation and design choices outlined in this post, where you’ll also find a link to the game.

Naturally, that means there’ll be major spoilers in this post and the same trigger warning applies as to the previous one.

Well then, last chance to turn back.

TRIGGER WARNING AND MAJOR SPOILERS after the jump.

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