本文原作者：Urbain Bruno 译者：ciel chen

《打字编年史》是一款打字冒险游戏，由Unity 3d游戏引擎开发制作，发行于2016年3月30日。这款游戏自发行起便受到评论家和玩家的一致好评，此外该游戏销量已超过10万（包括捆绑包）。

这是一个震撼人心的旅程！在这篇回顾文章里，我们会试着将这个我们了解并热爱的游戏开发过程——从游戏原型一直到游戏发行——整个呈现给你们。我们也会聊聊制作这样一个游戏我们做了多大的努力，尽管《打字编年史》不是一个AAA级大型游戏。但我们会分享我们一些成功、失败和错失机遇的历程。

我们试过很多种收藏图片的美术风格。这是第一种版本，没有出现在游戏中。

那段时光既是最美好的也是最糟糕的

在游戏开发中，最重要的事情就是识别和排除风险。想尝试最大胆最有特色的东西，你就得尽可能快地进行测试，因为你不会愿意在晚到来不及的时候还有一个讨人厌的惊喜来找你。在一个冒险型打字游戏中，因为我们不知道打字游戏机制是如何运作的：所以很早就做出了一个可玩的游戏原型。我们的首要目标是测试游戏机制与各个项目的交互情况，处理人物移动方式（当时是拼接的），以及探索、解密和竞技场战斗要如何结合。

游戏开发在早期是最好美好的时光，因为所有的机会都对你敞开，而且你可以尝试很多有趣的东西。但是同样那也是最糟糕的时光，因为你尝试的大部分内容都没有你想象中那么有趣。你会对游戏充满了乐观主义精神的同时又抱着怀疑的态度。

你可以看到我们的一开始做的游戏原型，但是那真的只是个准系统，里面没有任何美工内容（它是用Construct 2引擎制作的）。从那以后，就得从头重新开始开发了，我们使用了不同的游戏引擎（Unity 3D）,不过这个时候我们已经有了从原型那里得来的经验了。

当原型构造阶段结束后，我们的下一个目标就是着手定下这个打字游戏的类型，我们主要集中的想法还是做短回合制的街机类游戏。我们放弃了8个现成的巨型地下城和主地图，将目标锁定在了18个小地下城地图上。

我们作为一个相对小的游戏工作室，为了冒这个险，得先解决可用资金的问题。我们一开始的预算大概是12.5万欧元，但是最后我们需要30万欧元，我们之后会解释这当中的各种原因和经过。这是3.5个人一年半的费用。

第二款美工风格。没有出现在游戏中。

然后她骑在了一只大狐狸的背上

从有了第一个故事的想法开始，我们就希望能将打字的机制和写书的过程结合起来。于是我们开始一段遐想：我们希望玩家通过在这个梦幻世界的打字之旅，能在这个体现了作家内心世界的幻境中感受到作家的灵感源泉。正如游戏成品呈现的那样，在一开始，这个世界是空旷的，没有故事的，所以有很长一段时间我们把这个项目叫做《没有故事的女主角》（The Heroine of no Tale）。有个挺好玩的事情是：我们之前还曾经用过这个标题的缩写字母“THONT”来叫它，而且就算我们已经把它取名为Epistory之后还是用它用了很长一段时间。现在我们都叫它的小名“Epi”了。

如果你试玩过游戏原型版本，你会注意到女孩在行走的时候附近并没有什么狐狸。这只三尾大狐狸是以日本神话中的九尾狐为原型创造的，它的手工风格看上去很不错。但是它的真正存在原因是我们需要给这个女孩一个坐骑，所以我们可以让移动速度的增加变符合现实而不需要对这个世界规模作出改变。

我们工作室有一只巨型手工纸质狐狸！

在开发的起初，我们决定让《Epistory》成为项目运作新方法的试验品。所以我们没有项目管理人来做整个项目的监督，我们整个团队就是自己的管理者，不过我们有一个Fishing Cactus的主管来充当我们的客户/制作人。那个时候，我们一个团队就三个开发人员——一个游戏设计、一个程序员还有一个3D美工。每个人都是另外两个人的管理人，负责任务清单的更新、落实质量保证等等内容。

