Bliz Studio - Trixel Rocket Devlog 08

Pre-order Trixel Rocket available now — https://buff.ly/2oBkkKN Here is the 8th devlog for my indie game Trixel Rocket. The game is ready to launch. Apple has approved and is now set for you to Pre-Order. So if you have an iOS device. Please pre-order the game today. Website: http://bliz.studio

Trixel Rocket hit a milestone in this devlog: pre-orders went live on Monday, with launch locked for September 18, 2018 - about a week and a half out. This episode covers the early wins, the marketing reality of publishing solo, and the Android port work happening in parallel.

Pre-order is live and the signals are good

Pre-orders started coming in right away, and two pieces of visibility landed early: Apple featured the game in the Coming Soon section of the U.S. iOS App Store, and TouchArcade highlighted it as one of the hot games. For a game with zero marketing budget, having the platform itself and a major mobile outlet surface it before launch is about as good as pre-launch traction gets.

Persistence pays off

The message to other devs is blunt: this took a full summer of full-time work, long days staring at the computer, and a stack of failures along the way. The journey has had ups and downs, and pre-order week happens to be an upward swing - people being excited by something you created and produced is the payoff. As a solo dev, every hat was worn along the way: how to build the game, how to make things look, how to animate, the logic behind each system, and designing levels that walk the line between too hard and too simple - fun enough that someone keeps the game on their phone.

No publisher means marketing is now the job

With no publisher attached, all the marketing falls on the developer's shoulders. The plan between pre-order and launch: push social media hard and get the game as visible as possible. If you are self-publishing, budget real time for this window - the game being finished is the halfway point, not the finish line.

Android is next

Weekend work: the Android port. The build files are already output; what remains is integrating the ad network, in-app purchases, and the rest of the Google Play Store requirements. Platform ports are mostly plumbing at this stage, but it is plumbing that has to be redone per store.

Beyond launch

The plan after shipping is to keep updating the game - bigger and better - and ideas are already forming for a follow-on game related to this one. The distinctive art style and color palette developed for Trixel Rocket are something worth pushing even further, and that visual identity is the thread that will connect the next project to this one.