Launch fest, a lovely mix of excitement and dread!
PC development is tricky, I have to expect a portion of you to not be able to launch the game. But I have a clear schedule all week just for this, so just reach out if the game does not work.
It started with Rome 2
In 2008, a friend convinced me that XNA was the future of games. I had five hours of commuting every day to my job, so I got myself a laptop to learn C# and start building my own game engine.
I do not play many games, but I love the power fantasy of epic warfare and in 2013 I fell for the hype of Total War: Rome 2. The game was released in a very poor state and was a huge disappointment.
But it wasn't the bugs that gnawed on me. I just felt there was so much more potential to expand the Total War genre, and it wasn’t the big change I had hoped for.
Plunder Party
In 2014 I released Plunder Party on Xbox 360, it was a complete flop and I sold maybe 50 copies.
But something interesting happened, I kept getting emails from the players, telling me that they were hooked and wanted more. I also had fun playing it in split-screen with my friends, so I kept improving it over time..
In 2018 I wanted to do my own take on the casual RTS genre, popular on mobile, and released Lootfest Wars on Steam. Based on my popular adventure game from Xbox called "Lootfest".
DSS 1
After Lootfest Wars, I got the idea to merge it with Plunder Party, which just had big chess pieces that moved on the map. For a couple of years it was just something I had as a fun challenge to see how far I could push the tech. By this time I had given up on the game developer dream and worked as an IT consultant.
Two years ago I lost my job in the first wave of layoffs. Sweden had joined the cold war against Russia, cutting a large part of our budget towards development. I loved my job, but I still thought it would be nice to have a break for a couple of months and release DSS.
Only 2% complete
I plan to run the long game and keep updating DSS 2 for another 20 years, while increasing the price and widening the audience. I have studied the sales on Steam, and long running games seem to have better numbers at big updates than on launch. I think too many developers are too focused on just the release. The most recent update of Rimworld put them as the number one top-selling game on Steam.
If I look at my vast plans for the game; the game is only 2% complete. So there is plenty to work on. And I have the ultimate superpower of being a really cheap bastard, which should help get me through.
I have already started on the December update, you can join the beta test here: Discord Server
You can explore the development roadmap here: Goolge Docs
Happy gaming!