"Pampas", the sequel of Maze of Galious

Dear reader,

A few months ago Nenefranz (Zombie Incident and Who Dares Wins 2) and I started to work on a MSX2 sequel of the mythical "Maze of Galious".

As this sequel has no title yet, we internally call it "Pampas".

Synopsis

35 years after Popolon and Aphrodite defeated the evil Galious, ten demons invaded the castle cursing everything inside.

Pampas and Selene, children of Popolon and Aphrodite, are the ones who have to defeat all 10 demons in order to free the castle from their dark influence and bring the peace back.

Features

The game itself is based on "the Maze of Galious", having a huge castle to explore, a lot of items to find, 10 worlds and 10 demons to defeat. We didn't want to do a different game, but something similar to what we enjoyed when we were children.

Although the base is the same, you'll notice some differences in this sequel:

Main characters

The heroes are Pampas and Selene (instead of Popolon and Aphrodite). Pampas is a warrior (like his father) that will use his weapons against his enemies. Selene, his younger sister, is a sorcerer who will use her magic.

Unlike MoG, Pampas and Selene have different gameplay. They won't use the same type of attacks. Each character has his/her own way to face adversity and will prove better or worse before certain enemies, demons or even the type of room.

Inventory

"Pampas" has an amount of items slightly bigger than MoG, and a F1 inventory where the player can select the character to play with (Pampas - Selene).

The weapon selection is gone. In "Pampas" all weapons and magic are used directly from the keyboard (by pressing a specific key for each one). Thanks to this feature, the player will be able to use the most appropriate spell in each moment without having to enter the inventory and change them.

Besides, the player can navigate on all items, reading their descriptions and finding out what are they for without drawin on the instruction manual.

The inventory also shows the map of the world we're it.

Doors

Instead of spending a key to open a door, the player will just need the item "key". Once it's found, all doors will be open without the need to farm keys.

Worlds

Like in MoG, worlds are spread all over the castle. 

As the goal of the game is to defeat all 10 demons, the player will be able to enter any world and defeat the demon inside in any order. However, some worlds will need an item you won't have at the beginning of the game.

Tombstones

In MoG we used an augmentation glass on tombstones to search for the name of the demon we wanted to invoke. This works different in "Pampas". The name of the demon is divided into 8 symbols. They are all hidden within tombstones spread in the world. By destroying those tombstones the symbols will be freed. Once we have all 8 symbols, the name of the demon will be materialized in our mind, being able to invoke it.

But, those symbols can only exist in their world. If we go back to the castle, they will be erased from our memory. So, we'll have to find them all in a row without returning to the castle or die. Once we have the name of the demon, we no longer will need to search for them.

Current status of the game

Nowadays (29th Dec 2020) we have a PC version (that simulates the game on a MSX2) working with the whole castle done, all 10 worlds, all enemies, items, weapons and all 10 demons working.

We have Néstor Sancho (Stevedore) and César (Guindako) testing the game for us. 

We're also finishing some graphics still to be done (demons, and some enemies)

Last but not least, we still have to do the sound stuff (still don't know if music will be PSG or SCC) and the non-game part (like the main title, intro and ending).

Publishing

It's still too soon to have an exact date, and the current COVID crisis makes it even more uncertain, but we'd like to release the game in the next RUMSX.

The game will need a large ROM, that are more expensive, so the game will cost 40€ to 45€.

Other platforms

For those who don't own a MSX2 and can't enjoy the game in its original version, we're planning to launch a PC/Switch version later. Besides playing it like in an MSX2, it will include the chance to play it in a local cooperative mode with Pampas and Selene at the same time.

Other Galious-like projects

We're aware that Santi Ontañón started "the Maze of Galious 2" project and that he will finish it eventually. In order to prevent any conflict between both projects, we did a story that takes place further in the future. Who know, maybe with the release of "Pampas" Santi will encourage and continue working on his MoG2. ;-)

There's also an incoming patch that brings the original MoG into MSX2. In our case, as all graphics (heroes, monsters, scenarios) are new instead of a porting of the original ones, it won't have any conflict with this patch too.

Your oppinion

The game design is not closed. Our will is to ask for the opinions of fans from MoG about some aspects like gameplay, graphics and others. Besides, we'd like to receive proposals and wishes from the community, and answer any question you may have.

The goal is to create a "Pampas" as close as possible to the game we all wish.

We're doing our best, and we're doing it with great enthusiasm.

