I don't have a strong opinion either way about the protagonist, but there's something I've been wondering for a while now, which is related to the branding of the game, I suppose?
I always thought it would be a good idea to keep "MARDEK" in the name of this re-imagining of the game, even if you had to call it something like "MARDEK: Divine Dreams", just because if anybody ever got nostalgic or wanted to search for MARDEK in the future, I guess that would make this game much more likely to come up.
I'm not sure if you still care too much about trying to leverage your old fanbase in any way, I mostly still read all your blog posts but it's hard to remember all you've said. If you do, the name would be important to make it instantly recognizable. If you're not trying too hard to get some people from the old days to play this game and would rather focus on getting new players, I would like to suggest itch.io, I don't remember it being mentioned before, though I mostly don't read the comments, but for the past years I've seen quite a few indie games grow a small community starting from that site, it reminds me a bit of the old flash portals since the easiest way to get noticed is to get featured by the staff and shown on the front page. Maybe once you have your demo you can also use that site, in addition to any other thing you're already planning to do.
I'd love to comment more often here, but it takes me a long time to write even a short post like this one. I always like reading your blog and seeing you hard at work, keep it up!
4
Tobias 1104~4Y
Hello! It's nice to hear from you again, though I do understand the effort and energy involved, and appreciate that you took the time to spend those! (Imagine how it is for me replying to a bunch of these comments, and writing the posts in the first place!! I do enjoy it though.)
What I'm most likely to do is have something like "FROM THE CREATOR OF MARDEK" in the descriptions and branding, rather than in the title. I want to stress to people that it's not MARDEK, since I feel that all they'd do is notice the differences and get upset about them, like how people are upset about me changing the protagonist because it's not the Mardek they remember/expected. I want to make use of MARDEK (and to make something that can make old MARDEK fans happy), but I also feel like I don't want to be restricted by it forever, like some ball and chain I can't drop.
I've never actually used itch.io, though I've been hearing more about it the more I research indie games development. It feels less... official than Steam, though? Maybe. I definitely get the feeling of the old Flash portals from it, or mobile games maybe, but the thought of going back to that world feels like a step backwards... I don't know, though; I wonder if it'd be possible to add games both on there and Steam?
Honestly I'm afraid of building up any kind of community again, and exposing myself to larger groups of people seems so undesirable for that reason... I wish I could just make games in private, show them to a few people and get thoughtful, detailed comments like on this blog, and at the same time earn enough money to keep doing it... That'd be ideal. It's a shame that might not be possible though.
1
DonVicente4~4Y
It makes sense to change the name if you want to make it clear that this game is not a re-make of MARDEK, more like what would happen if you tried to make MARDEK today, as a very different person than you were back then. That's completely fair and I do believe you're good enough at making games to succeed, even though it's incredibly hard.
From what I've seen most games that do well in itch.io eventually release on steam, it's used more or less like an early-access platform, where people can buy the game while it's still in development, or developers just upload early versions of games to get people interested in their projects. So it should be fine to use itch.io before going to steam. Part of what makes it interesting to me is the fact that it's much less formal and official than steam, so you can try out different things there and see how it goes before 'really' releasing the game.
For the community, I think if you want the bare minimum stress, focusing on the email list where it's a one way communication would be fine, the most important part is probably to keep people who are interested in your game engaged, so they don't forget it exists. This blog is also a good place for the community, I guess, but if you ever had lots of people coming here it would be impossible to keep up with all the comments, the reason it's relatively nice now is because it's few people and sort of restricted.
I think having a completely open discord server might be too stressful, specially if you have to moderate it. I've seen a few discords for games, and when the game barely has any attention it's not bad, but it still has to be moderated and apparently bots joining the server are also a problem. For bigger games I think moderators just take care of them since it's too much for the developers, who have more important things to do.
Maybe the patreon access to discord is a good idea, I joined one discord like that and it seems really nice compared to the 'open' servers, though I'm guessing it still needs some level of moderation.
In any case managing a community once it's big enough seems like a full time job, so it's hard to know what the best thing to do is, I suppose it would be good to try different things and see what works and what doesn't.
I always thought it would be a good idea to keep "MARDEK" in the name of this re-imagining of the game, even if you had to call it something like "MARDEK: Divine Dreams", just because if anybody ever got nostalgic or wanted to search for MARDEK in the future, I guess that would make this game much more likely to come up.
I'm not sure if you still care too much about trying to leverage your old fanbase in any way, I mostly still read all your blog posts but it's hard to remember all you've said. If you do, the name would be important to make it instantly recognizable. If you're not trying too hard to get some people from the old days to play this game and would rather focus on getting new players, I would like to suggest itch.io, I don't remember it being mentioned before, though I mostly don't read the comments, but for the past years I've seen quite a few indie games grow a small community starting from that site, it reminds me a bit of the old flash portals since the easiest way to get noticed is to get featured by the staff and shown on the front page. Maybe once you have your demo you can also use that site, in addition to any other thing you're already planning to do.
I'd love to comment more often here, but it takes me a long time to write even a short post like this one. I always like reading your blog and seeing you hard at work, keep it up!
What I'm most likely to do is have something like "FROM THE CREATOR OF MARDEK" in the descriptions and branding, rather than in the title. I want to stress to people that it's not MARDEK, since I feel that all they'd do is notice the differences and get upset about them, like how people are upset about me changing the protagonist because it's not the Mardek they remember/expected. I want to make use of MARDEK (and to make something that can make old MARDEK fans happy), but I also feel like I don't want to be restricted by it forever, like some ball and chain I can't drop.
I've never actually used itch.io, though I've been hearing more about it the more I research indie games development. It feels less... official than Steam, though? Maybe. I definitely get the feeling of the old Flash portals from it, or mobile games maybe, but the thought of going back to that world feels like a step backwards... I don't know, though; I wonder if it'd be possible to add games both on there and Steam?
Honestly I'm afraid of building up any kind of community again, and exposing myself to larger groups of people seems so undesirable for that reason... I wish I could just make games in private, show them to a few people and get thoughtful, detailed comments like on this blog, and at the same time earn enough money to keep doing it... That'd be ideal. It's a shame that might not be possible though.
From what I've seen most games that do well in itch.io eventually release on steam, it's used more or less like an early-access platform, where people can buy the game while it's still in development, or developers just upload early versions of games to get people interested in their projects. So it should be fine to use itch.io before going to steam. Part of what makes it interesting to me is the fact that it's much less formal and official than steam, so you can try out different things there and see how it goes before 'really' releasing the game.
For the community, I think if you want the bare minimum stress, focusing on the email list where it's a one way communication would be fine, the most important part is probably to keep people who are interested in your game engaged, so they don't forget it exists. This blog is also a good place for the community, I guess, but if you ever had lots of people coming here it would be impossible to keep up with all the comments, the reason it's relatively nice now is because it's few people and sort of restricted.
I think having a completely open discord server might be too stressful, specially if you have to moderate it. I've seen a few discords for games, and when the game barely has any attention it's not bad, but it still has to be moderated and apparently bots joining the server are also a problem. For bigger games I think moderators just take care of them since it's too much for the developers, who have more important things to do.
Maybe the patreon access to discord is a good idea, I joined one discord like that and it seems really nice compared to the 'open' servers, though I'm guessing it still needs some level of moderation.
In any case managing a community once it's big enough seems like a full time job, so it's hard to know what the best thing to do is, I suppose it would be good to try different things and see what works and what doesn't.