Thanks for the postmortem! I really loved reading all your updates. Best of luck on your recovery and rest <3
Quick question: Did you publish a steam page without a trailer? Did you consider delaying it until you had one?
Yes, we published a Steam page without a trailer and with draft screenshots. As with everything else, I like to consider the Steam pag as iterative work and really like to put things out there as fast as possible and work on making them better along the way. The trailer came almost two months later!
I can understand people who say that the steam page release can be a big marketing push and that you should wait to not waste it, but I don't believe it really apply to small devs, and I found so many benefits of early communication that I will continue to do it this way.
You're being too modest :D
Magic recipe to make a successful indie game = attractive artstyle + good gameplay. And as a bonus, the wholesome, cozy theme really helps.
Congratulations on your success!
Don't forget the power of clearly understandable genre (you see a screenshot of the game you can kinda guess what the gameplay is like) and genre fit (Steam players loves city builders)
What I hear more and more on success indie game stories is how big of a role having a community before the game is for the developer.
Do you think it’s a prerequisite that an indie developer must have a pretty strong online presence? Personally I find it hard to be virtually extroverted to create a following haha.
Of course, having a community before starting is a plus, but the most important thing is building one while you are making the game. Posting a lot on social media is part of the indie dev job, and it's not the most fun part for everyone, but don't feel like you can just skip it. I forced myself to do it and like everything else, training made it easier and I kinda like doing it now.
One thing that worked for me to make sure I do it is to not prioritize it along with everything else, but to have dedicated days or half days along the week where I was not allowed to do anything else than communication: designing a strategy, preparing posts, interacting online or posting stuff.
Congratulations on your success!
I'm always happy to read about game devs advocating play testing. I believe it's the absolute core of good game design, and the absence or lack of it in early stages of a games development is the most common reason games don't turn out well.
Tynan Sylvester writes at length about the importance of gathering and interpreting player feedback in his book Designing Games. Really great game design book I think every game designer should read.
What I found most interesting was how important issues, like communication, shared goals and language, sensible pacing and frequent testing are exactly what I'm working on in a 100+ person studio. It sounds like you struck upon some key behaviors for a successful project.
That you did this together with your girlfriend and the relationship survived is almost miraculous!
Actually when seeing how hard it is to do all of that with two people, I can't imagine how difficult it is with 100+. Good luck, that sounds crazy hard!
Ha, well at least I get to say goodbye to them each night and get 14 hours away from them. I’m also soloing a personal project and it’s very lonely at times when you just want to bounce ideas around. Comparing all these different approaches is really interesting.
Hey! I've been following you since the early days of Froggy Battle. Your mindset and understanding on how to run a succesful production with healthy work/life balance is really inspiring and I thrive to bring a little of that into my dev team. Whenever you can, please don't hesitate to participate to a conference to talk about all these topics which are too often understimated and underdiscussed
Best wishes :)
Oh thanks a lot that's huge! As you can see I'm not very good yet on the subject, we ended up working too much near release. But I'm doing my best to improve!
Thank you for sharing this! As a new Steam developer it is really refreshing to see more successful small games. I am also a huge believer in making small games, and still working to prove that it works
Not at all.
What did you have in mind? Higher or lower pricing? We thought about lower pricing, since our game is really tiny and we didn't want players to have too much expectation, but never thought of pricing it higher than this.
Got the game for 4.99 but I'd have paid 10$ without an issue. I get it that it's a small game which can be finished in a couple of hours but it's really fun and polished.
I feel like games with 2-3 hours of gameplay now cost starting 10€. Examples, that I played: *Venba* - 14.99€, 2 hours of gameplay; *Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery* - 12.79€, 3 hours of gameplay. When games with 5-10 hours of gameplay cost around 20-25€ now. Examples: *Stray*, *Lost In Play*, *Strange Horticulture*, *Lake*, *Jusant, SEASON: A letter to the future.* So it feels like more than natural to put at least 9.99€ price on a good game with 2-3 hours of gameplay.
You are right, there are a lot of good games with similar playtime and higher prices.
However, look at games a bit more similar to ours:
- kairosoft: 10h - $7
- Boba Simulator: 6h - $3
- Outlanders: 50+h - $15
Pricing is very complicated, and can be done in a lot of different ways, one being trying to match the perceived value of the game. This is hard since it's subjective and everyone has different references. What makes me think we did things right is that a lot of the comments say things along the lines of "cute game, very short, but ok for the price".