当然了，当这个项目一开始的时候，我们没有马上意识到这样一种组织意味着什么。总而言之，要做的事情真的很多！在游戏世界里还没有一个移动的人物的时候，创建一个任务清单好像没什么意义。随着时间发展，我们彼此之间逐渐有组织地把各个任务分派给经常为之做出处理的管理人。我们当中，有一个主要负责与外界（本地化和音频）的沟通，而另外一个就主要负责任务清单的完成对进度和截止日期的密切关注。在开发的末尾几个月，我们三人会花小几个小时来给任务清单和估计剩余时间做完整更新，这样可以确保我们前进的轨道依旧在预算内。

总而言之，我们认为这样的方法是可行的。是还有进步的空间没错，不过作为第一次试验，没有出现“火车事故”已经挺好了

第一个控制系统是从游戏原始模型那里继承过来的——属于拼接类型并且靠DFJK键来移动。我们对这种运作方式感到疲惫：因为那太慢了太笨拙了。我们很快改成了导航网格（navmesh-based）的行动方式，这样就给了玩家移动的自由。这样以后好多了：我们解谜的速度快了，也有了更好地探险体验。不过还有一些东西还是困扰着我们。

我们为什么用DFJK键而不是像其他游戏的WASD键呢？这是我们收到来自每个当时测试过我们游戏的人的疑问（就是在发行了以后也还是有很多人这么问！）。答案是我们不希望玩家养成不好的打字习惯，因为你在打字的时候是习惯这样的手势的。所以我们希望把控制键放在中间的字母上，这样你的手指就会自然地放在典型的打字位置上。不过基本方向控制键放在同一行字母键上确实很让人混乱。

所以我们就开始寻找更直观的控制键，同时又要保持好的打字姿势。在我们内部反复测试过各种古怪的控制键组合后（比如用八个建来控制八个方向之类的），我们决定使用EFJI键（加上在广泛的要求下，我们增加了WASD）。这样就保持跟默认的输入位置接近并且让每个对角方向有了对应键（因为我们采用的是等距视图，所以这样操作起来更自然）。这个组合最后通过了我们的“直观性”测试：能在地图上绕圈圈而且不用看键盘，这意味着你可以在在八个方向上自然地进行切换。

在我们开发的起初几个月，我们从自己工作室内部和外部的玩家那里都看到了对这个项目无限可能性的很大热情。一开始，我们不知道公众是否对这样一款打字游戏有所诉求，所以我们开始的时候真的很谨慎。后来我们蜻蜓点水地展示了一下这个游戏以后，我们知道了——我们能够做出让玩家感兴趣的游戏来。除那以外，Fishing Cactus工作室的第一款独立游戏为工作室形象画上了成功的一笔。

为此我们自信心倍增，决定在这个项目上投入更多的资源、大量增加预算。一款本来应该是小型的街机游戏，现在将以更深入故事历程为特色，成为一款整体规模更大的游戏。这款游戏本来就有一个优势：我们早先已经为即将来临的Gamecorn做好了一个游戏短demo，我们已经在游戏玩法方面领先了一步。

我们小说创作中的第一个袭击只是作为一种概念性的证据而存在而非真正故事内容的一部分。游戏一开始的陨石坠落是唯一在游戏成品中存留下来的内容。很显然，相关文本都已经改动过了。

我们试图自己来编这个故事但是很快地我们明白：a)我们没有这方面技能的天赋；b)我们光是做这个游戏就已经非常忙了。于是我们请求作家们来信为我们的游戏故事构造一个框架。我们收到很多答复：作品有的是搞笑的，有的是有点叫人坐立不安的，然而其中有一份作品让我们为之一振，让我们相信这就是我们游戏需要的故事。

叙述者寻找着一种灵感，一种能让故事有更深入的发展，还能让不同层次的读者接受的灵感。我们为了给玩家一些提示，利用不同的字体和声音。你可以点这里读读有关这个故事的内容，别怕没有剧透。

