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A Golden Wake, published by Wadjet Eye

Self-Ejected

Bubbles

I'm forever blowing
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For *most* indie games, I recommend the 9.99 price-point. Unless it IS a full, lengthy in depth cRPG (like say The Age of Decadence) of which I believe VD has set at a 19.99 price point. Which is perfect.

It's actually $24.99 :M

Or €22.99 +M
 

Jaesun

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OK yeah, I actually checked. 24.99 is an OK price-point (for the type of game he is doing and perceived value). Volume wise he would be better off at 19.99, but he does not want the perceived value of the game to be yet another 19.99 ARE PEE GEE! Of which I can agree with. VD has WAY more Marketing XP than I do though. I trust his judgement.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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I agree. 15$ is a bad price point. If I was doing my old job, and I was working for WEG I would have suggested the price point be $9.99. That price point will lose them some sales.
I talked with Dave about it, and my sense was that he was driven by three motives/beliefs: (1) that his core demand is pretty inelastic; (2) that indie games were in too much of a race to the bottom on pricing, and that he wanted to be part of a counter-movement raising prices; and (3) that even if he lost sales, he would still wind up netting more because of point #1.

I think he also believed -- which I have seen as well -- that at too low a price, you attract a large volume of customers who aren't particularly interested in playing the game. Even if they make you a bit of money, they also tend not to like the game and say worse things about it than core customers, so it may be a long-term drain on reputation / good will. (For example, Primordia has like 400 Steam reviews* -- for the longest time these were almost 100% positive, but when the game went on a very steep sale, there was a brief stretch where the reviews were about 50/50 positive negative.)

[* Strangely, if you add the number of "negative" and "positive" reviews, it yields a much higher number than "total reviews." WTF Steam?]

My own views are somewhat more complicated because I'm not especially concerned with profiting from the sales of my games. I want a price that makes people feel a little committed to the game and that makes it feel like there's tangible proof of the game's success (even if it's slight success we're talking about). But beyond that, if you asked me to choose between a scenario where 100,000 people played the game and I got $10k and one in which 10,000 people played the game and I got $20k, I would probably choose the first scenario, provided the players had about the same level of engagement with the game in both scenarios. (If I simply added 90k people who said, "Too many puzzles, plot is too confusing, why can't I save the world?" I would probably take the money and run.)
 

Jaesun

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I can agree with that. Using the 14.99 dead-zone fits for that then, AND people who like these kind of games won't really be put off by the price.
 
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Played this yesterday. Interesting setting, but other than that p. mediocre. Puzzle are basic and not exactly lulzy, clever or in any other way remarkable. Perhaps this game would work better as a movie - something like Goodfellas, but with less gangsters and more real estate agents. One thing I liked is the ending credits, where they tell you about the real people that the game characters are based on.
 

Jools

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Is a golden wake like a golden shower?

If so:

Futurama-shut-up-and-take-my-money-card-34.jpg
 

Jools

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For most companies, when pricing things the *magic price-points* are: 4.99, 9.99 and 19.99. 14.99 is a rather dead zone price-point. You are (usually) better off pricing something at 9.99 than 14.99, because you have a better chance at selling more at 9.99 than 14.99 (volume wise). But you don't want to de-value the product (make it look cheep) so sometime it is really a tough call. Sometimes, because of the cost of the item, and not sure of the sales, a item gets the shitty 14.99 dead zone. But sometimes, that ends up selling great at that price. This shit can be just mind blowing. heh.

For *most* indie games, I recommend the 9.99 price-point. Unless it IS a full, lengthy in depth cRPG (like say The Age of Decadence) of which I believe VD has set at a 19.99 price point. Which is perfect. Adventure games kind of get the shaft in this however. Sticking at a 9.99 (depending of the perceived value of the game) should get you good volume in sales. But you need to keep in mind, are you de-valuating your game.

