Bad Golf

I recreated my very first game Bad Golf in Godot and published it to Steam today.

I wonder if anyone will buy it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3789290/Bad_Golf/

Hi! The page isn't really active anymore

I obviously haven't kept this page up to date.

I made a game called "Hidden in Plain Sight".  It started as a humble Xbox Live Indie Game and has grown far more popular that I ever dreamed possible.

You can currently find it on Steam, Xbox One (in the Creators Collection or whatever they call it), and Switch.

Thanks for stopping by!

Greenlit on Steam!

I can't believe it.  After some months of languishing in Steam Greenlight, I got a random email that it was approved.  I didn't have much hope in the first place, and what little hope I had was quickly evaporating.  But now, everything is coming up Adman!

I'm actively working on getting a Steam store page set up, getting the Windows version of the game all up to date (adding the missing Options stuff, for example).  That's more or less done, but needs some debugging and testing.

I'm also kicking around the idea of adding some Steam features, like achievements and stats and so forth.  Not sure if that will happen or not.

Getting published on Steam actually looks like a very real possibility.  In fact, I could actually go and push the "review my game" button now and get the process underway, but I'd like to just take a little more time to get everything in order.  I'd also like to get some better graphics to represent the game on the Steam store, and am looking to enlist some help for that.

So....  pretty cool stuff.  I would have never guessed this game would make it onto Steam, but I'm excited that it is.  How well will a local multiplayer game sell on Steam?  I have no idea.  What I do know is that my ability to estimate this sucks (but luckily sucks in the wrong direction).  So, no expectations.

Hidden for Plain Sight for Windows...

Looking for a copy of Hidden in Plain Sight for Windows?

It's on Steam!  Go get it!

Ouya promotion...

Apparently Ouya is going to be promoting Hidden in Plain Sight over the Thanksgiving weekend.

There is also recent news that Ouyas (Ouyay?) are in Target stores across the country, which is pretty cool.  Sales have definitely dropped off since the initial surge of Kickstart units were all shipped en masse, but that is to be expected.  But it's still selling pretty regularly, and people are still spending more than the minimum, which is nice.

If you want to get it for the Ouya, you can find the game here.

Updates

Hidden in Plain Sight is going through a bit of a renaissance, which is kind of exciting.  First of all, the Ouya has officially launched, and HIPS is selling dozens of units per day.  And even though the minimum required price is $0.99, the average price people are paying is over $2, so that’s kind of cool.

Furthermore, a very popular YouTube channel has done a series of three videos, which cumulatively have over half a million views.  That’s led to a big spike in sales on the Xbox… 4000 copies sold in the first 11 days of this month.  If it’s anything like the Great SourceFed Spike of ’12, I expect there to be quite a long tail of sales as word of mouth spreads.

Crazy.

I got this email yesterday.  It looked like spam on the surface, but here’s what it said:

Hi I am 14 and i have played this game called "Hidden in Plain Sight ". i think you might know it. this game is really fun and i have played it with my sister and my friend and it is better than any 60 $ game i have ever bought.   me and my sister are not really close and we fight alot. this game made us laugh together and we had a good time together. its been a while since that happened. Thank you.

I was very emotionally touched by this.  It’s one thing to make a silly little game that people like playing, but to think that I’ve perhaps had some hand in helping create or restore a bond of friendship between friends or family… that’s a big deal.  So that was really cool.

I want to make a new game.  I’ve been fooling around in Unity, and getting lots of inspiration from all kinds of sources, but just am lacking the time and energy to actually sit down and work.  Maybe soon.  My daughter and I have been playing Fariune on the iPad, and she’s really enjoying it.  So my latest thoughts are a adventure’ish game kind of like Ultima IV.  Big world, lots of little puzzles and items to find and unlock areas of the world.  We’ll see.

The Price of Entertainment

Pricing games…

I have no idea how much to sell a game for.  And this is fascinating to me.

On the Xbox Live Indie Games market, it’s pretty clear that that selling a game for more than 80MSP ($1) is suicide.  Even bumping it up to 240MSP ($3) will reduce your sales be MORE than three times.  I think this is pretty well documented by people who have changed the price of their game.

Now, I’ve ported Hidden in Plain Sight over to the Ouya, and I left the minimum price at a dollar.  That only seems fair, right?  Why should it cost more on one system than another?  It’s the same product, it should cost the same.

However, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from the players themselves that this is too cheap, and they’d gladly pay more. 