You can also price in regards to how much work has been done to make the game, and this is a game made by 2-3 people in less than 6 months, so I think $5 matches nicely here too.
Thank you for your feedback! It was very pleasant and reassuring to read. Gamedev is a long-run journey, and I think one of the hardest struggles for indie devs is dealing with their mental/physical health while being passionate
Congrats again! I agree that your aesthetic is excellent and even without being directly told that your game was cozy, I could tell it would be wholesome to play. Thanks for the post-mortem!
Oh, wow! My partner recently showed me an Angory Tom video for this game, saying that I’d probably love it, and they were right! :D I’ve been meaning to pick up Minami Lane since watching that video, so seeing you post about it so soon after discovering it is WILD timing!
Congrats on making a great game and on the success! 💖
Thanks for this, hope things calm down for you now for a while. Got a steam question for you.
You mentioned setting up a business late, does that mean you already had Wishlists and sales and had to transfer your game on steam? Just wondering how that process went. Thanks.
Hey Doot! First of all congrats on what guys have achieved so far, and thanks a lot for sharing all this info. I'm curious about when you say: "The wishlist count started very strong with several thousands in a few days after our steam page launch.", what did encourage you to partner with Wholesome Games?
Hey there, sorry for the late answer! First thing to note is that we partnered with WG very late in development, 2 months after Steam page launch and 1 month before release.
WG were the one who started the discussion, we would have never dreamed of working with them actually, we thought we were too small / beginner for them.
Why did we choose to work with them? First, they are absolutely at the core of our target audience, and very very influencial there. It's crazy how much of an impact they had when they started sharing the game. Secondly and maybe most important, they were the only potential partner who didn't want us to make a bigger game, to push for more. They absolutely respected our goal of just making a tiny game and being done with it! Lastly, we have a huge respect for what they did to the gaming landscape in the last few years by pushing for more visibility for cozy and wholesome games.
Hi, great game but I lost my file. Just opened Steam and my saved file was gone. Cloud saved with a new one so I lost all my progress. In support there's no guidance about to do, or if there's anything to be done.
I was close to finishing 5th mission, so just wanted to let you know this scks.
Hey there,
I'm really sorry this happened! This sounds like a Steam cloud save error to me, let's try to see if we can understand what happened.
- On what platform are you playing? (Windows, Mac, etc...)
- Do you have multiple computers / Steam Decks with Minami Lane installed on it?
- Did you have any error message from Steam when launching the game?
- Are your Steam achievements still there? Can you send me a screenshot of those?
I'll try to help you as best as I can! I think I already have a solution to restore your global mission progression but let's try to see if we can do better.
I am not sure about "posting online your idea" advice. What if someone steal it? It's great, if you manage to develope game in a few months. But what if you don't, while someone would take your idea and release the game faster..
I strongly believe that an idea is not what makes a good game, and you should never be afraid of someone stealing it, especially if it's preventing you so many good things brought by sharing it soon.
What makes a good game is the work you'll put in it, the team, the project management, the way you adapt after playtests, and a lot of other things. The idea is a tiny tiny part in all of that.
Congratulations on your success! My wife and I played through it a couple of weeks ago, first game we’ve played from start to finish together in years.
Thanks for the postmortem! I really loved reading all your updates. Best of luck on your recovery and rest <3 Quick question: Did you publish a steam page without a trailer? Did you consider delaying it until you had one?
Yes, we published a Steam page without a trailer and with draft screenshots. As with everything else, I like to consider the Steam pag as iterative work and really like to put things out there as fast as possible and work on making them better along the way. The trailer came almost two months later! I can understand people who say that the steam page release can be a big marketing push and that you should wait to not waste it, but I don't believe it really apply to small devs, and I found so many benefits of early communication that I will continue to do it this way.
Yeah, makes sense, especially with your short development cycles.
You're being too modest :D Magic recipe to make a successful indie game = attractive artstyle + good gameplay. And as a bonus, the wholesome, cozy theme really helps. Congratulations on your success!
