So, you’ve released your video game…now what?

It’s been a few weeks now since Ghost Mission launched and I figured it’s time to reflect on that process and what the immediate future holds.

The launch itself went off without a hitch and I hit the personal sales goals I set relatively quickly. I can’t share exact numbers due to Steam policies, but just know that console ports aren’t coming any time soon and I won’t be quitting my day job. Regardless, I’m grateful for the numbers I have, and I’ve learned a lot through this process. Let’s dive right in:

PLAYER RECEPTION/FEEDBACK

The most common game feedback has been “I’m having fun, but the game is really hard.”

I knew the game was difficult ahead of release (and the current build is actually easier than the alpha/beta builds), but I did not consider that the play testers were veterans of and very much enjoy brutal, old-school experiences (Contra, unfair Ninja Gaiden stages, etc). This probably skewed the game balance and necessary playstyle to a point where more casual players won’t get beyond the first few levels…not something I intended.

Old video games were often difficult as a means of artificially inflating the play time needed to beat them because technological limitations didn’t allow for more involved storytelling and gameplay experiences. A player in 1989 wouldn’t spend money on a game they could beat in 30 minutes the first time they picked it up.

These days, creating something along the same lines is almost masochistic and only appeals to very niche player base.

What this means practically for GHOST MISSION is that I will be adjusting the game’s difficulty slightly in the coming weeks. It will still be “hard”, but there are a few key moments in various stages where it could be more forgiving. The heart of the game won’t change, but the requirements to beat it will erode slightly.

This lesson is one I’m taking into account for future projects as well. A game may have an intended play style, but it should be fun no matter how it’s played.

SUPPORT & BUGS

One recurring question since release, and even asked officially on the Ghost Mission Steam community page, was whether or not the game has controller support. It does not currently – it wasn’t high on my list of priorities in crunch time, but it IS being worked on. I hope to have a patch out with full controller support within a month.

A few bugs have also cropped up which I’ve been made aware of and fixed already with minor patch updates. One involved a leftover bit of code from a test build which made Elite Mercenaries not trigger an alert status if you shot them with a specific weapon. Another caused player insta-death in a certain boss fight because a collision referenced an incorrect object causing damage. Neither happened often, but they COULD happen. Both fixed.

There are a handful of other tiny ones, none game-breaking and all things that the player probably wouldn’t even notice, but they’ll be fixed soon.

SCAMMERS SCAMMERS SCAMMERS

Holy hell, this one surprised me. In the 72 hours following release, my email inbox was swarmed with “Steam Curators” asking for Steam Keys. Messages ranged from what appeared to be well thought out requests to misspelled and poorly written garbage, but something seemed off on most of them. From what I understand, Steam Curators were initially intended to be influencers who would play and review new games to expose them to a larger audience with similar tastes.

It’s a good idea in theory but it’s become overrun with bots and scammers seeking to artificially inflate numbers and receive free games in the process. There are extensive discussions on how corrupt/scammy the whole curator crowd has become on the internet at large, but the general rule of thumb is that any curator bypassing Steam’s internal system to go straight to dev email is scamming, and any curator who requests more than 1 redemption code is scamming and intends to sell the codes given on a secondary/tertiary market.

I also got requests from “Twitch streamers” requesting single codes to stream the game. The requests were similar to the steam curator requests as far as composition, but the leg work these scammers did was much more involved. Many intentionally created Twitch and Twitter profiles which copied avatar and bio info from legitimate streamers but with single letters off or with general wordplays on the legit streamer accounts. One almost fooled me until I went to their Twitch page itself and saw that, despite having 6,000+ followers, they have zero videos up and no streaming schedule listed.

This is when I googled various addresses coming into my inbox and found an extremely helpful Reddit thread listing known scammer accounts…another lesson learned.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Outside of the aforementioned support for GHOST MISSION, I’ve started the preliminary phases of my next project. The project’s story and structure overview are complete, a rough gameplay demo is being tinkered with, and I have a main menu chiptune theme composed.

Otherwise, I have nothing concrete to announce and probably won’t have anything concrete until next spring, but there is something in the works.

…or multiple somethings. Not sure yet.

That’s all for now. Go play GHOST MISSION if you haven’t yet!

-Kevin

Burn Below