What I ended up doing was adding the option to pay any number of choices: $1, $3, $5, $10, $15, or $50.  And this has worked out really well.  About 40% of the people spend $1, and 55% spend $3 or $5, and then there’s the occasional $10 and $15.  What this indicates to me is that I was really leaving money on the table before.

Another thing that is strange to consider is that most people wouldn’t hesitate to spend $10 to go out and see a movie.  In fact, four friends could easily drop $50 collectively for a two hour experience, if you included a drink and some candy or something.  So why is it so difficult to even consider spending $5 or $10 on something that (according to some people) offers more entertainment value?

I’m not casting aspersions… I have a hard time spending even a few dollars on a quality iPad app, so I’m guilty of the same thing.  It’s just weird.

Anyways, based on the feedback I’ve gotten, I’m going to add a “donation” product to the game.  I figure if people want to give me extra money, I should make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

And finally, I’d like to go on record again and say that I’m not doing this for the money.  It’s a nice side effect, but I’d much rather get a nice email or tweet from someone than a dollar.  In other words, the happy feeling I get from making a game that has brought some family and friends closer together is worth more to me than a dollar.

OUYA!

OOOoooooo-YEAH!

Hidden in Plain Sight has been published for the Ouya.  The free version includes unlimited play of Ninja Party and Death Race (which I think are the two best modes, but others disagree).  For $0.99, you get the other three modes unlocked, as well as the customizable options to play with.

I'm looking forward to hearing how Ouya players like it...  if you happen to have played it on the Ouya, leave a note and let me know how it all worked out for you.

Right in the feels...

From a YouTube comment on a preview video a guy made Stephen made about Hidden in Plain Sight:

"I realize I must thank you Stephen. Because you showed me this game, my mother and father and sister and I can finally play a game together. ^.^"

D'awwwww!

10,000

Hidden in Plain Sight has been purchased 10,000 times.

This is such a staggering figure to me, I don’t really even know how to process it.  It’s stunning, really.  When I first made Bad Golf, the idea of 10,000 sales was my huge “wouldn’t that be awesome if…” dream scenario.  I never expected it to actually happen, but you can’t put something up for sale and not harbor some secret dreams of it getting huge.  And with Bad Golf, it didn’t.

So, I don’t really know what to say.  I really wish I could take credit for cracking into some untapped resource of game design and done something really revolutionary (like Guitar Hero or Portal or Journey).  But maybe that’s not the way it has to work to be successful.  Maybe you just have to make a game that is fun, and that motivates people to tell their friends about it.

If anything, I think that’s what I’ve learned.  There are plenty of games that are fun, but aren’t particularly interesting to tell other people about.  But Hidden in Plain Sight, being a social game, somehow lends itself to sharing it with friends.  It’s not only fun, but it’s fun to share.  As in “Oh, you HAVE to play this.”  That’s not a component of a game you typically study in Game Design 101.  And I didn’t either, but somehow stumbled upon it.

By far, the biggest influence on sales were the SourceFed videos that came out in October, and those were a direct result of the game being shown at IndieCade.  Those led to hundreds of sales immediately, but also created an initial shockwave big enough to spread out over time and generate thousands of sales since then.   If one person out of every twenty tells a friend and leads to another sale, then you can see how some initial influx of players will lead to a long-tail of sales.  I think that’s what happened.

For those interested, 10,000 sales means $10,000.  But Microsoft takes 30%, and then withholds some tax (I just got a 1099 from Microsoft Corp, which is kind of neat), so I think I’ve net around $6000 over the past year.

Options!

Happy Birthday Hidden in Plain Sight!

Hidden in Plain Sight has been out on the market for a full year now.  The free trial has been downloaded 9162 times, and there have been 7248 purchases.  The purchase-to-trial ratio is 79.11%.

Here's that weird sales graph again, for the official full year numbers.  Click to embiggen.

Needless to say, the sales of HIPS, and the feedback that I've received, has far exceeded my expectations.  In fact, I admit that it's made it a little more difficult for me to get motivated to start a new project.

IndieCade pictures

Hidden in Plain Sight for Windows

I have successfully created a version of Hidden in Plain Sight for Windows.  It is still multiplayer ONLY, and it still REQUIRES Xbox-compatible gamepads for all players!

It is for sale on Indievania in a "pay what you want" model.  You can even get it for free.

I'm also working on getting it on IndieCity.

Hidden in Plain Sight is now for sale on Steam! Go buy it!

It's OVER 5000!

I just checked all-time sales, and I'm up over 5100 now, thanks to that serious bump in the last few days from the SourceFed video.