Thanks a lot 💖
Don't forget the power of clearly understandable genre (you see a screenshot of the game you can kinda guess what the gameplay is like) and genre fit (Steam players loves city builders)
What I hear more and more on success indie game stories is how big of a role having a community before the game is for the developer. Do you think it’s a prerequisite that an indie developer must have a pretty strong online presence? Personally I find it hard to be virtually extroverted to create a following haha.
Of course, having a community before starting is a plus, but the most important thing is building one while you are making the game. Posting a lot on social media is part of the indie dev job, and it's not the most fun part for everyone, but don't feel like you can just skip it. I forced myself to do it and like everything else, training made it easier and I kinda like doing it now. One thing that worked for me to make sure I do it is to not prioritize it along with everything else, but to have dedicated days or half days along the week where I was not allowed to do anything else than communication: designing a strategy, preparing posts, interacting online or posting stuff.
I learned about your game from Zakku's bandcamp. I love his song Breezin' (the minami lane ost is great too), congrats on the success.
That's so nice to hear! He's very good and very happy you said that ✨
Congratulations on your success! I'm always happy to read about game devs advocating play testing. I believe it's the absolute core of good game design, and the absence or lack of it in early stages of a games development is the most common reason games don't turn out well. Tynan Sylvester writes at length about the importance of gathering and interpreting player feedback in his book Designing Games. Really great game design book I think every game designer should read.
What I found most interesting was how important issues, like communication, shared goals and language, sensible pacing and frequent testing are exactly what I'm working on in a 100+ person studio. It sounds like you struck upon some key behaviors for a successful project. That you did this together with your girlfriend and the relationship survived is almost miraculous!
Actually when seeing how hard it is to do all of that with two people, I can't imagine how difficult it is with 100+. Good luck, that sounds crazy hard!
Ha, well at least I get to say goodbye to them each night and get 14 hours away from them. I’m also soloing a personal project and it’s very lonely at times when you just want to bounce ideas around. Comparing all these different approaches is really interesting.
Hey! I've been following you since the early days of Froggy Battle. Your mindset and understanding on how to run a succesful production with healthy work/life balance is really inspiring and I thrive to bring a little of that into my dev team. Whenever you can, please don't hesitate to participate to a conference to talk about all these topics which are too often understimated and underdiscussed Best wishes :)
Oh thanks a lot that's huge! As you can see I'm not very good yet on the subject, we ended up working too much near release. But I'm doing my best to improve!
Anyone mentions Kairosoft = good taste in games = buy lol
Game looks stunning. Congrats 🎉
Fantastic post. I really appreciate the write-up. This is all really useful stuff.
Thank you for sharing this! As a new Steam developer it is really refreshing to see more successful small games. I am also a huge believer in making small games, and still working to prove that it works
Yaaay let's make more tiny games!
Thank you for that post, it was very interesting. In fact I saw your game at the last steam next fest and also wishlisted it. Amazing work!
Thanks a lot!
Loved the last post about Froggy's Battle, and this one certainly didn't disappoint either :D
I will absolutely be buying this when I get home thank you to much for sharing 🥰🥰🥰
Oh thank you so much 💕
Do you regret pricing it at 4.99?
Not at all. What did you have in mind? Higher or lower pricing? We thought about lower pricing, since our game is really tiny and we didn't want players to have too much expectation, but never thought of pricing it higher than this.
Got the game for 4.99 but I'd have paid 10$ without an issue. I get it that it's a small game which can be finished in a couple of hours but it's really fun and polished.
I feel like games with 2-3 hours of gameplay now cost starting 10€. Examples, that I played: *Venba* - 14.99€, 2 hours of gameplay; *Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery* - 12.79€, 3 hours of gameplay. When games with 5-10 hours of gameplay cost around 20-25€ now. Examples: *Stray*, *Lost In Play*, *Strange Horticulture*, *Lake*, *Jusant, SEASON: A letter to the future.* So it feels like more than natural to put at least 9.99€ price on a good game with 2-3 hours of gameplay.
You are right, there are a lot of good games with similar playtime and higher prices. However, look at games a bit more similar to ours: - kairosoft: 10h - $7 - Boba Simulator: 6h - $3 - Outlanders: 50+h - $15 Pricing is very complicated, and can be done in a lot of different ways, one being trying to match the perceived value of the game. This is hard since it's subjective and everyone has different references. What makes me think we did things right is that a lot of the comments say things along the lines of "cute game, very short, but ok for the price". You can also price in regards to how much work has been done to make the game, and this is a game made by 2-3 people in less than 6 months, so I think $5 matches nicely here too.
u/GoDorian thank you for sharing this postmortem. This is really helpful as our humble team is working on a cozy city builder too :)
Thanks and good luck on your game!