Thank you for your lecture!

UPDATE 24th April 2021

The porting of the game to MSX assembler started a couple of months ago. 

So far the following stuff have already been inserted and are already working in the MSX version:

- the entire castle and worlds

- Pampas is moving and attacking

- quests

- shrines and shops

- inventory screen and castle map screen

- top UI

- around 10 types of enemies.

Besides, Gryzor87 (the composer of the OST) has already started to create the SCC versions of the themes for the game.

So, we can say that the development is progressing quite well.

Still to do in the MSX version: 

- Selene and her attacks

- insert the rest of enemies (there are A LOT)

- bosses

- main menu

- intro and ending of the game

- all sound effects.

UnMetal and the Publishers

Greetings my dearest players,

It's been already a month since UnMetal was supposed to come out on Steam. I'm really sorry for that, and I'm going to explain the reason to you:

VISIBILITY

7 years ago, when Unepic was released, Steam was a digital store where everyone learned about your game. Only 6 new games were released every week. Publishing a game was enough to let everyone know about it, let the magazines talk about it, and have a decent number of sales.

After the removal of Steam's selection filters such as GreenLight, and the massive usage of Unity, a big amount of games started to come out. Nowadays, the average of new release on Steam is 20 games every single day. 

As a result, we now have a massive saturation of indie videogames that makes visibility barely impossible. Anything published on Steam is practically unseen. Just publishing is no longer enough. In fact, the 80% of games on Steam barely have any sale. Not because they're not good, but because nobody gets to know them.

STEAM SUMMER FESTIVAL

To help incoming videogames, Steam created a "demo festival" with the purpose of grant some visibility to those games through their demos. UnMetal participated in order to take advantage of this opportunity. The demo was going to be known and played!

The outcome of that demo festival was a disaster. It was so overcrowded with demos that even people who was searching for UnMetal on purpose were unable to find it. People wrote me asking why UnMetal was not there.

What it was supposed to be a festival to help indie games with no marketing was nothing but a reflection of the main store: games with a lot of whishlists were forever on the main page of that festival in the featured list the whole week, while other games kept buried without a chance of being features a few hours to be known by players.

Besides, technical problems made the situation worse. In my case the demo was visible 24 hours later and, no matter how I insisted, I was never Fable to broadcast my game. In the end I had to broadcast from Youtube instead of Steam losing any advantage from the store.

CHANGING COURSE

I was aware that if I didn't invest on marketing, UnMetal was going to be sold in Spain, but it would be unknown abroad.

Then, on June, one of the best indie publishers contacted me. They told me they liked the demo, and they would possibly publish it.

It was just what I was looking for! That was the great marketing campaign I needed. I accepted. For the first time in my life I was going to launch a game through a top publisher instead of publishing it by myself.

THINGS GRIND SLOWLY

We kept in contact on June and July, asking me for material and information. They wrote me every 2 weeks to ask something to me. In the end, at the end of August, they told me that after dwelling and debating it internally, they were not going to publish it.

That was so sad. Not only I lost that great publisher but also wasted two months.

THE SEARCH FOR A PUBLISHER

Due to that fact, I pitched the game to the 5 top indie publishers and 15 days later, 3 of them replied telling me that they were interested on it. They loved UnMetal. That were great news!

After spending the end of September and October talking to them, I'm now about to make a deal with the one I consider is the best.

I'd loved to make an agreement before, but dealing with companies is sometimes slow. Every step was followed with a week of waiting. But looks like this is about to reach a happy end.

I wanted to have the publishing stuff sorted out, so I could tell who is going to publish UnMetal. But as this is taking longer than expected and we're already a month late, I have decided to explain to you all why UnMetal did not come out in October as it was scheduled.

THE MARKETING CAMPAIGN

All publishers I talked to have something in common: they need at least 3 months to carry out their marketing campaigns before the game is published. That means that, unfortunately, UnMetal won't come out before February or March 2021.

Good news are that all versions (PC, Switch, XBOX y PS4) will be released at the same time, no consoles won't have to wait longer.

And that's my story of today. Thanks for reading!

Asking keys for a review

As a publisher of my own games, I tend to receive emails asking for a key to download my games and create a review. That's great because thanks to these reviews, it becomes more popular and more people learn about it. So, I'm happy to give them!

However,  anyone can write an email and ask for a key referencing other people's work. So before sending you any key, your email address must be verified. 