The bottom sales graph is really weird to me.  I can pick out various events that caused little bumps, which is cool.

Initial release

Joystiq.com Indie Pitch article in December

Reddit review in late January

Chez Marcus in July (look at all those French sales!)

SourceFed in October

SourceFed Coverage

A video with 100K views with a cute young lady talking about how awesome your game is?

Yeah, I'll take that.

The day after this video was posted, I got about 275 sales.

I love at the end of the video when she says "Hidden in Plain Sight was just ONE GUY, and that's awesome!"

That's me!

Hidden in Plain Sight vs. Spy Party

“Did you rip-off Spy Party? Looks like it.”

I just got this comment on my YouTube video preview for “Hidden in Plain Sight”.


This is not the first time I've heard this comment, so I thought I'd take some time to officially address this.

First, it’s no secret that Hidden in Plain Sight was inspired by my discovery Spy Party.  I first read about Spy Party probably close to two years ago, and I thought the idea sounded fascinating.  I've been following along with its progress since then.

Shortly after reading about Spy Party, I wondered if it needed to be a complicated 3D game.  I wondered if the main essence of the game could be created in a simplified 2D format.  I actually created a little prototype called SpyParty2D.  Now THAT was a ripoff of Spy Party.  It was a two-person networked game where one person was the spy trying to open boxes, and the other person was the sniper, trying to find and shoot the spy.

I only showed that prototype to a handful of people (including Monaco developer Andy Schatz, who introduced me via email to Chris Hecker, Spy Party’s developer).  I never did anything further with it.  This was in September, 2010.

I then went on to make and release two Xbox Live Indie Games (“Bad Golf” and “Battle for Venga Islands”).

Then, near the end of 2011, I returned to the idea of Spy Party.  I boiled the game down to two main mechanics that I wanted to play with.  First, I wanted the player to have to blend in with NPCs or risk elimination.  This is not unique to Spy Party.  This has roots in board games (Saboteur, for example), Mafia/Werewolf, etc.  Second, I wanted to put the player in a state of conflict.  I wanted the player to want to accomplish goals, but in a way that introduced some risk.  Again, this isn’t specific to any one game.

With those two key concepts in mind, I came up with the game modes for Hidden in Plain Sight.

1)  Ninja Party -- this is highly influenced by a web game called Puji.  However, I believe Puji has a key flaw.  Imagine Ninja Party, but without any statues.  There is nothing for the player to do.  It’s easy to look like an NPC, so basically someone just has to wait until someone gets bored and does a random attack.  By introducing statues and an alternate path to victory, I believe this enhanced the depth of the game a lot.

2)  Catch a Thief -- If anything, this is the most straightforward “rip off” of Spy Party.  And frankly, in my opinion, it’s the least fun game mode.  However, note that this is a four-player game played on the same screen.  That alone should considered enough of a distinguishing factor.

3)  Death Race -- This is a wholly original idea, and commonly accepted as the best, most fun game.  Death Race is a total thought experiment which I came up with independently and without any inspiration.  I was thinking “What if there was a race, but everyone in the race had a gun with one bullet.  How would it play out?”  I've never heard of anything like it, and if another game came out within the next year that had a similar mechanic, I'd wonder if they got the idea from my game.

4)  Knights vs. Ninjas -- Another original game idea, arrived at without any specific inspiration.  First off, I love the name of the game.  I’d done an online version of this game as a prototype, and folded it into Hidden in Plain Sight.

5)  Assassin -- this is a computer version of the Werewolf/Mafia type gameplay.  Also the “wink” game I used to play as a kid, where people would look around at each other, with one of the people being “it” and winking to kill other people.  It was suggested by Andy Schatz.

So there you go.  The motivation for each of the game modes.

Now with specific regard to Spy Party, let me address some issues.

First, I contacted Chris Hecker before releasing the game to let him know I was working on something that was similar to his game.  He wrote a very eloquent email in which he said:

My attitude towards derivative game designs is that they can contribute significant value to the art form, they simply have to move the game design ball forward.  If they're just clones of an existing thing without pushing in any new directions, then that can be fine for game development practice (just like copying a painting at the museum while you're training to be an artist is an effective learning tool), but it's not something you want to focus on as an end goal.

I firmly believe that Hidden in Plain Sight is “moving the design ball forward”.  Or, at least, that was my honest attempt to do so.  But regardless of this, even if he ranted and raved that I was copying him and I shouldn’t release my game, I still could have been well within my rights to do so.  He does not hold a monopoly on this idea, and I am not infringing on any copyrights or patents.