随着故事就位以后，我们开始搜寻声音。我们需要一个声音能表达出这个故事该有的情感。很奇怪的是，我们收到了很多类似商业电台的音频样本。其实它们本身都还不错，不过离我们想要的还有一段距离。最终，我们找到了她——Rachael Maesser！她有过很多的游戏配音的经验，而她的声音正是Epistory需要的。

接下来要迈出的一大步是根据新的故事内容重新写游戏介绍以及完成第一个地下城地图。我们的目标是将游戏最初的高质量延续到最后，也可以说就像做一个大型vertical slice那样。

通常来说，vertical slice(或者缩写为VSD的vertical slice demo)是游戏早期demo，主要是为了展示游戏的最佳运行状态。它为最终视觉质量和游戏体验设立了目标，不过这只针对游戏的一小部分来说的。你可以想象成我们做出了游戏成品，然后随便截下的一小段都可以拿出来当vertical slice这样。

最后，终于到了这一天。2015年9月30日，我们发行了Epistory抢先体验版，让玩家体验故事的第一章节(8个地下城中的2个地图)。游戏抢先版跟迷你版相似：在完整版中体验的轻松乐趣在抢先版也能体验到，不过跟完整版比起来，抢先版吸引的玩家会比较少就是了。不过由于游戏没完成，你得跟什么都没发生一样回头继续做游戏。

好吧，实际上不会这样的，因为当你第二天醒来的时候，你会收到很多游戏漏洞和特色的反馈。不过大部分是关于漏洞就是了。也就是说我们有更多的事情要做了——而且要尽快，因为你在做游戏的时间里，看到这个游戏的新玩家会越来越多。虽然这些反馈会让人产生压力，不过这些都是我们别想从工作室内测中得到的宝贵反馈。所以呢，感谢愿意花时间给我们写评论和反馈的所有人，谢谢你们。

游戏的早期核心玩家组帮助我们游戏打响了知名度。我们发行抢先体验版就是为了这个：我们希望在游戏正式发行之前组建一个以该游戏为中心的玩家群体。我们有Steam上的评论、社交网络上的分享、媒体覆盖、以及口头宣传。毕竟你作为一个独立游戏人，没有跟开发游戏费用差不多的营销预算，有没有玩家社区是游戏能否在商业上取得成功的关键因素。

这是我们选定的第三款美工风格

很自然地，我们会根据故事的发展顺序来开发和增添游戏的余下内容。最初我们是计划在抢先版基础上一章节一章节地来发行，而我们也确实这样做了第二章的发行。但是这个方法让我们在做临时游戏版本时花了太多的时间，然而我们需要把时间尽可能地花在游戏的打磨上。况且我们也没有因为更新而得到更多的销量和可见度，我们决定耐下性子把游戏剩余部分做好了再一起发行。

接下来聊到地下城迷宫的时候，我们会逐一地透露一些关于它们的轶事。

作为第一个做出来的地下城地图——Burning Hollow是重做最多次的地图，因为我们是线性初学者，我们得从头开始添加隐藏宝藏点和回程点；Forgotten Forest和Drownig Halls在设计上会更直接一些：前一个地图的重点是在森林里迷失（超出了我们能在开放型世界做到的那样）；后一个地图重点是解谜；Ice Mausoleum地图中的很多道具都是Burning Hollow里面的修订版，因为这两个都是地下洞穴类型的地图；唯一的区别就是我们给这个地图设定的海拔比较高。

