The reason I "ignored" your earlier reply was because GOG system didn't notify me of you replying to me. Make sure you use the reply button every time.

Then read my latest reply there. And in amok's vocabulary, having prefence to GOG is "silly loyalty", while having a preference for some other store is just a preference.

It is the same how amok kept claiming before what a silly "ideology" it is to prefer GOG for its games being DRM-free, and when I pointed out that he preferring e.g. HS for them "giving the biggest cut to developers" is also an ideology... of course suddenly it wasn't anymore so silly to prefer a store for an "ideology" (except in GOG's case, of course).

Not to mention that preferring DRM-free games is also a practical preference, not just an "ideology".

So, don't.

So, everyone at the studio agrees that the best way forward is to repeat your initial complete failure and then shut down? *shrug* That's your prerogative, I suppose.

I think The Swapper also qualifies. I only got it today and tested it briefly for ~15 minutes but I'm already pretty thrilled. It seems that the plot and the atmosphere play major roles and I love it! I hope it'll be at least as good as it seems to be ATM.

I agree with your suggestions: the market is oversaturated and a good plotline, serious atmosphere are definitely good ideas.

Best selling list seems to prove you right.
And you just gave me a reason to click 'modern' present box :)

Note sure if they bought the game though :D

Yes, that's something we want to explore. We have some ideas we're working on, probable project 3 if we can make a third project :)

Thanks for the vote! It's still helping :)

Yeah why not. My very personal opinion would prefer a 'Sin City' look :) I so muc LOVE this movie and the way it looks. But probably a bunch of work...

Ahah of course not! But imagine: you start an indie studio and you love making/playing platformer. Are we going to force ourself making another roguelike-pixel art-zombie-crafting game? Not really... It's about principles and knowning one's strenghs. Yes puzzle platformers are saturated and we need to be excellent to stand out. What comes out of the post mortem is 1) nobody knew about Ethan = we need to change the way we market our games AND choose a better release window, 2) game looks unappealing / without soul = we'll do less levels and work more on making the art unique and story exciting.

Well, I'm not a marketing guy (actually I'm a corporate pen-pusher who spends his days dealing with technical and legal mess) but I'd switch the projects. Make the serious, Sin City inspired project (with more than just shooting and jumping, hopefuly) first. You have a bigger chance to make yourself a name this way. And I promise I'll buy it on release day :)
Lots of work -> if you're into surreal stuff and operating colors, check out The Cat Lady (hell, I'd be willing to part with a code for the game as an investment into your next project :)). Everything apart from voices and music was made by one guy with daytime job and - at least for me - it looks stunning.
You're welcome :)
Don't touch zombies! Those are even more saturated than puzzle platformers :) And I'm yet to see some modern zombie movie \ game that beats those Flucci made in the 80s :) //which probably means I haven't played Walking Dead yet :)
Enough is enough, even for a hardcore horror fan like myself :)

As far as I'm concerned, I'll buy it if there's an interesting story. However, please note that even then I most probably won't buy on day 1, possibly even on month 1. And it's not about knowing it will be on sale, it's that digital distribution means no running out of stock or going to the store. I have my sights on a game, say the Swapper earlier mentioned. I want to play it one day, but I have no reason to buy it until I actually intend to start playing. The game is not going anywhere and I can buy it with 5 clicks, so I have absolutely no reason to buy it until an hour before I start playing. What can make me buy it earlier than that? A sufficiently good promo, or (if the developer is lucky and I bother trying it) getting me hooked with a good demo so I want to continue playing right then.

The only games I buy day one are games I already played and want to support for whatever reason (I got Aquaria on a 1$ humble bundle, loved it, I would like to properly buy it if it comes out here), games from developers I feel some level of trust for (The witcher 3 or Defender's quest 2 will probably fall right away), or the kind of game I absolutely adore and want to play right away (the second coming of Deus Ex... which got lost somewhere, it seems).

My advice? Be very open about project 2. Dev logs are a good idea, show your work in progress and reasoning. Do not try to build a community around Greenlight, but on your own site.

and do not compromise on what you want to do. Make the game you want to play, as this will make you more enthusiastic to work on the game. If you want to make a platformers, as this is what you like to play, then make one. Just make sure you make a good one. the best way to do so, I think, is the work with the community and get feedback from them (but keep in mind that design by community never works :) )

Yes, those two points were made by lots of people, but the one point made by almost everybody was "Don't make yet another indie puzzle platformer!" If you choose to ignore that, then... And nobody is asking you to make "another roguelike-pixel art-zombie-crafting game". The whole point about not making another puzzle platformer is that there are too many of the already. Switching to another genre which is just as saturated would make just as little sense. You need to be original. Make a kind of game that the market is not already flooded with. Try to be just a little bit creative, instead of just churning out the same formula that others have done thousands of times before. The one thing indie developers have going for them is that they don't have publisher executives dictating what kind of games they should make, so they don't have to stick to the tried-and-true approach. Throwing that away means throwing away the one thing you have going for you.