In addition, I was recently accepted into the Spy Party beta.  I haven’t played too many games, but as soon as I did, I was immediately relieved to know that my game wasn’t anything like it.  Spy Party is a brilliant game.  It is a 1v1 game, played over a network (most often).  To that end, you are sitting in your room, probably by yourself, staring at your screen with intense focus and concentration.  It’s very tense, and very well executed.

Hidden in Plain Sight, by contrast, is most rightly characterized as a “party game”.  Each game mode supports up to four players (and, in fact, plays exponentially better with more players).  It’s is local-multiplayer only, which means you are necessarily in the same room with your opponents.  So while it shares some vague similarities with Spy Party, the whole vibe of the game is totally different.  Game rounds can be tense, but are generally short and light-hearted.  There is usually lots of laughing and friendly yelling involved. It's like the difference between chess and Hungry-Hungry-Hippos.

So there you go.  I hope that clarifies some of my design choices, and answers the “Spy Party ripoff” claims.  It was never my intention to make a quick buck by stealing anyone else’s ideas and making a CLONE of a game.  But I freely admit that I did draw inspiration from some sources (who doesn't?!), and in each case tried to enhance those ideas with twists of my own (the addition of statues in Ninja Party, for example, or making design choices that allow for four players to share a single screen (which was more difficult than it sounds, by the way)).

If you have any questions, please let me know.

IndieCade Wrapup…

Friday morning was pretty quiet.  I got to the place where my game would be shown.  It was in a big garage at a fire station with a bunch of other games.  Some of them were on laptops, some on TVs, some were physical games where your body was the controller.  It was a great space.

I had a computer with my game on it, and a TV which would be the monitor, but no cable to go in between.  There were two hours to get everything set up, and then was “VIP/Media Walkthrough” time.  So I was starting to get a little stressed out when we couldn’t find any cables anywhere to actually connect the computer to the TV.  But eventually someone found an HDMI cable in their car, and all was well.

I don’t remember much of the Friday afternoon walkthrough.  I do remember that John Romero (cofounder of iD software, creator of Wolf3D, Doom, and Quake, etc) played briefly and laughed a lot.  That was cool to see.  After showing the game for a while, there was a tent set up with tacos and beer.  I didn’t really know anyone, so I enjoyed a free dinner and headed back to the hotel.

Saturday was the big day.  The games were all on display for the public to check out.  After making sure everything was set up correctly, I spent most of the morning showing the game to people.  For the most part, they picked it up well enough on their own.  Normally there would be four people playing while a small group was watching.  During this time, I’d look for new faces in the group and stand next to them and asked if they knew what was going on, and explain whichever game mode was currently playing.  Death Race is by far the most interesting and engaging mode, so I encouraged people to play that most of the time.

When explaining the game to new people, I’d develop a bit of a script:  “Ok, you’re in a race.  You want to get from the left side of the screen to the right side of the screen.  However, each player has a gun with one bullet in it…”  At this point, I’d pause to let the ramifications sink in.  Usually the person would get it and a big smile would show up.  “So you can’t just bolt to the end of the screen.  You have to blend in with the AI opponents.”  That was enough to get people off and running.

I didn’t realize how much media there would be.  I gave some more interviews, some video, some just talking.  Most were from (I found out afterwards) low-traffic indie game review sites.  One was a nice lady from the LA Times who had hand-picked a few games to feature.  So I’m excited to see what happens with that.

My voice was tired and my throat was sore.  Eryn showed up, and it was great to see him there.  I met my indie developer email buddy Ian in person, so that was cool.  Eryn and I had a brief lunch, and it was nice to sit for a while.  By the time we were done, Andy Schatz showed up, and he and Eryn cruised around while I did more talking.

At some point, I turned around and recognized the lady behind me with her two young kids.  I was Julie from the Ouya Kickstarter video.  I said "You're Julie from Ouya!"  She indeed was.  I told her that I'd emailed her (and gotten a response) about putting HIPS on the Ouya.  She was being dragged around by her kids, but seemed interested in the game and getting it out there.  So that was neat.

By the time the afternoon was over, I grabbed a quick dinner (and some whiskey) and headed back to the hotel.  There were evening activities, but I was exhausted.