EDIT: In de-valuating your game. If you are selling a game that has say 40 hours of gameplay, and selling it at 9.99. If your next game, SEXY SPACE BOYS II, also has 40 hours of gameplay, but now you want to price it at 14.99 you have then trapped yourself, because the perceived value is the same. Consumers will wonder, why is this priced more than the old one? etc... etc...

p0GHyQW.jpg


(Only, make it 6€ for most indies)
 

Crane

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Yes but so does the demo. AGS games all have the same winsetup.exe file that will allow you to scale the resolution 2x, 3x, 4x, etc., with nearest neighbor scaling, or with some other bullshit filters you shouldn't ever use.
 

Infinitron

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:necro:

Played this.

Yeah, it's not good. It's sad, because the basic idea of the storyline has a lot of potential and the ending has real pathos. Like procrastinator said, it could have made for a great Scorsese film. It's just executed in a very boring way. The entire pre-gangster half of the game is just too dull.

Telling the story of Alfie's life chronologically was a mistake. What I would have done is started you off as a gangster, with periodic flashbacks to your pre-gangster life. Besides letting you start the game with more interesting challenges than printing fliers and repairing biplanes, that would have given the game better opportunity to directly contrast Alfie's life under his two bosses, George Merrick and Fatty Walsh.

Focusing on the gangster plot would have given the game more of a chance to show the consequences of the pre-Great Depression real estate bust in Miami, which doesn't really come through in the game and makes the successful ending persuasion of Merrick feel a bit out of nowhere.

Also, let's face it, most writers aren't good enough to convincingly tell the story of a man's moral decline in real-time and this one is no exception. That sort of time skip could have elegantly dodged that problem.

The only downside of this change would be the potential loss of the (unintentionally?) meta aspect of an adventure game protagonist suffering from an existential crisis due to having to perform too many adventure game errands (as mentioned in John Walker's review) but that would be an acceptable loss IMO.
 

Boleskine

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There's a post-mortem on Wadjet Eye's website.

Post-Mortem: A Golden Wake
25 May 2015
In roughly mid-2008, I decided it was time to finally realize my ambition of becoming a commercial indie developer. I had been developing freeware point and click adventure games for the past 7 years, and found myself dedicated to completing an 8-part series which I knew had to be completed before starting any new projects, if only for my own peace of mind. In the meantime, I began brainstorming ideas for the next game I would do, the one that would be my big break into the commercial scene, the one that would put me on the map and make me a comfortable living doing what I wanted. I may not have made the perfect adventure game, but A Golden Wake taught me some very valuable lessons, as well as got me started on my ideal career path.

POST-MORTEM: A Golden Wake

In about 2009, I began thinking about what sort of game I would do after completing my freeware Ben Jordan series. I’d had a few dud ideas, including one about a trilogy of games where the same story was told from the perspective of three unlikely protagonists: a wealthy socialite, a freelance artist, and a male prostitute, all set in my hometown of Miami, Florida. Upon reflection, it dawned on me that these games were really more style over substance, focusing more on the fact that the protagonists came from walks of life not often seen in adventure games instead of the story itself, which, though not fully designed, didn’t strike me as anything special.

So I went back to the drawing board, preserving some ideas from that failed project, namely the unorthodox character professions and the real world setting. I drew some inspiration from Dave Gilbert’s Blackwell series, specifically Blackwell Convergence, in which a key plot point involved some obscure yet fascinating local New York history. Having always been intrigued by the history of Miami, specifically its establishment and growth in the early 20th century, I began doing some research into the Florida Land Boom of the 1920s. From there, things snowballed: I would make my game about a real estate agent who tries to make it big in the 1920s. I figured it would be my chance to do historical fiction, set in a time and place not commonly talked about, with an unusual protagonist. It had all the makings of something interesting, and so I began to design what would later become known as A Golden Wake.

THE GOOD

I think where A Golden Wake succeeds the most is in establishing a sense of time and place. I spent a lot of time researching the era, from the clothing to the architecture to the music to the slang, and really wanted to get it right. I took heavy inspiration from L.A. Noire, which, for all its flaws, did an excellent job of making you feel like you were in 1947 Los Angeles. I wanted anyone who played the game to feel like they really were in 1920s Miami, so my goal was to make the game feel as authentic as possible.

