Today we're launching Secrets of Grindea on Steam Early Access! By the time this post publishes, it's probably due any minute.
We've been working towards this launch for a few weeks, but
because reasons, we had to launch it a bit earlier than we anticipated. Because of this change of plans, I've spent most of the day last minute bug testing to ensure that the new stable build
is as stable as possible. Depending on how many new users we get from this launch I suspect Teddy will be quite busy dealing with bugs in the coming few days/weeks as well.. How much it'll affect me remains to be seen - graphic bugs/mistakes are known to happen!
Other than that I honestly have no idea what to expect from our Early Access launch. I believe most people who know about the game and are interested in playing it before it's officially done have already bought it through our site. Since we haven't done or plan on doing any additional PR stuff around this launch, I don't know how many additional people will hear about it. So I guess the player increase will mostly depend on how many haven't bought it yet due to the limited payment options of the Humble widget, as well as people who for other reasons didn't wanna buy it until it was properly available through the Steam store.
The thing is, you never know what's gonna happen, ever. When we first started making this game, we made a random devlog thing on TIGSource, which led to a post about our game over at Indiegames.com. At that time, we had no site or anything, all we had was an incredibly silly YouTube video on Fred's private YouTube account, where
tons (thousands) of people viewed it before we even understood what happened.
That shit is scary.
Though of course, we're a bit more prepared today, and I honestly see no reason for anything crazy to happen because of this launch. But you never know in this business. You really don't have a clue. And at this point, I don't even know what I hope for.
I mean sure, if people start talking about the game more and it generates buzz on its own because of Early Access, that would be great! Actually, scratch that - it would be super awesome! But the game is still in Early Access and not finished, and a lot of people won't get the complete experience, the way it should be played and experienced. I can't help wondering how many people who buy the game now will play through Temple of Seasons, realize there's no more content right now, then forget about the game forever?
Oh well. This is turning into a long rambling, but I guess there's one way of seeing it: whatever happens today, whether the player base stays the same of increases like crazy, they're both positives in their own way.
I'd like to thank you all for being such awesome supporters of Grindea, you guys really are the best. (And for those of you who read this entire thing, wow you got some stamina! :D) Now, here's to hoping everything goes smoothly today!
