Salvation Prophecy [update: Steam Release]

[Jabberwocky]

How many people made this? Just you and some sub-contracted artists?

Yep.

Also, thanks for all the encouragement and kind words I never got a chance to respond to earlier.

And also thanks for the offers to help with linux. It's still on the "maybe possible" list, so we'll see.

[duststorm]

It's still on the "maybe possible" list, so we'll see.

In the meantime I'll keep hoping quietly but intensively

[Jabberwocky]

Steam greenlight just went live. I put up an entry for Salvation Prophecy, where steam users can vote for the game to be accepted on Steam.

I'd really, really, really appreciate it if you could click here and vote: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... d=92962546

(I updated the top post too)

Thanks guys!

[scratchyrice]

Thanks for all that advice Jabberwocky - Its really appreciated.

I have voted you up on steam greenlight.

Cheers

Scratchy

[Mind Calamity]

Rate up! I hope you get on it soon!

[ekt]

voted! but it says "This game has attained 0% of necessary positive ratings so far" - what's the impossible number you need to reach?

[Jabberwocky]

Thanks ekt!
I wouldn't read too much into that % yet.

Here's what the greenlight FAQ says about votes:

How many votes does a game need to get selected?

It's going to change during the first few days/weeks since we don't know what kind of traffic to expect. Part of the drive for this system is the need for customers to help us prioritize which games they want to see made available on Steam. So the specific number of votes doesn't matter as much as relative interest in a game compared with other games in Steam Greenlight.
We're going to be reaching out to developers as we see their games getting traction regardless of whether they have achieved a specific number of votes or are sitting 1st or 2nd place at any given time. We are most interested in finding the games that people want, not requiring them to always hit a specific number of votes.

[Zonder]

will vote later!

[ekt]

.. most interested in finding the games that people want, not requiring them to always hit a specific number of votes.

you are right. interesting also, I didnt know of this greenlight system

[Brocan]

Voted!

I want to buy it, but not throught gamersgate. If your game finally goes to steam, my purchase is secure

[duststorm]

I just created a Steam account to be able to vote. But it tells me I don't have voting privileges.
Does anyone know what it takes to be allowed to vote?

[bstone]

I don't have an account with Steam unfortunately but the logical explanation would be that you need to spend some $$ with Steam first to be able to vote. That would make your vote financially significant as Steam is about selling games after all. I think it makes less sense to count votes of those who never buy any games there, not completely pointless though.

[ekt]

it saves Jabberwocky to register one billion accounts

[Jabberwocky]

Thanks Zonder, Brocan, duststorm - really appreciate your support on this.

you need to spend some $$ with Steam first to be able to vote.

Yeah I'm pretty sure this is it.

it saves Jabberwocky to register one billion accounts

[Mind Calamity]

Hmm... I haven't bought any games on Steam, but I do have 1 I received as a gift (betajaen's christmas giveaway), and I have downloaded a bunch of demos and free-to-plays.

Try installing at least one game/demo.

[Zonder]

I can't vote either because I play free games on steam.

I just started the demo and all I can say is..... OMG!! I get hints of babylon 5 and dune

[duststorm]

It turns out you need to have bought, been gifted, or register at least one retail game to be allowed to vote.
I finally got around it by entering the CD key of an old Half-Life game I had still lying around here Guess I'm not really a steam user..
But, there you go, my vote is in.

Speaking of getting around to doing things.. I finally bought your game!! Not on steam, ofcourse but on Desura. (in silent hopes that one day that linux icon on the download page will light up )

[SunSailor]

Btw., Salvation Prophecy is now available on Little Indie as well: http://www.littleindie.net/jade.php?sho ... onprophecy

Being there, you may like to check the other great games we have there . And don't forget to take part in our public voting about the focus of our next aquiring campaign - which genre would you like to see most on Little Indie!

[Zonder]

It turns out you need to have bought, been gifted, or register at least one retail game to be allowed to vote.
I finally got around it by entering the CD key of an old Half-Life game I had still lying around here Guess I'm not really a steam user..
But, there you go, my vote is in.

Speaking of getting around to doing things.. I finally bought your game!! Not on steam, ofcourse but on Desura. (in silent hopes that one day that linux icon on the download page will light up )

bought the humble pack for torchlight so I have now voted !

[Klaim]

Oh I didn't say I voted for this when I saw it the first days? I did.

[mkultra333]

Gave you a vote a week or so ago. Good luck!

Steam Greenlight kind of worries me. I can imagine the games just getting lost in the crowd, and perhaps Steam will get lazy and stop looking at the games, just leaving it to users. I've had trouble using it, I had to search for Salvation prophecy deliberately. Steam didn't seem to let me flick the pages of greenlight games, it just kept me stuck on the first page of 12 or so games. So I fear for the people on the later pages.

[ekt]

Steam Greenlight kind of worries me

you are probabily right. but then, not having the possibility at all, wouldn't be even worse?
if you follow the link http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... d=92962546, you can reach it directly
so maybe is just another thing you need to do while promoting from you site/socialntwrk/ect - and you just can't expect that people will discover you by accident

not a steam fanboy, just reasoning...

[Jabberwocky]

Yeah, there's no doubt greenlight is basically a popularity contest. They're still changing things a lot - but it seemed to me that the most popular games tend to appear at the front of the list.

Accepting games by popularity makes sense in some ways. From a business perspective, Steam wants to sell games that have wide appeal. From a PR perspective, they want to give their users a say in what games are accepted.

On the downside, marketing your game is a very distinct skill from making a good game. I could easily see many superior titles getting passed by, in favor of poorer titles which are good at playing up hype, or games that look good but play like crap. It's probably tough for niche titles as well.

Not that the old system (steam evaluating each game) was perfect. Far from it. There's no doubt Steam was overworked, and the game submission pipeline seriously bogged down. Plus, your acceptance was at the mercy of one or a small number of evaluators who you couldn't communicate with or get feedback from.

[Jabberwocky]

...and thanks for the votes.

[Jabberwocky]

A little bit of recent activity on the game -

1. Working on a linux port

Most of my linux skills date back to when it was cool to do everything with a text-only terminal. Linux has come a long way since I last dove in. I grabbed a 2nd hard drive, threw on Ubuntu, and dusted off my creaky old linux skills.

I got things running - kinda anyway:



It was a moment of programmer bliss to get the game rendering on linux for the first time.

2. Russian localization

A while back, I got contacted by a publisher that wanted to do a Russian build of the game. Man, do I regret adding so much text to Salvation Prophecy. By the way, you non-english speakers use way too many letters in your words. It makes localization a serious pain in the ass.

Anyway, a ton of fiddily crap later, things seem to be working. It's sure weird playtesting a game you wrote in a language you don't understand.



(text is a bit blurry because of jpg compression)

3. Steam Greenlight

The game is doing pretty decent on the greenlight rankings. I'm in the top 100. If anyone reading this has a steam account, and hasn't voted yet, I'd really appreciate you clicking this greenlight link and hitting vote. I will kudos the crap out of anyone who gives me a hand. Thanks guys.