COLONY SHIP

[POOPERSCOOPER]

What does Rusty think of this game?

[Element]

Forgot about this completely. Agentorange was right, though, it doesn't live up to AoD. Bowed out about half way through. Too dull.

[rusty_shackleford]

What does Rusty think of this game?

Didn't play it because it looks very boring tbh.

[Nammu Archag]

so pay, pirate, or pass guys? I never played AoD for reference

[Nemesis]

so pay, pirate, or pass guys? I never played AoD for reference

Pass

[Element]

so pay, pirate, or pass guys? I never played AoD for reference

Would recommend AoD instead. However, expect to suffer a lot on your first playthrough. It's not for everyone, but when it clicks it's awesome.
If you're intent of CS, I'd pirate it first.

[Hauberk]

AoD is a very good rpg and I recommend you to try it, @Nammu Archag.

But as the others have said, it is not for everyone. Violence is the most difficult route. You will usually be outnumbered. A talker might fare well but know it is easy to maneuver into a fight which is a death sentence for a weak character. As it would be in real life. Also, much of the game is essentially a text adventure. It's better to specialise in a select few skills rather than to be a jack of all trades.

[Nammu Archag]

AoD is a very good rpg and I recommend you to try it, @Nammu Archag.

But as the others have said, it is not for everyone. Violence is the most difficult route. You will usually be outnumbered. A talker might fare well but know it is easy to maneuver into a fight which is a death sentence for a weak character. As it would be in real life. Also, much of the game is essentially a text adventure. It's better to specialise in a select few skills rather than to be a jack of all trades.

Thanks for the recs, looks like I'll just be playing AoD next then

[Hauberk]

Let us know what you think when you've played it for a while!

[Element]

AoD is a very good rpg and I recommend you to try it, @Nammu Archag.

But as the others have said, it is not for everyone. Violence is the most difficult route. You will usually be outnumbered. A talker might fare well but know it is easy to maneuver into a fight which is a death sentence for a weak character. As it would be in real life. Also, much of the game is essentially a text adventure. It's better to specialise in a select few skills rather than to be a jack of all trades.

Thanks for the recs, looks like I'll just be playing AoD next then

Just make sure to stick to whatever playstyle you pick at character creation, and invest points accordingly. Also it doesn't hurt to always have a bank of points in reserve, since the game has so many hard checks for skills, so that you can quickly reload, upgrade that skill and continue that quest onwards in the way you want.

[Acrux]

Also, I really hope you enjoy visual novels, because that's what you'll be playing.

[Goth-Girl-Supremacy]

Of course the BG3 fags would talk down a good game like AoD.

[Nammu Archag]

Also, I really hope you enjoy visual novels, because that's what you'll be playing.

As long as the writing is good that's fine

[Element]

Also, I really hope you enjoy visual novels, because that's what you'll be playing.

Could only be called that if the combat didn't exist, or was very rudimentary. But it isn't.

[Acrux]

You know what, you're right. It's not a visual novel. It's a puzzle game.

[rusty_shackleford]

just heard ITS is shutting down because colon shit barely sold any copies
as someone who repeatedly got push-back for pointing out how terrible ITS design is, I am here to gloat.


ITS games are the trannies of RPGs, CYOAs wearing RPG clothing. Vince never understood fallout, didn't even know you could blow up doors. Surprised he can put his clothes on without a dialogue prompt.

[edit]

Dungeon rats was pretty good before he ruined it with an update tho.

[Goblin_Hammer]

just heard ITS is shutting down because colon shit barely sold any copies
as someone who repeatedly got push-back for pointing out how terrible ITS design is, I am here to gloat.


ITS games are the trannies of RPGs, CYOAs wearing RPG clothing. Vince never understood fallout, didn't even know you could blow up doors. Surprised he can put his clothes on without a dialogue prompt.

[edit]

Dungeon rats was pretty good before he ruined it with an update tho.

I thought Age of Decadence was a decent game, the writing was sometimes very reddit, and the combat brutal but an fun game.

[Segata]

just heard ITS is shutting down because colon shit barely sold any copies
as someone who repeatedly got push-back for pointing out how terrible ITS design is, I am here to gloat.


