I successfully published my first game, 1-Bit Explorer on Steam right before Christmas 2024 (YAY!). The point of this was to understand the Steam publishing process first-hand in a low risk situation, since the game is free and has already been out on Itch and Newgrounds for over a year.

What were my expectations?

Considering that I went from planning the Store Page to publishing the game in the span of about a month, you can say that I didn't put a lot of effort into making this release a "Steam Hit". All the game development had been done for a long time and I already had plenty of feedback for improvements for future releases.

So... why do it? Well, I thought that if I plan to make any advances in gamedev, I should understand how Steam works, being the biggest platform in the market and all. I watched videos and read articles about it, but nothing beats the first-hand experience. Turns out this was a good idea, because I ran into issues that no video or article prepared me for, so...

How was the process?

For a first timer, publishing on Steam is contrived, complicated and seems to be working against you at all times, but once you understand it, it is ok.

The Store Page creation is pretty straight forward, not much different from other platforms, but uploading the actual game on the other hand...

To publish on Itch or on Newgrounds you simply type a description, upload a ZIP file, change a few settings and you're done. On Steam you need to:

• Download an SDK
• Configure the SDK and successfully connect it to your SteamWorks Account
• Configure your depot(s) with the game files and publish it
• Make a build for your game on Steam and publish it
• Test your build and depot(s)
• Wait for the reviewing process
• If the reviewing fails, you need to fix whatever needs fixing and apply for review again
• Publish the game

What issues I encountered?

When you are publishing on Steam you get a big checklist of stuff to do, which is pretty easy to follow and has videos explaining everything in detail. Maybe this as bad luck on my end, or that I failed during my research, but the problems I found were not mentioned in any tutorials, articles or videos I could find.

The problems were:

SDK wouldn't link to one of the depots

Since my game had 2 available languages, I was instructed to create 1 depot for each of them. This worked great with the first depot, but not so much on the second... Why? No idea. The SDK simply said that the upload of the depot failed and that I should try again.

How did I fix it? I manually created the depot on the SteamWorks page and tried again. Now it worked. Lesson learned.

As a dev, I did not get access to any of my game builds for testing

Every tutorial, video or article said that, as a dev, you get access to playing your game right away, no questions asked. The thing is... I didn't, and no settings I changed gave me access to it to test anything.

How did I fix it? I sent a Steam Key for myself as if I were a third-party dev instead of the main one. That worked great and I could access and test my game. Another lesson learned.

No play button available on store after release

After everything was tested and Steam gave me the go ahead, there was no play button on my store page. The game was released and everything was looking good on my end, but there was no play button! 

How did I fix it? After searching for a bit I found one reddit post where a dev faced a similar issue, and the way to fix this is... contact Steam. This apparently is a bug that can happen to you, but I got no reasons for it. Although Steam Support was great and fast, this was not fixed immediately, so this could really derail a game launch.

What I take away from all this?

Steam is a great platform, providing distribution, game key management, a store front and more, but it does have downsides, some of which could really break your game launch.

I am glad I did this and now am a bit more prepared for future releases.

Thanks for reading!

Released 1-Bit Explorer on Steam! After bashing my head against the interface, builds and depots, I can finally say that I know how to publish a game on Steam 😁 

It's completely free! And with another language available: Brazilian Portuguese!

Make my day by playing and reviewing it!

PLAY 1-BIT EXPLORER ON STEAM!

Getting my feet wet in the Steam pool doing a re-release of my first full title: 1-Bit Explorer!

Learning about how it works, how to setup everything and be ready for future releases (specifically 3-Bit Explorer). This version will fix some bugs (like the Stranger Quest completion being locked based on your actions) and a Brazilian Portuguese version! And, of course, it will still be COMPLETELY FREE!

If you could wishlist on Steam it would mean the world to me!

WISHLIST 1-BIT EXPLORER ON STEAM!

Introduction:

3-Bit Explorer follows its predecessors, being a game focused on world exploration. This time you find yourself lost in a forest that seems to have EVEN MORE bits than you, making this world even stranger to our hero. Once more, the world does not need saving, but you need to find your way home (and also a good adventure).

Story:

The ringing of the bell seems to have taken you even further from your own reality. You hoped to find a great adventure, but you couldn't imagine that this would left you stranded betweem realities. The bell also seems to be changing with every leap you take, gaining power and... features? Last time it gained eyes that watched over your, but now it seems to gain teeth that move slowly in your backpack. What is happening to this thing?