You should do it by following one of the following options:

If you're writing from a web magazine:
a) Please write from an email from the same domain, instead of gmail of hotmail.
b) If you don't have an own email, please include an URL of the contact page of your domain where the email address you are writing is published, so I can check it's the same.

If you're a youtuber:
a) Please include the URL of your youtube channel, and make sure you have your email address published on the "contact information" page. In this way I can check that the email is not a fake one.
b) Make sure that you have been releasing videos recently. Youtube channels with videos from long time ago are not accepted.
c) Make sure your videos are about indie games, not just minecraft.
d) Make sure you have a minimum amount of followers. Please don't ask keys if you're under 1K. Instead, just buy the game like other players do. Being a youtuber is not just publishing videos, but having a community that follows them.
e) Introducing youself in your videos and including a whatermark logo is not mandatory, but it's good to know that you didn't get those videos from somewhere else, and will prevent fake youtubers to use them.

If you are a blogger:
a) Please include a URL showing your email address from the blog.
b) Include visit data from Google Analytics if possible.


That's all! I'm pretty sure that other publishers will be happier if you include this information on your emails when you write them asking for a key, and you will get more chances to receive one.

Curiosities about Steam Sales

Spanish version here

Hello!

Today I'm going to talk about Steam Sales from the point of view of a publisher, and also give answer to some mysteries and curiosities about them. I hope you like it!

Worth it?

Several people asked me if it's worth setting a game on sale in Steam where the publisher earns less money per game. Well, Steam Sales offers to publishers a great opportunity to sky-rocket the sells. I mean sky-rocket, not just raise.
It all works like this:

First of all, Steam keeps the 30% of the game, no matter the price, so if a game is sold for $10, Steam will keep $3 while the publisher will earn $7. If the game is discounted 50%, Steam keeps $1,5 and the publisher earns $3,5.
(taxes, currency exchanges, bank commissions, and other stuff are to be taken out)

Let say that someone sells 20 games per day at full price. Well, during a day in Steam Sale like Summer Sales or Christmas Sales, sells can raise to 1000 games per day.
If selling 20 games at full price one can earn  $140, selling 1000 at half price one earns $3,500. As you figured out, really worth it.

But if Steam promotes the game showing it in the main page of the Store, like in a "Flash sale" (those that last 8 hours), then figures sky rocket to 20.000 - 40.000 sells in only 8 hours. In these super-sales, games are much more discounted, let's say 80%, so one gets $1,5€ per game. This generates $30.000 - $60.000 in just 8 hours. Of course, only a few games have the privilege to be part of these sort of super-sales.

External Bundles

Another curious fact is that, when external bundles or sales are running, Steam sells are slightly affected. For instance, Unepic took part in the Humble Indie Bundle 14 that sold around 180.000 units during a week or two, I don't remember the exact time. Anyway, during this period, I was expecting a drop in the sells in Steam because, who was going to buy the game at full price when it was available for less money and even having 8 extra games?

Curiously, sells only dropped around 20%, and raised again once the bundle was over.

Does Steam force you to set the game on sale?

Absolutely not. Sales are a free choice and one can take part in them if wished. Even more, the publisher is free to select the percentage of discount in a game.

Besides, one can create his own sale. They don't tend to be as profitable as the ones Steam does because it is not announced anywhere, and only players with the game in their wish list will be notified.

The "Wish list"

One of Steam's cool features is the "Wish list", that basically lets a player mark a game as "wished". This is a good ally of a publisher because when a game is set on sale, Steam will notify the player with the game "wished" which helps a lot in selling the game.

This may also cause that games come out with a small initial discount because, apart from encouraging new users to buy it, it also notifies those who already have it in their wish list.

To buy before a sale

Steam provides publishers wonderful charts that show daily sells, even by hour, of the games they have published. When in a sale, we can see how these charts raises.

But these charts, these few thin lines, are in fact reflecting the purchases and dreams of a lot of players. So when I see them I think about the few people who purchased the game just before the massive peak of sales. Then I think... How does the player that spent his money in a game, and a few hours later sees that same game on sale feel?

Today, the day I'm writing this article, my last game called "Ghost 1.0" went on sale in a "Steam Daily Sale". Just to avoid this situation, I announced via Twitter and Steam forum that the game would be on sale today. So if anyone was thinking in purchasing the game, he should be notified and won't feel sad because of it.

