HASVERS'S PROFILE

@Deltree

author=pianotm
Interestingly, my attention seems overtly drawn to the girl panting in the background.

Same here, it looks more like she is doing a Miley Cyrus impression while her right arm inflates and deflates periodically. Other than that, UI effects are fantastically juicy!

Haha well one of the benefits of being an all-around swell guy is that you've got a threadful of people willing to do data mining for you just because we like you and your games, so I'd say it bodes well for your crowdfunding and viral marketing prospects.

That's the indie magic: crowdsource parts of your production cycle! (like Aedemphia managed to have a pretty darn decent crowdsourced OST; compared to that, marketing and management shouldn't be too hard??)

author=hedge1
a big success can and does give people that opportunity to pursue game making for a career...assuming they manage their windfall properly and don't just spend it all.

Definitely! But for every Kan Gao or Jon Blow, there are dozens of Aldorlea and Wadjet Eye living off a catalogue of moderately-selling games. Plus, it's the model that allowed someone like Jeff Vogel to survive before indie games were even a thing, so I think it's a better bet to get you through the wild fluctuations in visibility the market is likely to undergo (not saying the -pocalypse word because people say stupid tings).

Still, kentona, I'm quite sure that given the community and the interest in your previous games, you'll get 5 digits out of it (eventually, not sure how fast, though success is rather often decided pretty soon).
As for the 6th digit (or whatever is enough to quit your day job) I don't know - though as others point out, it's not impossible if stars align, and you don't mind being back to cup noodles for a bit (or you have savings, or a good Kickstarter).

NTC3> Interesting points. It would be great to have the real numbers - Skyborn was in at least two bundles as far as I can remember, from which it can expect more like 15 cents out of every purchase. And it was there before there were bazillions of RM games on Steam, I think. But still, that doesn't quite invalidate your point, even if the effective price is much lower it is still a success - though it would be at least as interesting to understand what happened to games that did not succeed as well.

Anyway lots of data and stories to be found around the interwebs (if you look in the later pages, there's even an ASCII roguelike that made 30k, so everything is possible I guess?)

Haha don't worry about the characters, I just love to hate them :P No seriously though, most of them are flawed in interesting ways, it's just that I would never put up with them the way Reed does. But perhaps this is justified down the line!

As for the balancing, I had moments of desperation like this when playing Star-Stealing Prince and I did finish it in the end, so don't put too much weight in my ramblings. I maybe just overdosed on battles in the forest and need some rest (it's a personal thing, I'm not much into games where battle tactics are straightforward and the difficulty comes from attrition; could never play a dungeon crawler for long for instance)

The usual cop-out would be to have an Easy mode for people who'd like to know the rest of the story (which I absolutely do) without becoming the nemesis of the WWF, but yeah maybe gaining some kind of equipment after that three-part fight would help, since everything became more powerful except my guys.
Alternatively, some way of reattributing skill points in case one gets trapped like kumada and I? I need to spend at the very least 200-250 SP on each random battle I get in, or I get mauled, and I don't get two weak sorcery potions out of it - so apart from grinding or avoiding all fights, I feel like I might be screwed, but it might be because I upgraded my Power attacks too soon?