The world around you seems to be built on top of an ancient civilization, one that left many relics, temples and artifacts behind, but was mostly forgotten by its current inhabitants. A spirit from that area comes to you and asks for your aid to return into this world. Why does he want to come back? What will be the consequences of his return? Will he keep his promise of guiding you home?

Gameplay:

• Exploration first - This time you will explore a continent with forests, lakes, mountains and deserts, each with its own mysteries and inhabitants. Remember that there is always more than one way to reach an objective.
• Mysterious atmosphere - Curiosity is you best friend in the vastness of this world. Keep in mind that your interface is not free of intrigue!
• 1-Bit and 3-Bit artwork - Original artwork made for the project. 2 realities meet, 1-bit and 3-bit.
• Powers for exploration - Now you have powers granted to you by a strange spirit. Use them to reveal secrets and solve puzzles.
• Multiple endings - Your destiny depends on your exploration. As with the other titles of this series, exploration unlocks hidden paths with different endings.
• Meet with Deities, Spirits, Cults and much more in the vastness of this world.

Screenshots:

For now the screenshots are in PT-BR, but the game is being developed in EN-US as well



2-Bit Explorer - A Post-mortem

In April I released the second installment of my Bit Saga, 2-Bit Explorer, and now I think it is time for a post-mortem for it. As I did for 1-Bit Explorer, this will be more to collect my thoughts on game reception, its development and conclusions on the experience, but if this can be helpful to anyone out there, great!

Development Mindset:

From the begining this project was focused on "Explore a huge maze and find items to solve its secrets", making a challenge for myself to hide secrets wherever I could in the game. This panned out very well in some areas and poorly on others...

As with 1-Bit Explorer, I didn't mind if most players wouldn't experience 100% of the game because I believe this makes finding secrets and mysteries more rewarding in the end, but I do believe I went a bit far with this idea.

Initially obtuse:

The initial version of the game was focused on making the players work HARD on solving mysteries and finding secrets, with subtle hints on what was hiding inside the maze. While some players appreciate this struggle, what I found out is that most don't, giving up before uncovering interesting bits of the game.

One example that was mentioned a lot in reviews is the waiting puzzle. While I thought the sound cues were enough to get people to try some stuff out, the reality is that most players simply zipped through and didn't actually engage. This was fixed in a quality of life patch that added warnings to the player.

Same goes for the hidden walls and direction puzzles, which used eyes on the ground to guide the player's exploration (something that was already present in other parts of the game).

The point is: As the creator of the game, most puzzles are (obviously) clear to me, but they were lacking in directions to alert the player. Although I didn't want to handhold at anytime, I could and SHOULD be less obtuse in providing players with hints.

Game breaking bug on release:

Because of my lack of experience, there was a game breaking bug right on release! To save time on plugin configurations, I duplicated the 1-Bit Explorer Project to create this game, making both games share an ID. This caused a bug that, if you played 1-Bit Explorer, the game wouldn't save or load files properly. After an ID change on both projects, the issue went away and a valuable lesson was learned. This was only present on the browser version of the game.

Great reception:

Although it had its issues on release, I felt the game had an amazing reception by the playerbase. Some reviews pointed out that there were clear improvements from the previous title, which is awesome! As a developer, sometimes it is hard to see the gradual improvements we make, but have players point that out is really heartwarming.

Improved initial accessibility:

This time I released a browser version on Newgrounds and Itch on day 1, making the game way more accessible to people willing to give it a chance. Numbers for the game after 2 months are better than the ones for 1-Bit Explorer after 1 year, proving that accessibility is key! The fact that it was quickly frontpaged on Newgrounds (and it stayed there for about a month) helped a lot too.

Conclusion:

I am very happy with the experience again! I learned a lot about game design and I got to make another game that people seem to enjoy, so its all good on my book.

Thanks for reading!

If you'd like to test out the game, you can find it here:

Itch: https://fiddleling.itch.io/2-bit-explorer

Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/925518

You can also follow my other projects at: https://fiddleling.itch.io/

The sequel of 1-Bit Explorer is about to be released! Just final touches and it is all done!

ABOUT:

2-Bit Explorer is a game where exploration is king. A Lovecraftian Zelda-like. Explore the labyrinth that apparently has 1 more bit than you do and find your way out of the strange reality you find yourself in. Find the adventure you seek...