One of the biggest tricks was getting the manner of speech right in dialogues. Obviously, people spoke differently back then, but cramming some slang word or phrase in every single sentence would make it feel artificial and forced. I decided to limit it as much as possible and take a “less is more” approach, with the main indulgence being main character Alfie Banks’ proclivity to exclaim “Horsefeathers!” when upset. The mobsters in the later half of the game also tend to speak with a fair amount of slang, although I tried not to make them the sneering caricatures from Looney Tunes. All in all, I think I struck a decent balance, as several comments regarding the game praised it for its authentic feel.

The music was also something that really shines in the game. I worked with Pete Gresser, who had done the scores for the last 3 entries in my freeware series Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator, so having a good working relationship and ease of communication was extremely helpful. We were both excited about the prospect of getting to do a 1920s jazz influenced score, which I also felt would add significantly to the game. In the initial phases, we spoke about having a live clarinetist on the score, but in the end we decided against it for both time and budget reasons, opting instead to use a fully digital score, albeit with a sound library specifically designed for jazz and era-appropriate instruments. This attention to detail really brought the score together and boosted the game’s atmosphere.

THE NOT SO GOOD

In constructing the story for A Golden Wake, I wanted to be as historically accurate as possible. The result was a narrative that wove actual events into the story of Alfie Banks and his rise and fall in the real estate world. However, one issue with the game’s story was that I stuck a bit too close to historical events, at times putting them ahead of Alfie. For example, the story begins in 1921, but major events such as the incorporation of the city and the first big hurricane didn’t occur until 1925 and 1926, respectively. As a result, there is a large jump in the narrative of 4 years during the game’s second chapter, which I think many players felt was jarring. Also, Alfie himself wasn’t as well-developed as he could have been. There are multiple ways this could have been solved, from expanding upon the relationship between him and his brother, to adding a rival in the real estate office for him to go up against, but ultimately I made the history of Coral Gables priority #1, which resulted in Alfie’s story being somewhat lacking. Interestingly enough, this was one of the more polarizing aspects of the game. Some players loved the story and Alfie, while others found both bland and boring.

The game’s difficulty was another point which wasn’t as balanced as it could have been. In trying to stay grounded in reality, I made the puzzles as logical as I could, which resulted in most of them being extremely easy. On the other hand, I wanted to try something outside of the box with the idea of the persuasion puzzles and Seller Intuition. This system went through some major tweaks, and while they turned out much better than originally executed, they wound up becoming more of an exercise in trial and error than a rewarding puzzle. The main issue was avoiding having the correct answers seem extremely obvious, and thus removing all challenge from the puzzles, but in the end the challenge of figuring out the best answer became somewhat muddled.

FINAL THOUGHTS

All in all, I’m proud of A Golden Wake. I knew from day one that it was going to be a hard sell, and not a game for everyone, but I was given the opportunity to get the game out into the world, and ultimately accomplish what I set out to do. During the process of researching the game, I remember feeling genuinely excited about the idea of telling this story and virtually roaming the streets of 1920s Miami. To see it all finally come together was an absolute treat. Despite its flaws, my vision for the game was kept intact, which I feel is the most important thing of all. I’m grateful to Wadjet Eye Games for publishing it, and to everyone who played it. It was a fantastic learning experience and a great stepping stone for what will hopefully be a long career of adventure game development.
 

Tom Selleck

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May 6, 2013
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I just got around to playing this, it had kind of been on the back burner forever, but I really liked it. The setting and scope alone are worth it if you're a fan of adventure games and the kind of immersive-slow-kind-of-dipping-you-into-a-world-like-a-caramel-apple thing that is the reason I really enjoy adventure games. The puzzles are all pretty simple, but I like that there aren't any tone-deaf puzzles where a real-estate mogul would be solving a tower of hanoi puzzle or anything.

But it's nice to have like, super small stakes, no danger to the world, no lasers, no hackers uploading consciousness into an AI, no extinction-level events, and wrapped up in a historical fiction veneer. It's not quite Chinatown: the Game, but it feels a bit like it, and I liked it more than I thought I would for sure.
 

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