Some Bits and Bobs

The game release went pretty well! Based on past game releases I was expecting more problems, but there were very little issues post-release. And all positive reviews (so far), so not bad for a first commercial game.

I wasn't sure what to expect with the release of Winter Witch. It's a bit different from what I've made previously, something dialog light with storytelling segments that drive the overall narrative. I do hope people have come to enjoy the characters as I have putting the game together.

It definitely took a while to make though! Winter Witch started as a project to make a simple 3D game in Unity. I had already done some basic stuff in Unity, so I figured it wouldn't too bad. Things I didn't account for:

Unity has a steep learning curve

3D games are a whole different animal from 2D games

Good ol' fashioned scope creep

Putting games on Steam are a lot of work

Figuring out how to advertise a game

The Steam stuff in particular took some time. Heck, I wasn't even planning on putting the game on Steam; I was just thinking about posting on itch.io and calling it a day. A number of friends convinced me otherwise. I was surprised to learn how much work was involved! Steam has a bunch of hurdles you have to clear before you can create a listing, and then there's the whole game of getting wishlists, etc.

Honestly the game was 99% complete back in April. It was mostly Steam work and advertising those remaining months leading up to the release. That and picking the best date to release the game.

So yeah, making Winter Witch took longer than expected. Do I regret it? Definitely not.

I got to try a lot of things that I haven't done previously. I learned a lot from the project, and I wouldn't have done it any differently. Other maybe starting to advertise sooner.

What's next? I'd love to revisit Sylvia and Merlin at some point, but perhaps some other time. For now I have a few other projects in mind, just nothing I want to say publicly yet. Definitely not 3D though, hah. I'll be sure to share more details once I have something to show.

Thank you for reading!