Hi everyone! It's been a little while, but I'm back with a new update to celebrate the Steam Summer Sale! We'll cover the latest deals, some fresh news, and a tiny tease of the future...
But first, I'm excited to announce that 8-Bit Adventures 2 has now sold over 3000 copies! 🥳 It's a solid start, and what's most exciting is that more than a third of those copies were sold *after* the game's launch month.
To me, this shows that 8-Bit Adventures 2 is a game with legs - and that's absolutely thanks to the great word of mouth and positive Steam reviews from players. Thank you all so much for that - your passion and support mean the world to me 🥰
Our next goal is to reach 500 Steam Reviews and receive an Overwhelmingly Positive rating - that way, we'll get more attention from Steam's algorithms. We're already at 114 reviews, so if you enjoyed the game and want to support us, please consider leaving one of your own! 😊
Now, onto the Discounts! (News and Teases are further below)
8-Bit Adventures 2
Until July 13th at 10am PDT, you can get 8-Bit Adventures 2 for 20% Off ($15.99 USD)!
Buy 8-Bit Adventures 2 on Steam!
You can also get the incredible Soundtrack for 20% Off ($7.99 USD), or the Game + Soundtrack Bundle for just $23.99 USD!
Buy the 8-Bit Adventures 2 Soundtrack on Steam!
8-Bit Adventures 1
While you can jump into 8-Bit Adventures 2 without any prior experience, I've learnt that a lot of players really want to get the full story.
So for the next twelve days, you can also get 8-Bit Adventures 1 for 60% Off ($3.99 USD)!
Buy 8-Bit Adventures 1 on Steam!
The first game's wonderful Soundtrack is 30% Off ($3.49 USD), or you can get the 8-Bit Adventures 1 Game + Soundtrack Bundle for only $6.59 USD!
Buy the 8-Bit Adventures 1 Soundtrack on Steam!
Tales Across Time
Finally, you can also get our experimental, short-story RPG Tales Across Time for just $2.39 USD! This game was like a testing ground for ideas I was considering for 8-Bit Adventures 2 after finishing 8BA1.
Buy Tales Across Time on Steam!
Behind-the-Scenes News and Updates
So what's been going on since we last caught up? Well, there's been great progress with the 8-Bit Adventures 2 console ports going on at Ratalaika Games. In fact, I'll be receiving a new test build in the coming week - which I'm very excited about! 😁
Because I'm not handling the porting process myself, there's not much that I can share beyond that; but there has been a LOT of progress (in the past month especially), so the project is definitely on-track!
Free DLC
What I *have* been working on myself is the upcoming Free DLC for 8-Bit Adventures 2! The sprawling dungeon that this content takes place in has now been completed. It's over 50 Maps in size - divided into 9 Areas across 3 Tiers - and every area is different.
The format of the dungeon is much more open and free-flowing than normal, so I'm excited to see what players think! It even has a town inside it - which you can see just a little of below. It has ties to a location in the main game, so I'm curious to see if anyone recognises it 😉
Sebastian has also been hard at work on some music for the Free DLC, and just recently completed a new boss battle theme which I think chiptune fans are going to really enjoy!
Truth be told, after seven years of development on 8BA2, I've been feeling pretty burnt-out since the Steam release (as well as all the post-launch bug fixing that we did). And this Free DLC ended up being much more ambitious than I originally intended - so I apologise for the wait! But I want to make it as special as I can, as thanks to everyone who's enjoyed the game 😊
Next up I'm working on the boss battles, and then I'll be implementing the story content (which currently exists in Word document form haha). 8BA2's long development taught me the dangers of showing off content too early, so please stay tuned for a proper showcase later this year! But here's a little silhouette tease of the two totally new bosses in the Free DLC 😁
Future Project
Finally, I've also been working on the game design plans for our next project, which two incredible artists have already begun preparing assets for as well! The idea is that we prepare as much as can in pre-production, so that once I'm ready to begin active development, we already have a lot of what we need ready to go 🥳
I won't be able to announce what this project is for a while yet, but the goal is to have a short turn-around on this one (around a year and a half of development), so you probably won't have to wait *too* long 😉
In general, I want to start designing and developing projects which can be released in a much more reasonable space of time (e.g. less than 3 years, as opposed to 8BA2's 7+ years).
That will require a smaller scope than 8-Bit Adventures 2 (at least, in some respects), but my hope is that with a more focused game we can continue to push the production values higher. Don't worry about a lesser or altered experience though - I definitely want to keep making more story-driven, Japanese-style RPGs with turn-based combat and a World Map! I just want to find a way to do it that provides more regular content for players, and doesn't totally consume my life haha.
All of this will depend on my finances - as most things sadly do - but I'll do my best! 😁
~Josh
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