关于游戏的后半部分，在有了更多的经验的情况下，我们不再希望单调无聊地重复前面的内容。所以我们尝试了一些不一样的地图，主要是希望它们能更立体一些。Creation Ctiy地图的制作正符合了我们的期望：它有7层，在你战斗到最顶层时，你可以从高处看到下面的一切。所有的东西都按照阶层排布的，而高于你的阶层会隐藏，这样才不会挡到屏幕的视图；这几幅地图中，技术挑战最高的要属Crystalline Mine，因为我们给它增加了新游戏系统在里面——切换灯光玩法。我们必须把这里所有的灯都设置好以便把单词隐藏在黑暗中，做这个系统的实际操作远比我们想象的要复杂很多。Forgotten Forest的有很多悬浮在水平线下的小岛，Shattered Isles就是在这些小岛的启发下设计的地图。最后一个地图——Lost Desert采用了对山脉的常规视角以象征游戏的终极目标。你在那里可以看到山脉的额外部分，这部分是你真的到山上反而看不到的。
整整八年，我们在为别人开发游戏的同时秘密地策划这个游戏，直到开发商最后决定发行它。所以，我们的首要问题是：我们该在什么时候公布这个游戏？早早地在游戏开发期间就公布？这个主意确实很诱人也确实就是我们想要的，但真正的问题在于：什么才是游戏需要的？
把打字游戏作为你发行的第一款游戏是个很大的挑战。我们知道，Epistory一开始本来应该是个相当小型的游戏。它常常被归类为教育类游戏，我们想强调的重点是它的美工风格和“RPG+冒险+解密”的游戏类型，所以在早期我们收到游戏社区的反馈后，我们想到了一个标语：“如果《塞尔达传说》(Zelda)和键盘有了宝宝，那这个宝宝的名字会是《Epistory》”

我们其实不喜欢单单为了解释就把自己的游戏跟别的游戏作比较，但是由于它的概念实在是太模糊了，我们似乎不得不这么做。

我们整个团队都有参与到公共交流中，这对于我们来说是非常有利的——这节省了我们的时间，更好地展示了团队形象，而且在我们要举办活动或者写关于游戏开发的文章时，还方便了我们对玩家社区管理。我们总的想法就是希望能尽我们所能地，为了追随这个游戏的玩家，做到真实而坦诚地呈现出这个游戏的开发历程。我们不久以后会发表一篇更深入的玩家社区策略文的。

我们的一张营销用图

在整个游戏抢先试玩的发行过程中，我们在Steam论坛上都小心地保持在线、活跃以及乐于提供帮助的状态。我们当时（现在也一样）坚定不移地坚信玩家和开发团队的直接交流是最好的交流方式。这缔造了强有力的玩家社区，我们就是光在那里呆着也会得到很多玩家的表扬。同样地，能够跟stream用户和youtube用户进行交流真是太好了，他们大多数是我们在视频下的评论或者聊天中偶遇到的，这对我们来说真是惊喜。

因为我们没有资源来组织大范围的游戏测试，对“Let’s Plays”的查阅就是我们寻找bug和进行玩家行为分析的主要来源了。我们在视频中发现玩家无法完全弄懂火焰魔法的燃烧效果后，我们就更新了指导信息让玩家更容易明白。顺便在这里我想感谢所有给过我们出色反馈的streams和LPers。

在2016年二月份，包含了两个章节的游戏抢先版发行以后，游戏的整体已经准备就绪了。游戏的最后一个地图已经添上了的末尾的润色，bug也在随着我们对游戏的打磨一天天地减少，我们的游戏整装待发地等待着那天（发行日）的到来。

很快，再过几周就是：发行日！

游戏已经被打磨得光光亮亮都能反光了。我们用了几个月的时间完成了游戏原型构建，而后用了一年半的时间进行游戏开发，终于，我们做好了准备，准备按下这个绿色发行按钮。

在随后的几天里，我们欣喜若狂。玩家们喜欢这款游戏！评论家也喜欢！我们好爱自己的游戏，我们为自己的成就而感到无比自豪！

但是这还只是旅程的第一个部分。时至今日，在游戏发行一年以后，Epistory还在努力前行着——尽管速度缓慢，因为我们团队大部分人都已经将注意力投注到其他项目中了。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao
Epistory is a typing adventure game, built with Unity3D and released on March 30, 2016. It received very positive reviews – both from critics and players – and sold over 100k copies (including bundles). You can see the game’s Steam page here. We recently opened a Discord channel for the company, which you can join using this link: discord.gg