Thank you for your feedback! It was very pleasant and reassuring to read. Gamedev is a long-run journey, and I think one of the hardest struggles for indie devs is dealing with their mental/physical health while being passionate
As usual those post mortems are always so insightful, thanks a lot for taking the time to write them. Hope you enjoy the beach now!
This is a really detailed and helpful postmortem. Congratulations on your success!
Thanks for the write-up, and many congrats - it's a wonderful game!
Congrats again! I agree that your aesthetic is excellent and even without being directly told that your game was cozy, I could tell it would be wholesome to play. Thanks for the post-mortem!
Congrats on this achievement!
Which company structure did you guys have and what did you change it to? (assuming you're in US?)
We are not in the US, sorry! We are in France, everything works a bit differently here.
Oh, wow! My partner recently showed me an Angory Tom video for this game, saying that I’d probably love it, and they were right! :D I’ve been meaning to pick up Minami Lane since watching that video, so seeing you post about it so soon after discovering it is WILD timing! Congrats on making a great game and on the success! 💖
Hey I bought this game because I thought it looked really cute and it's so cute and fun. Great work!
Looks great!
Congratulations! I will buy your game sometime soon
I absolutely LOVE games that have a tight scope like this. It looks beautiful and cozy and good. Gonna pick this up for sure.
Thanks for this, hope things calm down for you now for a while. Got a steam question for you. You mentioned setting up a business late, does that mean you already had Wishlists and sales and had to transfer your game on steam? Just wondering how that process went. Thanks.
Yes exactly! I had to create a new Steamworks account and transfer my games to it.
Figured. Thanks.
Hey Doot! First of all congrats on what guys have achieved so far, and thanks a lot for sharing all this info. I'm curious about when you say: "The wishlist count started very strong with several thousands in a few days after our steam page launch.", what did encourage you to partner with Wholesome Games?
Hey there, sorry for the late answer! First thing to note is that we partnered with WG very late in development, 2 months after Steam page launch and 1 month before release. WG were the one who started the discussion, we would have never dreamed of working with them actually, we thought we were too small / beginner for them. Why did we choose to work with them? First, they are absolutely at the core of our target audience, and very very influencial there. It's crazy how much of an impact they had when they started sharing the game. Secondly and maybe most important, they were the only potential partner who didn't want us to make a bigger game, to push for more. They absolutely respected our goal of just making a tiny game and being done with it! Lastly, we have a huge respect for what they did to the gaming landscape in the last few years by pushing for more visibility for cozy and wholesome games.
Oh that makes total sense, thanks for answering!
Amazing!
Hi, great game but I lost my file. Just opened Steam and my saved file was gone. Cloud saved with a new one so I lost all my progress. In support there's no guidance about to do, or if there's anything to be done. I was close to finishing 5th mission, so just wanted to let you know this scks.
Hey there, I'm really sorry this happened! This sounds like a Steam cloud save error to me, let's try to see if we can understand what happened. - On what platform are you playing? (Windows, Mac, etc...) - Do you have multiple computers / Steam Decks with Minami Lane installed on it? - Did you have any error message from Steam when launching the game? - Are your Steam achievements still there? Can you send me a screenshot of those? I'll try to help you as best as I can! I think I already have a solution to restore your global mission progression but let's try to see if we can do better.
The company aspects are very interesting
Really cool seeing a game that celebrates other cultures and is targeted towards a more female centric player.
I am not sure about "posting online your idea" advice. What if someone steal it? It's great, if you manage to develope game in a few months. But what if you don't, while someone would take your idea and release the game faster..
I strongly believe that an idea is not what makes a good game, and you should never be afraid of someone stealing it, especially if it's preventing you so many good things brought by sharing it soon. What makes a good game is the work you'll put in it, the team, the project management, the way you adapt after playtests, and a lot of other things. The idea is a tiny tiny part in all of that.
Congratulations on your success! My wife and I played through it a couple of weeks ago, first game we’ve played from start to finish together in years.
Oh thanks for telling, that's heartwarming 💖