[OpenMaw]

So, I thought I would start a thread of my own dedicated to what I'm working on. This will act like a dev blog. It'll also be something of a reservoir of my experiences as a game developer. Whether I'm talking about the scattered hobbyist stuff I've done since the turn of the millennium, or lessons learned in more recent experiences. Maybe even some tutorials, I don't know yet. Let's go on this adventure together, kids!

I released a game back on the 30th of September called Save The Astronaut. I'm currently working to get the game promoted and bring in the audience, which is proving to be more stressful than preparing the release itself. I've sent out 60 something keys, both individually, and as part of various giveaways in an attempt to get the game into the hands of streamers, youtubers, game reviewers. Anybody with a following of some kind.

COVID has crippled a lot of disposable income, but that is why I priced Save The Astronaut as low as I did. During events and the holiday rush I am hoping to see some boosts in sales and to really get the game out there. If you have hadn't a chance yet to look at it, you can find it at
https://store.steamp..._The_Astronaut/

Jake Parr of the VG Almanac gave the game 4/5 in his review. Awesome dude, fan of old school shooters. We're hoping to work together on one of my future projects as a voice actor. His is positive, but also fair and does shed light on some minor issues the game has. Including the main issue that the recent patch fixed.

Speaking of, I released a patch for the game which addressed the key point of concern: The way that game overs were handled. I outlined in another thread exactly what went wrong with it. I think the game plays a lot better now as a result.


On the subject of reviews. A streamer I have partnered with gave the game a full six hours of stream time about two weeks ago, and has now come back to the game to give it a review on her page. You can watch the review here.



Going into the future. I'm working on Save The Astronaut 2. I'm conceptualizing an old school first person shooter in the vein of Duke Nukem 3D. I'm working on a six level mission pack for Doom 2 called Six pack. (There will be a video coming out on that tomorrow at around 2 PM Central US time.)

From here going forward I'll be talking STA2 development, and any announcements after that. Game sales, etc... Primarily this will be focused on the nitty-gritty development, thought.

[Futuretime23]

Congrats on the game bro, wish ya good luck for the sequel :dukeaffirmative:

[OpenMaw]

We have a demo up on Steam now.

https://store.steamp..._The_Astronaut/

It's the first seven levels along with two of the bonus maps. One thing I want to do with my company as a whole is to produce the kind of content we used to get in the 90s in terms of the way it is distributed and the overall tone of it. Games made from the heart with a personal touch, and complete trust of the audience. I'm not going to deny demo releases because I fear losing sales. If anything, so far, the demo has done a great deal to boost the games visibility in just a short time. Two youtubers have already done playthroughs of the demos, and i've seen about 10x the downloads of the demo compared to the release of the game. We shall see if that translates into sales. I'm hoping so.


I'm really hoping as we get closer to the holiday that the game will take flight. Right now the game is only finding a very small audience. I'm working with Steam curators and influencers/streamers/YouTubers to get the word out. This has honestly been the hardest part as because Open Maw is basically nobody with no actual reputation, nobody will respond. That, or they're just so big and inundated with spam that whatever correspondence is sent out just gets buried. Between the various forums I go to, reddit, Youtube, facebook, twitter... I've got more places to try and promote the game than I do hours in a day.

[MusicallyInspired]

Nice. It reminds me of Arctic Adventure/Pharaoh's Tomb/Monuments of Mars.

[OpenMaw]

For anyone interested, Save The Astronaut is currently 20% off on Steam through the Thanksgiving holiday.

https://store.steamp..._The_Astronaut/

Further updates on future Open Maw Productions stuff is forthcoming. I delayed starting the dev blog because as I was starting up work on Save The Astronaut 2 I started doing some game dev soul searching. I still fully intend to work on STA 2 in the near future, but another game project has taken front and center, which will be the subject of the dev blog I will be starting on Youtube. Probably early next month once I have something substantial to actually show and talk about. All I can say right now is "science fiction-horror based First Person Shooter."

If you do happen to check out Save The Astronaut we'd really appreciate it if you could drop us a review on the Steam store page. Every single review on there no matter how big or small is immensely helpful to raising visibility for the game.

[Thrice Cursed]

OpenMaw, on 22 November 2020 - 02:35 PM, said:

Probably early next month once I have something substantial to actually show and talk about. All I can say right now is "science fiction-horror based First Person Shooter."

Fuck yes.

[OpenMaw]

https://i.imgur.com/ly2Xx9D.png



Here's a rough hi-poly concept from the game. This is the face of one of the creatures in the game.

Imagine Aliens crossed with David Cronenberg's "The Fly."

This was a human being at one point.

[OpenMaw]

For the next two days Save The Astronaut is 50% off on Steam. 99 cents!

https://store.steamp..._The_Astronaut/

[OpenMaw]

Save The Astronaut is now less than a dollar on Steam, and just in time for it's one year anniversary it's been given an update. Improved controller support, enhanced performance, and the OST now available for free.





You can get it here:
https://store.steamp..._The_Astronaut/