I was in Graz, giving a talk about why video games are fun. I think the talk will be on YouTube at some point. A day before that was also my first time streaming IRL, it was fun and I want to do it again at some point.
The days after Graz I got sick, and I was worried I wasn't gonna make it until Gamecity, especially since I had a fever on Tuesday and we were invited to set up our tables on Thursday. But I pumped myself full of pills and survived 3 days standing 9 to 10 hours amidst gamers and gamedevs.
Gamecity was a lot of fun, many people checked out my game and said they liked it. Some didn't like it, and that was to be expected. I actually started asking people if they liked card games, like Magic: The Gathering, Slay the Spire, etc. And if they had a confused look on their face, I told them the game is probably not for them.
I did a full recap with photos in the livestream right after Gamecity.
Steam Next Fest started on Monday and I patched the game really quickly in the morning, mostly to fix a softlock that I witnessed during Gamecity.
Remember the instagram post I made about AI generated art? Kat picked it up and reacted to it in her YouTube video. Afterwards, people on reddit posted it on r/antiai and r/mtg. Even a coworker in the company I work for recognized me, because the antiai post appeared on the front page of reddit.
I can tell you that it probably did not convert to many wishlists, but I can't really tell. After Steam Next Fest was over, Faith in Despair had 3001 wishlist. It had an average of 150 players per day throughout the event, and it got to 11 reviews, and people sending feedback and joining the Discord.
Now it's time for launch. On November 12th, I will do a livestream early in the morning to press the launch button together and celebrate a little bit. I have two influencers lined up, who will stream the game and make a YouTube video, so it should make a bit of a splash hopefully.
I'm both excited and anxious. I have never had a project with that many wishlists before launch. Halfquake Trilogy has got around 3800 wishlists over 7 years, and it might have had more players and reviews overall, but it's also a free modification for Half-Life, not a commercial product.
However, the game is basically done. I could probably go on vacation for two weeks and it would be fine. But I still want to keep polishing it for another week or so. And make one more music track.
And after launch, I'll do a bunch of quick updates and a content update.
We'll see what happens afterwards.