It’s been one hell of a ride! In this retrospective article, we’ll try to give you a sense of progression from the early prototypes up to the release of the game we all know and love. We’ll also talk about the great endeavor a game like this represents, even though Epistory isn’t a big game by AAA standards. We’ll share some of our successes, failures and missed opportunities.

fire dungeon clr watercolorWe tried several art styles for the collectible images. First try, not in the game.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

The most critical thing to do in game development is to identify and remove the risks. You take the riskiest feature, and you try it as fast as possible because you don’t want a nasty surprise when it’s too late to make changes. With an adventure typing game, we didn’t know how the typing mechanic would work out: so we created a playable prototype very early on. Our primary goals were to test a typing mechanic to interact with items, handle character movement (which was tile-based at the time), and the mixture of exploration, puzzles and arena fights.

Early game development is the best part because all opportunities are still open and you get to try a lot of interesting things. But it is also the worst part as most of what you try is not as interesting as expected. You experience optimism and doubt at the same time.

You can see our first working prototype yourself, but keep in mind that it is really barebone and that no artist was involved (it is made with the Construct 2 engine). After that point, development restarted from scratch, with a different engine (Unity 3D), but with all the experience we gathered from the prototype.

Play the prototype

There was a girl

When the prototyping phase ended, our next goal was to find a new take on the typing game genre, mostly focused on arcade gameplay for short game sessions. We were aiming for 18 short dungeons instead of the 8 large dungeons and overworld we currently have.

Being a relatively small studio, we had to settle on the amount of money available for this adventure. At the beginning, our budget was around €125k. We’ll explain later why and how but by the end, we were talking about €300k. That’s 3 and a half people for a year and a half.

fire dungeon clrSecond art style. Not in the game.

And she rode upon the back of a great fox

Since the first story ideas, we tried to link the typing mechanic with the process of writing a book. We started with a muse giving a writer’s inspiration by typing words in a fantasy world which represented the writer’s mind. As in the final game, at the beginning the world is empty and there is no story, so the project was called The Heroine of no Tale for quite some time. Mildly interesting fact: we got used to the acronym “THONT” and used it for a long time even after we named the game Epistory. Now the nickname is simply “Epi”.

If you launched the prototype, you’ll have noticed that the girl was walking and that there was no fox around. The great three-tailed fox is based on a mythical creature, a Japanese nine-tailed fox, which looked good in a papercraft style. But the real reason for its existence is that we needed to give the girl a mount, so that we could realistically increase movement speed without changing the world scale.

paper fox crop
We have a giant paper fox in the studio!

But they were lost

At the start of the development, it was decided that Epistory would serve as an experiment for a new way to manage our projects. Instead of having one project manager serving as an overseer for the whole project, the whole team would be its own manager while one of the Fishing Cactus directors would act as a client/producer. At that time, there were only three developers in the team. One game designer, one programmer and one 3D artist. Each acted as the manager of the other two, responsible for updating the task list, validation of quality standard and so on.

Of course, when the project first started we didn’t immediately see the implications of that kind of organization. After all, there’s so much to do! Creating a list of tasks feels pointless when you don’t even have a character moving in the game world. Over time, we organically divided the tasks usually dealt with by a project manager among ourselves. One of us would mostly handle the communication with the externs (localization and audio) while another would mostly deal with the task lists and keep an eye on the schedule and deadlines. In the last few months of development, the three of us would take a few hours to do a full update of the task list and the estimated time left, to make sure we were still on target budget-wise.

All in all, we think it worked OK. There’s room for improvement, but as a first experiment, it could have been a train wreck!

They had always been lost

The first control system, inherited from the prototype, was tile-based and used DFJK to move. We grew tired of the way this worked: it was too slow, too clunky. We quickly changed over to navmesh-based movement, to unleash the player’s freedom of movement. This was a lot better: we solved puzzles faster and had a better sense of exploration. But something kept nagging at us.

