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Show HN: We sold over 30,000 units of our HTML5/Electron game on Steam

34 points by riadd 10y ago

jstanley 10y ago
This would be better if it was a discussion of the challenges you faced and how you overcame them, rather than simply a link to the game. :)
- baq 10y ago
  steam helps a lot in the most important part which is monetizing an apparently good product, judging by the reviews.
  - riadd 10y ago
    Steam's market power is huge and extremely important for having any visibility at all.
- baristaGeek 10y ago
  Yup. Some remarkable code snippets would be cool.
- riadd 10y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! I wasn't sure if hacker news would be interested at all and was unsure what best to share. I'll write a blog with challenges and lessons learned.
sboselli 10y ago
Yes, please give some insight into what went into it. How many people were part of the project? How long have you guys been coding? Challenges with it being Electron based? Did you use a JS framework? Thoughts on Steam, early acces, etc?
gr3yh47 10y ago
Great relaxing game that is still challenging and different with every playthrough
CryoLogic 10y ago
I am very curious to know about the tech stack used as well. Currently I am writing a pure-JavaScript engine using the HTML5 canvas because packaging for electron gets complex with some of the popular dependencies for other HTML5 game engines.
- riadd 10y ago
  No game engine was used. I render directly to canvas. Using CoffeeScript for our custom engine. Electron is super thin layer to put it on Steam. I'll prepare a blog post and will share more info there. Sorry for jumping the gun here. I should have been better prepared.
koder2016 10y ago
I did not know it is possible to use a runtime environment, some platform libraries and a scripting language to make a game!
ythl 10y ago
More details, please. Right now it's just a link to steam.
- riadd 10y ago
  Yes, sorry I wasn't sure what the right amount of information is for this platform. I see I jumped the gun a bit. I'll make a proper blog post with detailed information.
mesozoic 10y ago
Cool I played this game a bit and it was very fun. Looking forward to full release.
tshannon 10y ago
Games can be some very large complex projects. Did you guys write it in javascript or some other language and compile to js? If you guys did just write in js did you use any other tooling for features like modules? The game looks cool, and I'm thinking about buying it. It's nice to show that electron is a viable platform for games, because you easily gain cross platform compatibility with linux / mac.
- riadd 10y ago
  Its is written in CoffeeScript. I started about 4 years ago working on it. At this point I would probably just use JS. No specific frameworks or module architecture was used.
ayyn0n0n0 10y ago
How large was your marketing budget?
- riadd 10y ago
  Around $5000. Most of that went into having a small booth at Gamescom.
jeeva 10y ago
Huh. I almost thought this would be Screeps, but no! Interesting...
nrjames 10y ago
I've had a lot of fun with this game and agree that it would be nice to hear more in this post about how it was made.
- riadd 10y ago
  Yes, sorry about that. I see this post was already (rightly) flagged, so I'll do a proper blog post and will repost when it is done.
m_eiman 10y ago
There's an episode of roguelike radio with the developers of this game: http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2016/02/episode-115-curious-expedition.html http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2016/02/episode-115-curious-ex... "Topics Discussed: The procedural 19th Century "Jules Verne etc" expedition simulator that is The Curious Expedition, currently in alpha / early access on Steam or via the Humble widget How the roguelike mix of procedural content and permadeath helps enable the exploration gameplay Johannes and Riad's experience at Yager Development in Germany, where they worked on Spec Ops: The Line Minimalist presentation and text to encourage player imagination Development history of the game Representation of women and people of colour in a game set in a sexist and racist time, and highlighting figures that popular history often forgets Giant crabs, dinosaur steeds, and other fantastical elements that add colour to the world Multilayered goal design and how these integrate with the exploration mechanics Sanity and rivals acting as hunger clocks Making combat optional Communicating theme through unique items Upcoming features and future plans for the game When the game will be "complete" Plans for modding support and having the community add to the game Vague plans for future games and staying as sustainable independent developers"
_Codemonkeyism 10y ago
Their AMA Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/50ax32/we_left_aaa_to_make_indie_games_we_were/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/50ax32/we_left_aaa_to...

