Things have been quiet again, at least publicly. As well as working on development, I’ve been trying to figure out everything I need to have in place to formally “announce” (or re-announce) the game.

For an indie developer targeting the PC, the importance of getting on Steam really cannot be overstated. In almost all cases, not being on Steam will doom your game to obscurity and failure. To test the waters, I created a Greenlight Concept page for Godfall. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the response so far, and it’s settled into a decent chart position in Concepts, without any promotion from me at all (I haven’t previously posted the link here or to social media).

That’s great, as far as it goes. But Concepts is not “real” Greenlight, and votes there don’t ultimately count towards getting your game listed on Steam. The success of the final Greenlight campaign is so important that I’m terrified of screwing it up. I need to be ready, and so I need to:

• Get the game into an attractive state. At the very least I need to be able to generate screenshots and videos that I’m proud of, but a playable demo would be ideal.
• Have good promo material. This overlaps with the previous one.
• Continue to grow the game’s social media presence. This is something I can do now, to ensure I can get back in touch with people when their attention will really count.
• Improve press contacts. This is a problem because working in Flash for so long made me complacent. In Flash you don’t have to hustle to get eyes on your game, the portal’s do it for you. I’ve had years of good opportunities to work on this and I’ve squandered them.
• Get a better web presence. If I start getting publicity and more eyes on the game, I need to be able to make a good impression. Redesigning this website will be a priority. I would also love to be able to get a couple of URLs related to the game, but I’m not willing to pay what the squatters are asking. Even negotiating with them makes me furious.

If I managed to accomplish all of that, the time will definitely be right to throw everything I have behind a Greenlight campaign.

However, there’s also the real possibility that my money won’t stretch far enough to do what I need to, and I may have to consider crowdfunding. That’s a scary prospect for me. I’d really prefer to avoid it if I can, and thankfully I still have a while before I have to decide one way or the other. It can be a great generator of publicity, though, and that might end up even more pivotal than the money. If I do have to seek crowdfunding, it would probably be worth starting Greenlight early to run in parallel.

This was a bit of a boring business-y update, but that’s my life at the moment. Here’s a picture to make up for it– the kind of heartwarming, truly emotionally affecting moment that you can only get from Monsters’ Den.