Pixelnest - Steredenn Post-Mortem (Stunfest 2016)

Post-mortem of Steredenn, post-Steam and Xbox One releases.

By Matthieu Oger (@solarsailer - https://matthieuoger.com/) and Damien Mayance (@valryon - https://dmayance.com/), co-founders of Pixelnest Studio, during the Stunfest 2016 in Rennes.

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Version Française/French version:
https://speakerdeck.com/solarsailer/fr-pixelnest-steredenn-post-mortem-stunfest-2016

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Steredenn: http://steredenn.pixelnest.io/
Pixelnest: @pixelnest - http://pixelnest.io/

Transcript

1. “We craft games and apps” Pixelnest Studio
2. NB: the game is still not dead, though. post-mortem Steredenn
3. PIXELNEST STUDIO solarsailer.net & @solarsailer dmayance.com & @valryon MATTHIEU OGER DAMIEN MAYANCE
4. BEFORE steredenn ¯\_(ϑ)_/¯ "a bit of service, many prototypes, a ton of nothing"
6. Steredenn roguelike/shmup space shooter 35 weapons 30 environments 4 modes 25 upgrades 13 bosses 400+ waves indie PC/Mac/Linux Xbox One PIXEL ART hell, it's hard! infiniTe METÄL
7. WHY? We like shmups. (well, not THAT much) however, we had: created The Great Paper Adventure wrote Unity Tutorials made the Shmupfest sold BulletML for Unity Tech+Code+Know-How A solid game design Worst reason to make a video game? "And then, Simon draws space pirates in pixels like no one else."
8. HOW Long? "Well, we'll need 3 months to make a mobile game ready for the summer." — strategic meeting at Pixelnest (i.e. Skype), May 2014 (spoiler: the game will be released on October 1st, 2015 on PC/Mac/Linux )
9. EXPECTATIONS REALITY vs
10. WITH WHOM? Simon Coroller aka. Plus Pixels Shaper—the artist Etienne Marque Explosive Theatrical Experience—the sound designer Zander Noriega Heavy Riffs Maker—the musician Krokmou Destroyer Thanks to them but not him ➡
11. MONEY Self-funded Our friend Paul Services
12. SUCCESSES
13. Unity Cross-platform Well, it's actually really cool It works pretty well Pre-Handle tons of work Many abstractions Not so ridiculous performances Relatively simple API & ECOSYSTEM Sprites, collisions, physic, etc. Loads of plugins
14. Early access NO regret: IT WAS CLEARLY THE RIGHT THING TO DO Cash (nope) Quality & Polish Balance Content Community ❤ We added many critical features Marketing & Communication
15. Satisfaction Version 0.20+ Content (waves, bosses, weapons, etc.) Design Loop & flow Upgrades New UI Stability With the 1.0.0, we had the feeling that the game was complete
16. Satisfaction The feeling is here people say "it's addictive"
17. plug in digital No, it's not an ad, we are truly satisfied. tranquility & help And they are nice people. (Even Olivier ) Many resellers Console market more approachable Expert + Deals
18. FAILURES
19. Unity AWFUL user interface Click, click, click, click It's slow and crashes too often versioning console engines Sh** . What else… Messy documentation Unstable "final" versions Upgrading is imposed by consoles
20. Supermassive? Or how to lose time and visibility
21. Miscellaneous damien's internet connection planning (or the lack of) 18 months instead of 5 balance? we couldn't test it formally Matthieu "do something? do it again? nah, was better before".
22. Revenue shares & contracts no experience + business = oh my
23. usa & awards
24. PLATFORMS & comm'
25. pc/mac/linux release Shows? Way too expensive for what they brought. YouTube / Twitch So much mails (I mean, really) Tutorials Devblog Twitter Press Contacts Shows (Rezzed, Stunfest, TGS) Mailing list Steam Forums Interviews Facebook Reddit Ad Community TigSource (not involved enough)
26. Xbox one release Contrary to the PC market: no idea about what we needed to do. Hopefully, requests came massively all by themselves after the announcement.
27. Figures you only waited this long for that, didn't you?
28. 90% Steam 15/20 JeuxVideo.com 5/5 Extralife 8/10 CanardPC 8/10 Journal Du Gamer 8/10 Spaziogames 80% IGN Spain 80% Vandal online 90% ICXM 95% MODVIVE 9/10 TechViewWorld 9/10 EPicreviews 80% Irrompibles 17/20 Consolefun
29. and still no sales figure… 6 000+ sprites 6 903 commits 64 releases (game & level editor) 60 000+ LOC (Core & Ports)
30. 15 000+ units Steam (with Early Access), Humble, Xbox One, itch.io & all.
31. so? 1st october Pc/mac/linux XBOx One 1st APril All combined, it's honorable Beta/Early Access: ~10% / 6 months Double release Highest during releases / sales Disappointing Not the correct audience for Steredenn Despite small catalog Game still very young on this platform
32. what next? ps4 and other platforms but ports are exhausting
33. Conclusion All our excuses if you just said: "about time"
34. making a video game is madness even if largely ignored by the US press and critics We are satisfied
35. lol, we are making a new one
36. thanks! PIXELNEST STUDIO
37. Contact? pixelnest.io @pixelnest