TRAILER:

Features:

• Open-ended - You are given free reign to how you will explore this world and approach it's mysteries
• Mysterious and intriguing atmosphere - Curiosity is your best friend within the walls of this maze
• 1-bit and 2-bit Pixel Art - Original artwork made for the project
• Multiple endings - Your fate depends on how much of the labyrinth you explore
• Find Gods, Demons, Prophets and much more hidden in the twisting corridors of the labyrinth  

1-Bit Explorer - A Post-mortem

So, I realeased 1-BIT EXPLORER earlier this year (April on Itch, following with the browser playable release on August in Newgrounds and on November on Itch), and I think a post-mortem is in order. This is more for me to collect my thoughts and conclusions, but if my experience can help anyone else, great!

Sooooo, let's begin!

Massive impression

The game is by no means big. The main quest can be finished in under 30 minutes, and I believe it is like 3-4 hours tops if you look into everything it has, but users described it as "Massive" and "Full of stuff". I believe the approach to make a small scope game which allows multiple ways to interact and multiple points of interest made the content that was there feel bigger, so people didn't just see a short 3-4 hour game, but a multitude of optional paths that expanded the main game from under 30 minutes to over 2 hours.

Immersion

Some users told that they were able to get lost in the world I created, losing track of time while they played the game. This is wonderful. Before I could only dream of this happening, but now it has. It is amazing to know that someone forgot problems, struggles and worries and just got lost in joy for a bit because of something I did.

Traces of a Small community forming

One think that I loved about the reviews was the user interactions. People saying "I got this by doing that" and "I am stuck! How did you guys do this?". One of my actual dreams was for people to ask about combat and a user actually replying "There is combat?? Where?! I need to find it" and this happened! It still makes me smile to think about!

Doesn't look like RPG Maker

For me this is a great compliment, because the users didn't bother with "This was made in X engine", but they cared about "This was a good experience!".

Too long and stale intro

This was a single complain on the reviews, but on that I took to heart. The intro was developed at the end of the project, and I believe it shows. This showed me that I need to cut some dialogs short and be more objective, specially in the early game, where players are not invested yet and can just close the whole thing.

The overshooting movement problem

Looking at game play, I saw people overshoot where they wanted to go quite a bit. This might be due to the tile based movement of RPG Maker, or the speed of the character, I don't know, but this is something that needs to be addressed in future releases. Maybe additional testing? Movement plugins? Need to figure it out.

Consistant patterns and tips

This was actually a bit of a problem for 1 player (that I know of), but I completely understand his frustration. At one point, you need to talk to someone in a PUB to start a quest, but this NPC is in the middle of a bunch of other NPCs which have no dialogs whatsoever. The pattern I made in this PUB is that people at the tables have no dialog, so there was this barrier to enter this quest that shouldn't exist. The other NPCs could give tips and hints to the issue that lead to the quest, leading the player without just saying "Hey, talk to that guy".

So when I add NPCs, they should have a purpose, even if that purpose is just giving a small tip to the player about an optional quest.

The collectathon

Some players had issues with the collectathon part, specially because it is needed to get one of the endings. Maybe with a smaller collection of items (3 to 5) it would've been better, but 25 got frustrating to some.

Clarity above all else

One part that gave players some issues was the compass to pass the desert. For me the design was completely clear, but the stylization of the arrows was confusing to a lot of players. This led to them finding the secondary use of the compass BEFORE the primary one, which is an issue. I should make clarity a bit more of a priority in every aspect of the game.

Additional testing for big and small infuriating bugs

Some bugs escaped my testing (and I did test a lot), so I should be a bit more careful. One of the bugs was game breaking, which is awful (quickly fixed. It was a dumb bug, very dumb) and another was a bit infuriating, causing people to search for something that was not there. This last one goes against the core principle of the game: EXPLORATION.

Release on browsers with the option to download

Release with only the download option was a bad idea... I should have released it with browser play from day 1. Today the browser play is larger than the downloads, and I understand why. Browser play gives little to no barrier of entry, while download requires additional actions (and trust) from the users. They didn't know me, so why should they trust my ZIP file?

Conclusion

All in all the experience was great! I got to see my game played on YouTube by some channels, a (very) small community form around the world I created and I really got to bring some fun and joy to an (small) audience! Althought I didn't make a dime out of this, I think I accomplished what I wanted :)

Thanks for reading!

If you'd like to test out the game, you can find it here:

Itch: https://fiddleling.itch.io/1-bit-explorer

Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/897242

You can also follow additional projects at: https://fiddleling.itch.io/