Why did we use DFJK to move instead of WASD like any other game? That’s the question we got from everyone who tested the game at that point (and continued to hear even after release!). The answer is that we did not want the game to teach a bad typing behavior, because by playing you’ll get used to typing that way. So we wanted to place the control keys on the middle row, where your fingers are supposed to rest on a typical typing position. But having cardinal direction controls aligned on a single row was very confusing.

So we began searching for more intuitive controls while maintaining good typing form. After repeated internal playtests of many weird control schemes like 8 keys to handle 8 directions, we settled on EFJI (plus, after popular demand, we added WASD). This stays close to the default typing position and puts each diagonal direction to the corresponding key (that works more naturally because of our isometric-like view). That binding passed our ultimate “intuitivity” test: running in perfect circles without looking at the keyboard, which means that you can switch naturally between the eight possible directions.

EPI The Retrospective Article
Final recommended movement keys

Until a path appeared

A few months after starting development, we saw more enthusiasm for the project’s potential both inside the studio and among players. At first, we didn’t know if there would be public demand for a typing game so we were really cautious. After showing the game a bit, we knew that we would be able to make something that players would be interested in. Besides that, the first independent game of Fishing Cactus has to be a critical success for the studio’s image.

Our confidence was increasing and we decided to commit more resources to the project, considerably increasing its budget. What was supposed to be a small-ish arcade game was now going to feature a deeper story and have a bigger scope overall. The game was already in an advanced state: we had prepared a short demo for the upcoming Gamescom and we had the first hour or so of gameplay ready.

early textOur first foray into story writing was mostly as a proof of concept rather than actual storytelling. The meteor strike at the beginning of the game is the only one that stayed in the final game. Of course, the associated text changed.

 

We tried doing the story ourselves but it quickly became clear that, a) we were not gifted for that skill and b) we already had a lot of work just creating the game. We applied for pitches from writers for the game with story and structure intentions. We received a lot of answers: some of them were comical, some were a bit disturbing, but one struck us as the perfect match for the game.

The narrator looking for inspiration shifted to a deeper story which can be read on different levels. We use different fonts and voices to give the player a few hints. You can read more about the story without spoilers.

With the story in place, we began searching for a voice. We needed someone who was capable of reaching the emotions needed for the story. Strangely enough, we received a lot of samples sounding like a radio commercial. Not bad by itself but so far from what we were looking for. Finally, we found her! Rachael Maesser has a lot of experience voicing games and her voice was just right for Epistory.

And so she followed

The next big step was to rework the introduction of the game according to the new story direction and finish the first dungeon. The goal was to bring that first hour of the game to final quality, kind of like a large vertical slice.

Usually, a vertical slice (or VSD for vertical slice demo) is an early demo of the game that aims to show how the game could be at its best. It sets the target for the final visual quality and gameplay experience, but only for a small part of the game. Imagine that we take the final game and cut a thin slice of it; that’s your vertical slice.

With one hour of gameplay at the middle of Epistory’s development, we had the same objective as a vertical slice but with a larger chunk of the game. The other objective of polishing that part of the game was to get it ready for an early access release.

Was the path leading her?

And finally, that day came. We released Epistory in early access on September the 30th 2015 with the first chapter of the story (two of the eight dungeons). An early access release is like a mini-release: you feel the same joy and relief of leaving your game to the players, though it reaches a smaller audience than a full release. But the game is not finished so you come back the next day as if nothing had happened.

Well, actually not, because when you wake up the next day, you have received a lot of feedback for bugs and features. Mostly bugs. That means extra work for us to do – and quickly, because new players are seeing the game while you are working. It can be stressful, but that is valuable feedback we could never hope to get from internal playtests alone. So, thank you to all of you who took the time to write comments and send feedback.

That core group of early players also helps the game grow in popularity. And that is the other reason we released in early access: to build a community around the game before the actual launch. We get Steam reviews, shares on social networks, media coverage and word of mouth. When you are an indie and don’t have a marketing budget that equals your development cost, it is what makes the difference between a commercial success or failure.

scene dungeon fireThird and chosen art style for the collectible images.