ITS games are the trannies of RPGs, CYOAs wearing RPG clothing. Vince never understood fallout, didn't even know you could blow up doors. Surprised he can put his clothes on without a dialogue prompt.

[edit]

Dungeon rats was pretty good before he ruined it with an update tho.

From what I've read here, on the codex thread and /vrpg/, they took all the wrong lessons from AoD and none of the positives. Despite loving AoD, I've never felt compelled to try this one, there entire game seemed uninteresting from the outside and then the user reviews sealed the deal.

I just wish somebody would make a good solo rpg again.

[Element]

Devastating news. Even though CS can grow dull by the half way point, it's still a good stab at the genre. AoD is a classic; the c&c and the combat alone that are on offer are superior to a lot of shit on the market. Haven't played anything quite like it since release, and now that IT is collapsing it's likely I never will. The CYOA canard is laughable. Most games don't do a quarter of AoD's reactivity despite being 'free-form'.

Vince says it's 50-50 on whether another game will be made. I will hope I will get to play another one of his games, and that we'll see return to AoD

[Lord of Riva]

A shame, it was decent really.

Certainly not perfect though but I guess being middle of the road is not sufficient.

[1998]

just heard ITS is shutting down because colon shit barely sold any copies
as someone who repeatedly got push-back for pointing out how terrible ITS design is, I am here to gloat.


ITS games are the trannies of RPGs, CYOAs wearing RPG clothing. Vince never understood fallout, didn't even know you could blow up doors. Surprised he can put his clothes on without a dialogue prompt.

[edit]

Dungeon rats was pretty good before he ruined it with an update tho.

Still bad news.

Sure, Vince went way too extreme in certain ways and he should have really included some designer who would actually dare to challenge him.

But at least he tried to create a true RPG something very rare these days. I would have given them another shot with their next game.

[rusty_shackleford]

Devastating news. Even though CS can grow dull by the half way point, it's still a good stab at the genre. AoD is a classic; the c&c and the combat alone that are on offer are superior to a lot of shit on the market. Haven't played anything quite like it since release, and now that IT is collapsing it's likely I never will. The CYOA canard is laughable. Most games don't do a quarter of AoD's reactivity despite being 'free-form'.

Vince says it's 50-50 on whether another game will be made. I will hope I will get to play another one of his games, and that we'll see return to AoD

A shame, it was decent really.

Certainly not perfect though but I guess being middle of the road is not sufficient.

just heard ITS is shutting down because colon shit barely sold any copies
as someone who repeatedly got push-back for pointing out how terrible ITS design is, I am here to gloat.


ITS games are the trannies of RPGs, CYOAs wearing RPG clothing. Vince never understood fallout, didn't even know you could blow up doors. Surprised he can put his clothes on without a dialogue prompt.

[edit]

Dungeon rats was pretty good before he ruined it with an update tho.

Still bad news.

Sure, Vince went way too extreme in certain ways and he should have really included some designer who would actually dare to challenge him.

But at least he tried to create a true RPG something very rare these days. I would have given them another shot with their next game.

Nope.

[Eyestabber]

Where did you get that info? There's nothing on discord or steam

[Element]

Where did you get that info? There's nothing on discord or steam

Think Vince mentioned it on his forums

[wndrbr]

Vince also commented on Colony Ship's financial failutre here. There's a pretty interesting back and forth regarding game's marketing (or lack thereof).

You just can't keep developing videogames for seven years with sales like that. And with that kind of marketing.

I'm constantly plagued by the need to search for generic images for game news thumbnails. There's a press site called Games Press, and they have all sorts of stuff on there. It's one of the most famous sources of press releases and presskits. So, the presskit with Colony Ship concept art is available for paid accounts only. And the official Iron Tower site is permanently down (and i'm not even sure if those materials are available there). As a result, I'm forced to stitch together various pieces of artwork found on the web through Photoshop - the thumbnail image for this newspost was made this morning.