But due to destiny, after a few minutes Ghost 1.0 was on sale, I read a post of a player that wrote the following words:

"Awwww, it went on sale. I bought this in the wee hours this morning and then see it went on sale. Haha, i don't mind paying the full price for this one bit. Has been very entertaining so far."

When I read it, I saw right that player who buys the game just before a sale, that person that makes a "20" appear in the chart before the peak of the sales. So I sent him a friendship request that was accepted a few minutes later, and we've been chatting a little.

I introduced myself and confessed him that I was regretting his situation, so I told him that if any DLC was coming out I should gift him. Curiously, the guy thanked it, but told me that it was not necessary at all. He was happy with the game and he would also purchase the DLC as soon as it came out. So, I understood that there are players who really know how to appreciate the value of something they are enjoying, and that made me be proud of this kind of people.

The final peak

The last hour in a sale is curious: sells raises even more. It's like the player was waiting the last moment to purchase. Why?
A theory I have is that the player waits until the last moment just in case another cool game appears in the same sale. It's something Steam used to do: in some sales, Steam asked us, the publishers, a default percentage of discount and a deeper one for short periods. So one can set the game 25% on sale during the whole period, and 75% during a day or 8 hours.

Another theory that bounces inside my empty skull is that, during these sales, the player makes a choice of the games he wishes and buys them right before the end. Maybe to prevent discovering a better game when he already spent all his money?

Purchasing after a sale

Another curious fact is that, an hour after the sale are over, the logical thing would be that nobody purchases the game, or have very little ones. If someone wanted to get the game, he should do it during these sales. Specially in Summer and Christmas where all games are on sale and everyone knows perfectly when the sale period will end.

Well, going back to the charts, I find out that after the euphoria of those days of sales, purchases return to its normal level. But curiously, there are people that purchase the game those durig these few hours just after the sales. Said in other words, there are players that pay the full price of a game an hour after the end of the sale period.
What should that player maybe thinking?

One hypothesis: during sales a big amount of new players may get it, and they may spread the word. Due to this, there could be people that knew of this game right after the sales are over or just because he could not go back home to purchase it on time.

However, two days ago, during a videogame event, I was speaking about Ghost 1.0 and, as I knew that today the game would be on sale, I informed everyone about it. The fact is that Enrique, the organizer and host of the event (a nice guy with a cool voice) told me "I'm going to wait until the sale is over to buy the game at its full price to support the developer".

It was not the first time I heard something like that, yet someone told me the same in the past, and maybe part of the people that purchase the game right after the sales period ends are just this kind of people that once again think more in the work and the effort that there is after a videogame, than just saving a few bucks.

Thanks for reading!
And once again, apologizes for writing in Franglish.

the voice of a beggar

In Ghost 1.0 there is a scene where a beggar talks to Jacker and Boogan.
When I had to voice it in English, I needed an example of a suitable voice of a beggar so I should send it to the voice actor in order to give him an example of what sort of voice I was expecting.

Well, first thing I did is to google "beggar voice". Man, when I watched the first video in the list I got really surprised. I'm sharing it with you all, as it's just minute and half long and it's a unique story:

"Missions mode" mode in Ghost 1.0

Dear reader:

Today I'll write about videogame design. In particular, about a new mode I'm starting to work in my game Ghost 1.0.


The "Missions mode"

The "missions mode" is a set of simple, short and independent missions. The duration will be around 5 to 15 minutes each one, having a different and unique goal.

Unlike other main modes (classic and survival), this one will have no story, no skill tree, and there will not be progression in the character (the game will not be saved).
This mode is basically focused in playing small games when time is low, or just when the player doesn't want to play something complex.


Overpowered

Something I usually enjoy as a player is to be overpowered, said in other words, to be a killing machine and destroy my enemies just by breathing. 
As a player this is really fun, but as a game designer it's a total nightmare because it breaks the rhythm of the game ruining the gameplay.

However, the advantage of being short independent missions is that I can let the player be overpowered and have fun in this way, as it will not have repercussions in further missions because the game is never saved.  It's like the groundhog day: no matter what you do, tomorrow you'll start from scratch.

As an example, the goal of the first mission I'm working in is to collect 20 drones.
At first the player starts destroying whatever with the basic gun. But the more drones he picks up, the bigger the cloud of drones grows, becoming a increasingly powerful weapon that destroys any enemy.