Or was she leading it?

Naturally, we developed and added the rest of the game in the order of the story. The initial plan was to release it chapter by chapter throughout the early access, and we did that for the second chapter. But that method was taking us too much time to make temporary versions of the game, and we needed that time to make the game as polished as it could be. Since the updates were not really followed by more sells or visibility, we took the decision to wait and release the rest of the game in one batch.

While we are talking about the dungeons we can reveal some small anecdotes for each one.

As the first one to be made, Burning Hollow, has been the most reworked dungeon. From a linear beginner level, we restarted from scratch to add hidden treasures and backtracking. Forgotten Forest and Drowning Halls were more straightforward to design: the first one is focused on getting lost in a forest (more than what we could do in the overworld). The second is focused on solving puzzles. Ice Mausoleum has a lot of props which are modified versions of the ones in Burning Hollow as they are basically both underground caverns. One difference is that we added a bit of elevation on this one.

For the next half of the game, we were more experienced and we didn’t want to make the same thing over and over. So we tried to make the dungeons look different, mostly by making them less flat. Creation City does exactly that: it has 7 stages and from the final fight at the top you can see everything behind. All items are sorted by stage and the stages above you are hidden so they do not block the camera. The more technically challenging was probably the Crystalline Mine, because we added a new gameplay system with light switching. Setting all those lights and having the words hidden in the dark was way more complicated than we expected. Shattered Isles’ design is inspired by the part in Forgotten Forest where you can see small islands floating under the level. Finally, Lost Desert has regular point of view of the mountain that symbolizes your final goal. The mountain you see there has additional parts that are hidden when you actually reach it.

She didn’t know. It was just there

For eight years, we developed games for others and we used to keep our games secret until the publisher decided to release it. So, our first question was: when should we make the game public? Having the choice of going public early in development was quite shiny and new and definitely what we wanted. But the real question was: what did the game need?

Releasing a typing game as your first product is a big challenge. We knew from the beginning that Epistory was going to be a fairly niche game. Too often categorized as an educational game, we tried to emphasize on the art style and the “RPG – Adventure – Puzzle” side of it and after early feedback from the community, we came up with a tagline: “If Zelda and a keyboard had a baby, it would be Epistory.”

We didn’t like to explain our game solely by comparing it to others, but with such a nebulous concept, it felt like a necessity.

Our whole team got involved with public communications, which was definitely an advantage to us. It saved us time and helped present a better image of ourselves. It helped with community management, both during events and when we needed to write articles about development. The idea was to try our best to give a real, honest insight into development to people who followed the project. We will publish an article diving deeper into our communication strategy soon.

epistory hd fix2One of our marketing image.

All of a sudden, she knew where she was

Throughout early access we were careful to always be present, active and helpful in the Steam forums. We were (and still are) firm believers in direct communication between players and the development team. It creates a strong community and we even received praise just for being there. It’s also great to get to interact with streamers and youtubers, mostly as a surprise random encounter in the video’s comments or the chat.

Since we don’t have the resources to organize extensive playtests, checking Let’s Plays was a major source for bug hunting and player behavior analysis. Our tutorial messages were updated to be clearer after seeing videos with players not fully understanding the fire magic burning effect. Thanks, by the way, to any streams and LPers who gave us this excellent feedback!

By February 2016, after releasing two chapters on early access, most of the game was ready. The finishing touches were being added to the last dungeon of the game. The ending sequence and the accompanying video were being finalized. The list of bugs was shrinking day by day as we polished the game, getting it ready for its big day.

She was home

Fast forward a few weeks and: Launch Day!

The game has been polished until it shines like a mirror. After several months of prototyping, followed by a year and a half of production, we were finally ready to hit the big green LAUNCH button.

In the days that followed, we were ecstatic. The players loved the game, the critics loved the game, we loved the game and we were proud of our achievement.

But this was only the first part of the journey. To this day, one year after that release, Epistory is still being worked on – albeit at a slow pace since most of us have moved on to other projects.（source：gamasutra.com ）