Issue #86

PUBLOG

We released a game. Now what?

It's still wild to us that only a year ago we decided to pursue publishing. Now we have a game on the market. And it kind of feels like we're done? You hit release and that's it. But what are you actually meant to do after it's out?

Then our first Steam payment hit the bank account. To respect the confidentiality of our partners, we won't share the exact number. It was just over six figures, and it went out almost as fast as it came in: WhisperGames' share (our Asia co-publisher), the dev split, and a few outstanding invoices (shoutout to everyone who let us pay late). That leaves us about $30k to play with. Not huge. Not nothing either. We're a small team, so every dollar goes out trying to bring back 2 or 3.

So step one after release is pretty simple: stay in business.

Step two is the players.

The Players

Think of any game you fell in love with. Whether you screamed about it from the rooftops or not, it stuck with you. We know there are people out there who adore Feed the Scorchpot, and we hope our other releases find that kind of affection too.

Once people are sinking their time into your game, you have two jobs instead of one. Keep finding new players. And keep the ones you've got.

We heard players asking to make the game easier, so we went in the next week and added some guardrails in the early game. We added more accessibility so there's more info on screens. It's the biggest amount of feedback we had all at once (when you've got 20,000 new players, it's a lot), and Jakub did a stellar job addressing everything he could (and still is).

There's a 1.1 update coming towards the end of the year. Sales and festivals are lined up. Mobile is now looking like January 2027 (hopefully). We bumped it a bit for testing. And that starts the whole cycle again. Market to a new platform, find new players, keep them interested.

Games can't be "one and done". Especially roguelikes.

Beyond Feed the Scorchpot

We've been talking to anyone who'll listen: developers, publishers, financiers. There's so much happening in games it's impossible to be bored. And we've got another 5 games lined up.

The three mystery ones each deserve their own email, with the story of how they ended up with us. They're all being worked on heavily right now. Can't wait to show you.

Josh & Clem