This is a picture of the cloud of drones that will follow you:

Achievements

I'm thinking in creating 3 achievements per mission. One should be just to finish the mission, and two more just to do something specific within it.
In the example of drones, an achievement could be "not to hurt enemies with your gun", therefore, let drones annihilate all enemies in all rooms. I tested it and the gameplay actually changes.

Diversity and fun

My goal is to create diverse and, overall, fun missions. I'll do my best to surprise you in each one... and maybe I'll troll the player a little bit (it's one of my best hobbies, bwa ha haaa!!)

Of course, any idea for a missions is welcomed. Should you have one, just leave it in a comment.

Thanks for reading!
fran

What's up with G2a?

A couple of month ago I complained about G2A in Twitter.

Now that I have a blog, I can write about it:

What is g2a?

Turns out that it is some sort of Ebay where SteamKeys are sold.

The official idea is a website where, besides other types of sell, one can sell spare Steam Keys.
Wait... Spare SteamKeys? Who the hell has Steam Keys and are not using them?
Oh, of course! People that for instance purchased a Humble Bundle and he already owned some games, or simply he doesn't like them.

This is all mere speculation. (very optimistic by the way). But there are other real ways to obtain SteamKeys:

The deadbeat

It's just someone who visit Steam, searches a game that just came out and emails the dev studio asking for SteamKeys pretending to be a Youtuber, Twitcher or, even better, a curator of a huge community group. The standard procedure is to write asking for keys to review the game and publish it making the game more known. Well, once he has the keys, the first movement it to sell them in g2a. A fake moderator of a group can ask for 20 keys, should be sold at 5€ each he can get up to 100€ with that single game. And what's worse, he is preventing the studio to earn that money.

This happened to me with Ghost 1.0: I discovered that someone was selling SteamKeys in G2A. Thanks to Twitter, people who purchased the game in G2A wrote me and sent me the keys. I matched them with all given keys and found out the two smartasses who were selling them. One was a "fake youtuber" with an own channel and the other a fake group administrator.

It turns out that they already sold just half of them. I asked Steam to invalidate the rest, but as they did not accept (they only do this in really bad cases), I just gave them away to followers in Twitter.

The Swindler

The worst way to obtain SteamKeys is to find a game that has its own selling portal (the studio sells the game in their own web), and use stolen credit cards to purchase, for instance, 3.000 units of the game.

Once the Swindler has the keys, he inserts them in G2A and similar webs to get the maximum profit possible. Should he sell them at $5, he could earn up to $15.000.

And the worst of this way is the following:
Should the game be sold 10€ each unit, the total amount paid with stolen credit cards should be $30.000, so the studio earns $30.000 stolen to any unfortunate soul, but just thinking they earned $30.000 cleanly.
But soon or later, the owners of the stolen credit cards find out that $30.000 are gone. The bank investigates, finds the fraudulent payments and the money is refunded, taken from the studio (that maybe used part of the money to start a new game), plus a penalty fee. So, the studio turns into red numbers (earns $30.000, then these $30.000 are removed and charged with a fee) while the swindler keeps all his money.

This is an example:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AlexNichiporchik/20160620/275379/G2A_Sold_450k_worth_of_our_games.php

What's G2A's fault?

Well, G2A is not the one who is obtaining SteamKeys in an unfair way, but are the ones who are protecting this scum even knowing who they are. They allow them to continue selling keys over and over again.
For instance, there is a guy selling keys of Unepic who has already sold, between other games, around 14.000 SteamKeys. 14.000!

I can understand that someone wants to get a few bucks by selling a few spare SteamKeys but... come on, if someone has already sold thousands of SteamKeys, isn't is suspicious?

Well, looks pretty clear that it's more profitable than suspicious.

What happens when you complain to G2A?
In my experience they asked me the list of SteamKeys to be removed from their database. My problem (the same than anyone else) was that, from all keys given to press and youtubers, I had no idea which of them were inserted in G2A. So I asked them to remove any key from Ghost 1.0 and Unepic from their store. I was answered literally "We can’t prevent other people from selling their keys, this is what our business is all about".

I read other experiences from other dev studios, like "they asked us to sell our game in their shop, cheaper that other sellers, so people will purchase them to us."

Summarizing, G2A is a paradise for those who sell stolen SteamKeys.

Where to buy?

If you wish to purchase one of my games, just do it in Steam, gog or Humble Store, or directly in the online shops of consoles. Never from G2a or similar webs.