Here, on the 20th issue of
The PixelCount Post, I'm happy to report that Castle PixelCount is in high spirits as all castle staff prepare for a most exciting chapter in our kingdom's history. Over the course of numerous weeks, we've been importing the finest of coal from all five (yes, five) corners of Quill and the castle miners have spent many late nights shoveling bitumen into The Great Furnace. All for the glory of steam.
Yes, my friends and cohorts. All this allegory means that our 'Coming Soon' Steam page is days...mere
days...away from opening. There's still a short ways to go until the game itself is ready for release on Early Access, but having this incredibly important step finished is huge for us.
| WEDNESDAY, 21ST FEBRUARY! |
Our 'Coming Soon' page will be live on Steam. All green blooded Seedlings are encouraged to wishlist Kynseed, help spread the word, and hang out with us in the Steam forums. |
I've spent the past many weeks juggling all manner of responsibilities which ranged from running support for our humbling 2-page article in
PC Gamer to preparing Steamworks platform's back end. (Among other things.) Even just the preparations for the Steam page alone involved dozens upon dozens of checklists and tasks.
Steam is sometimes (notoriously) secretive about the processes that go into setting a game up on its platform, so it's been incredibly insightful to see the cogs running the great machine. There's so much that goes into something as seemingly simple as having a store page! I feel like this side of game development isn't often discussed (perhaps because developers assume these details are boring), but if there's anything you dear readers have come to expect from me it's boring details.
There's some back end details that I won't be going into due to Steam's affinity for remaining mysterious, but for those interested in such things here is a
very brief look at just some of what goes into getting a Steam page live.
- Setting up a master company account and user permissions for the entire team.
- Detailed text for basic game descriptions.
- Writing text for numerous questions about Early Access and why we've decided to go that route.
- Maturity content settings.
- (What does and doesn't count as 'mature content' in Kynseed?)
- What is the intended release window?
- Minimum system requirements.
- (How do we go about testing for this given our limited team size and testing pool?)
- Game pricing for literally dozens and dozens of different currencies.
- Various and diverse sreenshots reflecting the game.
- (Which screenshots should we select, and why?)
- A teaser or trailer for the game.
- (The above item alone represented significant work!)
- Icons for the Steam client.
- Special header images for the Steam store and website.
- How do users contact you if they have support questions?
- Various community asset images and backgrounds.
- (Did you know that every game on Steam has to provide community avatars? Cause I sure didn't.)
- Setting up the community hub (artwork tab, discussion forums, guides section, etc.)
- Submitting the store page to Steam for approval (more complicated than it sounds).
- And so on.
The above list doesn't really do the whole process justice. Rest assured, there's a surprising amount going on behind the scenes of any given game's Steam page. Plus, none of the above even mentions all the work that Neal has been doing in getting various executable packages set up on the Steam client itself.
The above list also completely glosses over the teaser video that was made. We didn't want to do a full trailer just yet, but we did want to show some video of the game all the same. So for now I've put together a very simple, but hopefully interesting, short teaser to get everyone excited. That alone constituted many day's work of capturing footage in the game and working with Charlie and Neal to make sure certain areas of The Vale were video ready.
In short, the entire team and I have gained a newfound respect for the process of getting a Steam store page up. For as much attention as Steam seems to often get for what is sometimes argued as an oversaturated marketplace, you'd still be surprised how much effort is still required just to get something on their platform.
Regardless of one's thoughts on all that, we are genuinely lucky as a team and as a company that we'll soon have a presence on the titan known as Steam. It's easy to bemoan the ills of the modern day games industry, but when you put things into perspective it's absolutely crazy to think how far the industry has come for small teams. Not that long ago we were just a handful of people with an idea for a game and in these intervening months we were able to attain funding for that game, develop the first steps of that game, and get our own corner in the largest gaming marketplace to ever exist. What's more, we were able to do this
independently. Which, to be clear, is f***ing huge.
Steam is brave new territory for our humble game, so we'll need all your support over there. I know that
our Discord and
our forums are nice and cozy, but it's so important that our supporters follow us over to our Steam community as well.
All in all, this is a big turning point for
Kynseed and talking with and getting feedback from all you lovely Seedlings is going to become even more of a focus for us in the coming weeks and, naturally, well beyond.
On Wednesday, please shout from any mountain tops in your vicinity that our store page is open and ready for wishlisting. Specifically, getting your help spreading the word on Twitter, reddit, any other forums you travel, and even other Discords will not only be of great help but it'd also genuinely mean a lot to us.
Expect a more formal announcement from us on Wednesday, in which we will also be sharing one more bit of exciting information:
the month we're projecting the game will release on Early Access!
I know I've been waxing poetic a bit in this article, but we're honestly so ecstatic in checking this incredibly important item off the to-do list. The prospect of releasing this game on Early Access is starting to suddenly feel very real. It's an uncanny feeling...but an exhilarating one all the same. I can't wait to see you all on Steam very soon.