Presskit is the most important thing. I'm autistic enough to bother with photoshopping and using ai-upscalers to improve the low-quality pictures so i could use them as thumbnails on my site. But an average editor of some large publication will just write news about some other game instead, because other game's devs have sent him all the materials through email, along with a Google Disk link to the presskit.

The press releases aren't great either, and they should be. Newsposts are usually being written based on dev's press releases.

Also, the way the dev publishes the new info about the game should be more concise. I used to translate large updates for my site (such as this one), but they were getting bigger and bigger every time - eventually I just got burned out and stopped doing it. You have to realize that such updates are made for those who are already interested in the game. And those who are not sold on the game yet would prefer posts to be more concise and to the point, they'd prefer short videos with showcases, even if the videos are just slides with voice-over.

that kind of marketing

No money, no marketing. And no, a press-kit won't make any difference. Or a press-release that nobody reads. To do well, one needs:
- a proper marketing campaign (need at a least 100k)
- media love and attention, goes hand-in-hand with a large marketing budget
- big name Youtubers
- Steam's front page

I'd rather Vince do some market analysis and go on Kickstarter....

It won't make any difference either.

There's a press site called Games Press, and they have all sorts of stuff on there. It's one of the most famous sources of press releases and presskits. So, the presskit with Colony Ship concept art is available for paid accounts only

No idea why they're charging money for it. We certainly don't sell press-kits

I pointed out the unavailability of the press kit as an example of lack of marketing. But even if you think so, it wouldn’t hurt to still make it accessible.

Or a press-release that nobody reads.

Yeah... Except for the editors who write the news. I worked for one of the largest Russian video game sites, and I know very well that press releases are useful. A good press release is almost ready-made news article that just needs to be rephrased (or translated in our case).

What's better, sending out one press release to 500 sites and getting 10 coverages, or not sending it out and getting nothing?

Also, decent journalists always go to the source (press release) to avoid introducing other people's factual errors into their article.

And sending out press releases (namely sending out emails to press) is very helpful in generating basic awareness about the game among journalists.

What's better, sending out one press release to 500 sites and getting 10 coverages, or not sending it out and getting nothing?

There's coverage and there's coverage. For example, for EA launch we hired a small marketing agency and they sent out a bunch of nice press-releases and contacted every YTer in their database. Three months later they did a targeted push for the gaming media. The results were poor - a few sites reposted the press-release which did nothing (no sales spike or wishlist spike), but no major previews or impressions. We emailed them too, of course, everyone who covered AoD. Didn't get a single reply.

Most YT videos do very little (or nothing at all). Splattercat's videos work well and always generate a spike rivalling summer sale events. Mortismal's videos don't have the same effect. No spike from Warlockracy either despite 258k views. Not sure why. Maybe different audience. We contacted a lot of YTers ourselves including Sseth and Mando. They didn't say no but didn't say yes either, so a weak maybe down the road.

For example, for EA launch we hired a small marketing agency

Companies like that often don't know how to work with the audience of a specific game, especially when it comes to RPGs. I have experience interacting with them, as well as with publishers who outsource marketing to such agencies. In particular, it was this approach that ruined Versus Evil. I saw this crap from the inside and was shocked by the unprofessionalism of everyone involved in the launch of Pillars of Eternity II.

There's coverage and there's coverage, you're right. But I don't trust marketing agencies because they don't understand that IGN with their millions of 'normies' won't have the same impact as smaller sites with a hardcore audience when it comes to RPGs. But hey, the coverage at IGN looks great in the reports!

They don't even know what information needs to be highlighted because they don't know the audience. You have to formulate the main message of the press release yourself, but why do you need an agency then? Not counting the database of their contacts, but it’s not difficult to get either.

Most YT videos do very little (or nothing at all). Splattercat's videos work well and always generate a spike rivalling summer sale events. Mortismal's videos don't have the same effect. No spike from Warlockracy either despite 258k views. Not sure why. Maybe different audience. We contacted a lot of YTers ourselves including Sseth and Mando. They didn't say no but didn't say yes either, so a weak maybe down the road.

As for YouTubers, I wouldn't count on MandaloreGaming and Sseth, their content is too humorous. They don't really talk about games, but rather use them as an inspiration for jokes. I think you've already 'processed' their audience with Warlockracy's video. Even if their audiences don't overlap, you can extrapolate because their content is quite similar. I prefer Warlockracy, BTW.

