This looks awesome! (wishlisted) It seems that the Codex breeds damn good developers.
Thanks! Age of Decadence, which is another Codex RPG (and a much larger and more impressive game, admittedly), was a big inspiration.
Finally launched the Steam page!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/9…ney_to_Athens/
Very proud moment. Now, I have to figure out how to upload builds to Steam. Thankfully there's a long weekend coming up here in the States.
If you are looking forward to this release, please take a moment to place Theseus: Journey to Athens on your wishlist. I understand that for small indie titles like this, it's a very important thing for the Steam algorithms.
Between full-time work and the recent holidays, I haven't been making regular status updates. A lot of progress has been made since the free, updated demo was released for Christmas. I will post additional screenshots and new content information soon. Also, in terms of the release date, it is impossible to release a game on Steam less than two weeks after the launch of the store. So, I need to pick a new release date, likely the first or second week of February.
Wishlisted and most likely
Congratulations, Agesilaus! Love the setting and heavy reliance on ancient source material. I remember playing a very early alpha version you shot my way a couple (?) years ago. It's come a long way in a very positive direction since then.
Hah, yes, this game has undergone some major developments along the road. I can barely remember the first alpha versions, but on the first page or two of this thread there's some old programmer art that survived into the early builds of the current demo. I remember that Troezen was one big map in the "first release", and the combat was real time with the world's most aimless AI. I used to have some youtube videos of it but they've long since been taken down.
Thanks for the support!
This looks awesome. I'll try the demo and most likely buy the finished game. Any chance for a GOG release?
I did look at GOG briefly, but the process of getting a small indie game hosted was not clear. I've been a fan of GOG since it was first created, and I'd love to get my game hosted there, but I'm not sure how possible that is. I'll take another look, though.
Sweet! Can't wait to play this.
What serves you best as a dev: itch, or steam purchase?
Itch lets you decide who gets what, so for most people that is probably the better option. The default is that Itch will take a 10% cut, and there's an option to select the "industry standard" which will set it to 30%. Technically, though, you can use a sliding bar to give Itch anything from 0% to 100%. I haven't changed mine from the default, actually I haven't even set up my payments. Itch has an option to just hold on to the payments until you are ready to receive them. For Steam, you have to provide banking details before you can create the store page.
At this point in time, I am more focused on the number of sales rather than the ultimate dollar amount. I'm working full time so I won't pretend to be a starving developer, but I want to transition over to indie game development sooner rather than later. If there's a large number of interested people who are willing to pay money for what I produce, then that helps me justify leaving my current career path at some point.
There's a decent number of indie devs and artists on twitter, and when Steam recently adjusted the way it displays smaller projects there was a lot of discussion. My take-away was that for Steam, wishlists are very important for indie projects. Hence why I have been mentioning wishlists a lot.
Wow, that's some good news! I hope it will be successful... However, you didn't do much advertising/marketing prior to the release, which is a must.
Maybe some smaller news sites and youtube players can cover you? If you don't have time i can help you contacting some(not that i'm way better PR but still :D)
Any plans for DLC? I like that you write it's made in GMS2 everywhere, but i don't think it's needed.
Any chance for a GOG release?
GoG isn't into small games anymore, but he should try.
What serves you best as a dev: itch, or steam purchase?
I think Itch, has a smaller cut, but i could be wrong. Then again they wire via Paypal, not directly to your bank account.
Thanks, I admit that I haven't done much marketing for this game. If you or anyone else can spread the word, I'd greatly appreciate it, but I do understand that it is my responsibility to get the word out. I've actually been pretty impressed by the responses so far, though. I don't know what constitutes "good" numbers, but each time I announce something new I typically see several hundred new page visits.
For example, I launched the Steam page late last night (a little less than 24 hours ago). I made a couple of tweets, posted a link here and on another forum, and then I went to bed. I spent all day in trial, so I couldn't really do anything other than click "retweet" at lunch. I also tweeted a link to President Trump (no confirmation that he has played it, probably he's a lurker). According to steam, the store page has seen 995 visits, and links have been displayed to a further 688 people.
I also have been in contact with a youtube creator who has said he'll make a video on it. He makes programming tutorial vids and I've learnt a fair bit from him, he has a few thousand subscribers.
No DLC planned right now. I think I'd sooner make a sequel, but first I'd like to do something different. Perhaps a few short games to improve my skills and test things out, then something large scale set in 5th/4th century Hellas. At some point, I would like to do some Roman and Chinese titles, too; for the Romans, I read Caesar's Alexandrian War when the Landmark Edition came out and I really, really think it would make for an excellent small-scale war game.