34 points by riadd 10y ago

This would be better if it was a discussion of the challenges you faced and how you overcame them, rather than simply a link to the game. :)

baq 10y ago
steam helps a lot in the most important part which is monetizing an apparently good product, judging by the reviews.
- riadd 10y ago
  Steam's market power is huge and extremely important for having any visibility at all.
baristaGeek 10y ago
Yup. Some remarkable code snippets would be cool.
riadd 10y ago
Thanks for the feedback! I wasn't sure if hacker news would be interested at all and was unsure what best to share. I'll write a blog with challenges and lessons learned.

sboselli 10y ago

Yes, please give some insight into what went into it. How many people were part of the project? How long have you guys been coding? Challenges with it being Electron based? Did you use a JS framework? Thoughts on Steam, early acces, etc?

gr3yh47 10y ago

Great relaxing game that is still challenging and different with every playthrough

CryoLogic 10y ago

I am very curious to know about the tech stack used as well. Currently I am writing a pure-JavaScript engine using the HTML5 canvas because packaging for electron gets complex with some of the popular dependencies for other HTML5 game engines.

riadd 10y ago
No game engine was used. I render directly to canvas. Using CoffeeScript for our custom engine. Electron is super thin layer to put it on Steam. I'll prepare a blog post and will share more info there. Sorry for jumping the gun here. I should have been better prepared.

koder2016 10y ago

I did not know it is possible to use a runtime environment, some platform libraries and a scripting language to make a game!

ythl 10y ago

More details, please. Right now it's just a link to steam.

riadd 10y ago
Yes, sorry I wasn't sure what the right amount of information is for this platform. I see I jumped the gun a bit. I'll make a proper blog post with detailed information.

mesozoic 10y ago

Cool I played this game a bit and it was very fun. Looking forward to full release.

tshannon 10y ago

Games can be some very large complex projects. Did you guys write it in javascript or some other language and compile to js? If you guys did just write in js did you use any other tooling for features like modules? The game looks cool, and I'm thinking about buying it. It's nice to show that electron is a viable platform for games, because you easily gain cross platform compatibility with linux / mac.

riadd 10y ago
Its is written in CoffeeScript. I started about 4 years ago working on it. At this point I would probably just use JS. No specific frameworks or module architecture was used.

ayyn0n0n0 10y ago

How large was your marketing budget?

riadd 10y ago
Around $5000. Most of that went into having a small booth at Gamescom.

jeeva 10y ago

Huh. I almost thought this would be Screeps, but no! Interesting...

nrjames 10y ago

I've had a lot of fun with this game and agree that it would be nice to hear more in this post about how it was made.

riadd 10y ago
Yes, sorry about that. I see this post was already (rightly) flagged, so I'll do a proper blog post and will repost when it is done.

m_eiman 10y ago

There's an episode of roguelike radio with the developers of this game: http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2016/02/episode-115-curious-expedition.html http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2016/02/episode-115-curious-ex... "Topics Discussed: The procedural 19th Century "Jules Verne etc" expedition simulator that is The Curious Expedition, currently in alpha / early access on Steam or via the Humble widget How the roguelike mix of procedural content and permadeath helps enable the exploration gameplay Johannes and Riad's experience at Yager Development in Germany, where they worked on Spec Ops: The Line Minimalist presentation and text to encourage player imagination Development history of the game Representation of women and people of colour in a game set in a sexist and racist time, and highlighting figures that popular history often forgets Giant crabs, dinosaur steeds, and other fantastical elements that add colour to the world Multilayered goal design and how these integrate with the exploration mechanics Sanity and rivals acting as hunger clocks Making combat optional Communicating theme through unique items Upcoming features and future plans for the game When the game will be "complete" Plans for modding support and having the community add to the game Vague plans for future games and staying as sustainable independent developers"

_Codemonkeyism 10y ago

Their AMA Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/50ax32/we_left_aaa_to_make_indie_games_we_were/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/50ax32/we_left_aaa_to...