Splattercat is a different story because he focuses on the game itself rather than jokes. Hence the best effect. He literally sells the game if it's good.

I'm to a certain extent sure that even with a decent marketing budget it might not be possible to achieve something without a personal approach. And this is especially true when it comes to hardcore RPGs.

The perfect option is to have a person on the team who would be responsible for marketing and community at the same time. Maybe not full-time. But I think you need someone who understands what to write in a press release, who to address it, how to approach press, and how to talk to those who might be interested in the game but aren't part of the RPG community at large. Perhaps candidates can even be found among fans of your games. Marketers play games too (at least I hope so).

It's a little late for that, though, but I'm hoping Colony Ship's sales will be enough to fund the next project.

[rusty_shackleford]

Even in defeat he implies he knows more, impressive confidence of the fool.

[Nammu Archag]

Most YT videos do very little (or nothing at all). Splattercat's videos work well and always generate a spike rivalling summer sale events. Mortismal's videos don't have the same effect. No spike from Warlockracy either despite 258k views. Not sure why. Maybe different audience. We contacted a lot of YTers ourselves including Sseth and Mando. They didn't say no but didn't say yes either, so a weak maybe down the road.

As for YouTubers, I wouldn't count on MandaloreGaming and Sseth, their content is too humorous. They don't really talk about games, but rather use them as an inspiration for jokes. I think you've already 'processed' their audience with Warlockracy's video. Even if their audiences don't overlap, you can extrapolate because their content is quite similar. I prefer Warlockracy, BTW.

Splattercat is a different story because he focuses on the game itself rather than jokes. Hence the best effect. He literally sells the game if it's good.

I'm to a certain extent sure that even with a decent marketing budget it might not be possible to achieve something without a personal approach. And this is especially true when it comes to hardcore RPGs.

The perfect option is to have a person on the team who would be responsible for marketing and community at the same time. Maybe not full-time. But I think you need someone who understands what to write in a press release, who to address it, how to approach press, and how to talk to those who might be interested in the game but aren't part of the RPG community at large. Perhaps candidates can even be found among fans of your games. Marketers play games too (at least I hope so).

It's a little late for that, though, but I'm hoping Colony Ship's sales will be enough to fund the next project.

God this is really clueless. People like mandy and sseth have made entire games a success. A lot of people will buy games solely because Sseth gives it a good review, and usually, stuff only ends up on his channel if it is of a certain standard anyways. Similar case for mandy. They are reviewers first, and humorists second (mandy doesn't even make jokes much either). Either way, sseth would never review this boring ass game and mandy would give it a negative rating.

Splattercat is a streamer first and foremost who streams variety and niche newer games. He posts so much stuff however and such low quality that its only good for skimming until others pick it up. His videos get 50-80k views on average as well, so not sufficient especially for a game like this. Mort does long-ass 100% reviews and gets even less, we're talking 20k people seeing the review itself.

I prefer Warlockracy, BTW.

Probably the worst one. I wonder if these two actually know each other given Nesterov's (Warlockracy) political past and his gaming rebirth alongside Vince being a Ukrainian. Both are Russian-speaking game culture/rpg types on the western camp/internet. I don't think Nesterov's videos do much to boost sales in general as they are more fo essays than reviews, though it would be funny if his recent video on AoD is in response to CS's failure, and maybe a favor to Vince

[aweigh]

so is it true this shit game bankrupted vince?

EDIT: just read wunderbar's posts. Lol

[rusty_shackleford]

Splattercat did a video on colon shit and it got a decent number of views(~156k), but the truth is it's just not for his userbase. ITS makes CYOA, need to find someone who is popular with disco communism fans.

[aweigh]

vince and co should have just made a fantasy turn based rpg. i would've been much more interested in that and i bet money most other people as well.

colony ship setting is something that is like, "hey that sounds interesting", but nobody actually wants to play anything like it. Complete snooze-fest in execution and then the whole frog thing, wtf when I saw the frog obsession i knew the game was crap.