Sunday was a half-day.  We had a few hours to check out the other developers games, which was a nice opportunity.  I then joined a panel with three other developers and a moderator to talk about Game Mechanics (a purposefully nebulous and undefined term).  With some prompts from the moderator, we shot the shit for a while about depth and gameplay and conflict and tension and game design.  I wasn’t nervous at all speaking in front of people, and felt I was able to say some insightful things.  The other guys on the panel were pretty smart guys, and it was an honor to sit next to them.

After the panel, I got some lunch and wanted to get ready to leave.  I was going to be taking my Xbox controllers home with me, so I needed to find some replacements.  That took some time.  On the way, I ran into Brad Muir, a prominent game developer who I’d met briefly the day before.  He was so nice and enthusiastic about my game, it was really cool.  He really wanted to see it succeed, which I think means sell more copies and be on more platforms.  I told him that I’d already felt like I’d won, and this was all beyond my wildest expectations.  It was a fun little sharing of perspectives.  He’s a big name, but said he hated the industry.  I’m a nobody, and love doing what I’m doing.

I also ran into one of the guys who was on the Game Mechanics panel, and we talked more about some of the stuff we talked about on stage.  I think we really connected well, and I look forward to following along with his developments.

When I got back to my booth to collect my stuff, John Romero was back.  He was taking an iPhone video of the game while people were playing Death Race.  I waited till he was done, and then took the opportunity to tell him what a fan I was and how huge his games were in my life back in the day.  We chatted for a bit about the role of indies in the industry from the 80’s to the present.  It was so cool to talk to him.  I then discovered that I was kind of eager to get on the road and get back home, and that Romero is kind of a chatterbox.  In my mind I found it amusing that I was trying to get myself OUT of a conversation with a god into the industry.  But I stayed and we talked and parted ways.  That was a highlight.

I got stopped for two more interviews before I could finally leave.  It was a tiny, TINY taste of being annoyed by media when I just wanted to go home.  Ha.

I left in the early afternoon and got home, tired and happy my mind buzzing from the morning.  Happy to see the family.

In the evening, I followed along on Twitter as they announced the “Audience Choice” and “Developer Choice” awards.  I was starting to think I had a chance at the Audience Choice award, but it went to a more deserving game.  Ditto with Developer Choice.  I would have liked to have won an award, of course, but I’m not too surprised I didn’t.

And now back to work.  It’s been a wild ride, but I had a lot more fun (and am a lot more tired) than I thought.

IndieCade Awards

So the evening went well...  I showed up to the event and got checked in and was placed in a line with other nominees.  At the front of the line was BRIGHT lights and cameras and microphones.  Pretty scary.  Chatted with the girl behind me who was alone and also looked scared, so we were scared together.  Then saw that Kellee Santiago was standing next to me.  She's the CEO of the company that made the Journey game (beautiful desert game with hooded guy jumping around that I played recently), as well as some other big names.  She also knows Andy, and has tweeted nice things about my game (and is also chairperson of the jury).  So I said hi to her and chatted for a bit.



Then I got to the front of the line and got asked some questions about my game which I don't remember and totally was awkward and nervous.  I seriously have no idea what I said, and I'm glad I didn't win 'cause the footage was unusably bad.  :)

Then I got inside and there was loud music and a crowded couple rooms.  I finally got a beer and just kind of camped out until the show began.  Felicia Day was the host, so it was cool to see her.  I'm jumped on her bandwagon recently.  But she (and all the other presenters) were given cards to read, so it didn't really have a natural feel to it.  She just kind of read through her lines.

There were various categories, and while they made it very clear that all nominees were up for all categories, they read off three games per category.  My game was nominated for "Game Design", and my heart was POUNDING.  Then they couldn't find the envelope, which prolonged things.  But I didn't end up winning.  It went to Armada D6, a tabletop game.  I held out a little hope for the final Special Mention or Grand Jury prize, but alas.

I'm both disappointed, relieved, and not-surprised, I guess.  Disappointed in that it would have been a dream to win, but I didn't really expect to, I guess.  But I hoped.  Anyways.

There was an after party with dancing and stuff, but not really knowing anyone and with the crowd thinning, I left.

Tomorrow is pretty open in the morning, then setup and media/VIP walkthrough in the afternoon.  Having someone as influential as Felicia Day play and like your game would be amazingly huge (she has 1.9 million followers), so I hope I get a chance to show it to her.  (I'LL SHOW IT TO HER!!!  Sorry).

And now, a nice big bed to myself.  Blinds are drawn.  No one to wake me up and no morning plans.

So this just happened...

Two big names in the business praising my game.  Psssh, happens all the time.