Knights of Grumthorr - Steam Keys

[Lucky_Strikez]

JPJ25-D7R73-3RLL0

I took this one, thanks!

[Matty]

Excellent

[Matty]

Thanks, I have now sold over 100 copies however have still not earned enough to be paid a cent by Steam. Under the minimum payout threshold by around $25.

[Xerra]

Thanks, I have now sold over 100 copies however have still not earned enough to be paid a cent by Steam. Under the minimum payout threshold by around $25.

What on earth is the minimum payment threshold? And how much are you selling the game for?

[Matty]

The minimum is $100.

For the first month I had it at  $5 USD and sold 6 copies


I put it on an 83% discount (maximum) for 2 weeks and it sold 100 copies at about $1 each.

With Steams cut and taxes and an 8% refund rate I've earned $75 total in 6 or 7 weeks.

The discount period ends tomorrow so it's likely I won't reach the $100 until I'm allowed to run a discount again

Thought : if I'd hired artists for graphics,audio and marketing and spent several thousand then I'd need to sell several hundreds or a thousand copies to recover their cost.  With 6 full price sales....I'm glad I didn't.

[Derron]

Thought : if I'd hired artists for graphics,audio and marketing and spent several thousand then I'd need to sell several hundreds or a thousand copies to recover their cost.  With 6 full price sales....I'm glad I didn't.

And if you had to buy food and pay for all the "for living" stuff from what you earn with your sales --- you would not be glad with your current results (based on "drawing stuff on my own") too.

Improve your skills - or maybe find someone who can do your stuff and agree to "share" revenues ... so it is based on your both luck on what you gain from the "product".



Think about developing a better looking (maybe keep the "style" if people like it - but improve "quality") sequel or extension. I assume you could then promote the sequel:
- in a development blog
- in an update to your current game (so old customers become aware)
- to improve your skills (while you are... unemployed? ... at home)


bye
Ron

[Matty]

Thanks Derron.

[iWasAdam]

good news

[Matty]

Well whether lots of people enjoyed it or not it was fun to make and play for me, and I learned a new language c#.

When my pc is safe to use again I might revisit it and update some things.

Re safe - see other thread.

[Matty]

For those who wish to learn from the source code of Knights of Grumthorr (written in C# using SDL2 as a graphics and medial library) you can find a copy of the source code here:

Source.txt

[Matty]

Any interest in the source?

[iWasAdam]

I've had a quick butchers.

my thoughts are:
1. this is an engine - separate then engine stuff from the game into files so you can focus on each thing.
E.G. have the audio in one file the sdl engine in another and the game code calling both of them.
That way you can write a new game, but you already have the engine

2. There seems to be an editor as part of the game - again separate this out into another file, so it makes for simpler reading of the code.

3. I think this is c# and not you, but it does seem excessively verbose . E.G

         if(game.zoom>4)
         {
            game.zoom = 4;
         }
         if(game.zoom<1)
         {
            game.zoom = 1;
         }

Couldn't you use something like

game.zoom = Clamp( game.Zoom, 1, 4 )

Even if you made a clamp function to do it, it would start to make your code much nicer and simpler to read

4. I think the effort involved with the SDL engine is very impressive. More so than the game itself. This sort of grasp is not easy to pull off and at a quick glance you have a reasonably simple approach. that takes a lot of skill. Contrast your code with the Blitz/monkey engines and what you have done is tight, simple and elegant Kudos \o/

5. there does seem to be a number of VERY large methods/functions these might be better trying compact down with calls <- more of a style thing. It's easier to digest smaller blocks than huge long lists of if and case, etc...

6. More of a style things and possible c#, but...

if(dirn==DIRN_UPRIGHT)
               {
                  tmpdirn = DIRN_UPLEFT;
               }

can be easier to view as

if(dirn==DIRN_UPRIGHT){ tmpdirn = DIRN_UPLEFT; }

especially if there are loads of them

6. is there a parsing programming language in there for control of the units??

7. The code is actually generally easy to read and you aren't using any of the 'nasty' new stuff that makes things hard to understand Given a few hours I could possibly even convert it to MX2 - eeek!


But by far (for myself), the most impressive thing is the SDL engine 

[Matty]

Thanks Adam.

Thanks for the positive comments and praise.

Re point 6 parsing programming language yes there is.  I used to write scripted Star Craft maps and I based the method of that.

It works as follows:
Triggers are if....then in nature.
Each frame all incomplete trigger if conditions are checked and if met the then action fires.
A loop trigger exists to allow triggers to fire multiple times.
Some triggers are single line, some multi - it's all in the docs that come with the game.

Triggers are simple text in the mission file.
In the editor they exist as english text but are converted into simple numeric only coded triggers in the editor.
Both the text versions and numeric equivalents are documented in the pdf docs.

Ps the rendering and sdl engine took several years for me to develop as it was all done first as my browser graphical engine which I ported to c# in Sep this year. I began writing the renderer in either 2016 or 2017.

[Matty]

I'm just going to repeat, your praise Adam in point 4 was one of the nicest things I've heard in a long time.  I come back to this post to read it now and then.

[Matty]

I just realised with unity and my learning I have the ability to prerender 2d sprites of more complex models to use in say a scifi KoG game that also looks good.

The game only needs the text files and media changed to do that.

The only real challenges are overcoming the 'poison' present in my pc.  A towel soaked in activated carbon should do the trick as a covering.