A Sin City style of aesthetics would have immediately grabbed my attention, cliche as it sounds.

Agreed, but... Lack of time/money AND we have our production pipeline ready for platformers, so next one will 'cost' us less as we built some tools for platformers. The serious one we have in mind is going to take a lot of time to tweak well, making serious-subject games are not easy task in order to not be seen as trolls and have an interesting input to that subject.

Yes, that's something we need to learn about. We didn't want to have our own forum as we felt like it'd empty, people would need to set up another account, etc... So maybe just posting more often on our blogs and then fwd it on reddit or in here? Doing more lives on twitch showing our game, showing new builds, chatting live...

Basically it seems like this Early Access on Steam is perfect as you can upload buils easily for people to try it and give feedbacks, chat on forums of the game page etc...

Sin City's art + Sharks? SOLD! PROJECT 4! :D

Why not just take a simple idea and run with it?

Look at the idea behind Papers, Please as an example. The developer of that game was inspired by all the customs checks he had to go through in his life and guess what? It's one of the best games I've ever played in a long while. Sure the graphics are low-res and not all that flashy but the gameplay is refreshing because it 's something DIFFERENT.

Hell, why not take the events that transpired during the time you were working on Ethan and make a point and click adventure. You know, write some simple idea and work around it, doesn't need to be anything fancy. You have a team of programmers, artists, and designers available to make ideas a reality but don't make yet another platformer. Please. I am so sick of them since I have been playing them since the early Mario days.

Also, consider using an inexpensive engine to make your games in. Game Maker just went free and that was what Hotline Miami was built on and that game too was great. Also, I wouldn't worry about translating your game into every language known to man if you're not going to have that much text or voice in the game in the first place. I am confident that most people who play games know what play, options, and quit mean despite not knowing English.

I know I am sounding a bit demanding but it just irks me when people have the resources to make games and the first thing they do is make another platformer. Such wasted potential.

Originality is welcome but isn't necessarily an inherently good thing. Trespasser, the Jurassic Park game, was WILDLY original in many of the things it did but failed at practically all of them and has now become infamous for that reason. Jason Rohrer and Tale of Tales games are also pretty original too but in ways that I would neither consider fun to play or even playable. I think making a game that is "good" should be the prime directive of every developer. Maybe the problem isn't that there are too many indie puzzle-platformers, but not enough good ones? I've not played Ethan so I wouldn't know, the failure here it seems to me would be a matter of marketing and choice of aesthetic than the gameplay, since, as it sold so poorly, most of us can't really say one way or another about it.

If the dev says they love making platformers and will continue to do so then that's great, let them do so. Doing what you love is more important than forcing yourself to do something you don't in any case. And making something more original isn't a bonafide guarantee for ultimate (financial) success either. Face it, the indie market in general is heavily saturated. Good self-promotion, good word-of-mouth and screenshots and/or a premise that'll grab people's attention are the best chances for success but in the end it's always about luck above all else. Let's look at another indie title that went "post-mortem," that one being Retro/Grade. Read about that game, now THERE'S a game that nobody could accuse of being unoriginal. Basically it's a kind of rhythm game at heart but in the guise of a shmup being played in reverse. According to the dev, it bombed, and he fell into a depression as a result. Right now though he's working on a kind of survival horror/adventure game called Neverending Nightmare which was a success on Kickstarter and slated for release the middle of next year. It's definitely not as original-looking as Retro/Grade but did get good wide-spread word-of-mouth from renowned YouTubers and such from its demo and has a cool aesthetic going for it, plus an interesting premise having to do with the dev's personal struggles with clinical depression and OCD. A combination of those factors definitely helped in reaching (actually exceeding) its Kickstarter goal though there was a point where it seemed like it wouldn't make it, yet like so many Kickstarters, most people kicked in at the final hour and now we have an interesting-looking game being made as a result. However not everyone is so lucky, the next great developer with the next amazing concept and subsequent amazing game is probably unknown to all of us, wasting away with three supporters and few hundred dollars at the bottom of an IndieGoGo campaign and to be forever mired in shadow or obsolescence.

In the end, making a game that is both complete and good should always be the prime motivating factor, same goes for anyone writing a book, making a film, making music, etc. if nobody buys it, blame the devs for not doing something "more original" or the public for failing to take notice, either way at least you have your work out there for anyone willing to take notice and if indeed it IS good it will find its audience, even if it's a small one.

So no, discouraging the developer from making platformers is not the way to go, rather encouraging them to do something with the genre they enjoy making games of that will catch people's attention if that's what they're after.

Can I take a second to congratulate you on finishing a game? I know just enough about it to know it just isn't easy to see that through. Money, drive, assorted talents all have to come together and anyone that can see that through has some of my respect no matter how the sales went. In the end that doesn't put any cash in your pocket, but between that and my copy of the game that is just about all I can do for you.