Welcome Back!
Welcome back everyone! It's been about a week and a half since the demo first appeared on IndieDB and so far I'm very happy with the response from History of the Demon Girl's first demo!
The Aftermath
I woke up that morning to find that the announcement had jumped the game's popularity rating into the top 100. The game was at 35(!!!) - the first time it had ever been in the top 50! I had also always compared the game to the popularity of Risk of Rain (a highly popular indie title) and Catlateral Damage (a title that exploded with popularity recently). On that day, Risk of Rain was 33 places below at 68 and Catlateral Damage wasn't even in the Top 100! I was so flattered and honored!
The good news continued as the game wasn't just getting views, but people were voicing that they enjoyed playing it! On it's first DAY, the game already had someone doing a twitch play and loving it:
I want to give a shout out to RxCxDietrich or as he's known here: VampirePanku. It was probably my dream as a kid to make a game and watch someone play it and get such enjoyment out of it - fulfilling that on day ONE of my demo launch was just awesome. Thank you!!!
The first one was eventually taken down, but he's since done a second let's play! Thanks, man!
A few other people have posted video as well, so thank you for all of that. Keep it up! I try to watch every one that goes up! It's awesome to see it all!
Towards the end of the day I checked the game's ranking again and WOAH!
For a while it was also the 2nd most popular news story on IndieDB! YES!
The game also received some cool press from indiegamer.info and mxdwn Games! Woo hoo!
Player responses have been AMAZING and I love all of the let's plays and feedback that I've been watching and getting. Thank you so much! The press has been lovely and the feedback has been so kind. You're all awesome!
A Quick Note
A quick note about something that's been happening: The demo has been uploaded by several people on websites despite my specifically asking that folks not do that without talking to me first. I'm not mad, but if you have done that, please take it down. I'm very grateful that you want to share it and I'm happy to have the game in more locations, but if you have a local or country-specific website where you'd like the game to appear, just let me know and I'll do my best to upload it there myself as soon as possible.
The reason I ask you to let me handle it is not just an issue of copyright, but also because it allows me to keep track of the game and gives me control over what versions are where. Otherwise, if I accidentally make a mistake and upload a buggy version (which happened when I first uploaded the Mac demo here), and someone uploads it to a website and it's causing problems, then I don't know that it's happening and I also have no way to fix it since I didn't upload it to that site. Obviously, that situation would lead to more problems for those users and would be more harmful than helpful to getting the game out there to potential fans. Hopefully that makes sense and thank you for wanting to help! It's awesome to have that kind of support this early!
If you do let me know about a site and I simply don't speak the language, what would help me out IMMENSELY is if you could work with me on the description text for the upload. That way people in your country can read what the game is about and you're still helping get the game out there, but I can update it, and fix things, if I need to. Thanks!
What's Next
After taking some time to look at the game and get more feedback from completely new users, I've been working on fixing some things. Some of these things are completely new fixes and some are fixes I intended to make even before I launched. Obviously, you want the game to be perfect, but at some point you just have to say "It's a demo" and put out a solid version of where you're at.
So what's coming? An update. In the next week or two there will be an update to the demo: History of the Demon Girl 1.5. The game will come in an Air wrapper which will make it a lot easier to pack and should play that much smoother. You will still be able to expand the game - though it may slow it down since that's not the designed resolution - sorry. You won't, however, be able to use "Next Step" or any of the Flash Player controls. Those were never intended to be used and it's caused some unintentional problems with the game - so they're gone!
Sam will speak faster! You will also be given the option to skip the intro and the stat screen by pressing Space Bar. In addition to skipping the stat screen, you will also be able to hit "R" to restart whatever level you just finished. I will also be trying to add that functionality within the levels themselves - that way if you miss a token: BOOM! Restart! It should ease player frustration and help cut down the repeat interval.
The second demo will release here for Windows and Mac, but will also launch on Kongregate so that the game can reach a wider audience. During this time I'll be doing a media blitz, trying to raise awareness about the game, so if you know of any news sites that should cover it, let me know about them and I'll be sure to hit them up! The goal is to raise as much awareness as possible before launching the Kickstarter (expected start date: March 15th).
March and April should both be pretty insane, but if all goes according to plan you should be seeing much more of Roku and her adventures and a lot more from Silhouette Games. Thank you for your support, now let's make this happen!
Take care!
Your Friendly Neighborhood Shadow64
Ps. Here's a sneak peek at some of the concept art for the next Circle of Hell! ;)
