ctmatthews

Indie game developer

a trans woman in the UK making 2D action games about ducks:

Ducky's Delivery Service (Steam/itch/Switch)

Chessplosion (Steam/itch)


i mostly post on my Blog / Newsletter / Patreon


i play fighting games! i won Evo in 2021.


pfp/header by NomnomNami


✉️ Contact (email/DM)
ctmatthews.com/contact
🖼️ pfp/header by NomnomNami
nomnomnami.com/

tayl1r
@tayl1r

Hi, so in 2022 I released two games:

They're also on itch.io, but have only sold 6 and 8 copies respectfully. I think by the end of the year I will crack $16,000 total. So after Steams cut, production costs, taxes, transfer fees, etc. I will have probably made about £7,500 (~6.5 months rent)

I should also acknowledge I am in a privileged position here, too. Neither of these games would have done as well without the amazing art and, outside of some same-face sprites and basic boxes, I did not do any of that. It was done by my industry friends at far below market rate.

Also, speaking of talented artists, here are Sam and my OC's I commissioned from まっさかさま to celebrate SOKOBOT shipping!

Canvas print of anime girl Sweet Berry Wine in a bikini hugging a robot

I am proud of both games, but admit they are kind of niche in their own way and could be improved. SOKOBOT has interface issues and the second area is really weak compared to the rest - which is where a lot of people stop.

It also had some launch issues, by which I mean when I hit the launch button, Steam deleted the store page and erased all trace of it and I was stuck waiting for support to fix it for 8 hours. (Probably launch your game during Valve office hours...)


Patchouli sprites I made

Do I regret putting "survivors" in my game title? Yeah, a bit. It is just unsightly, isn't it? Uncouth. I did this for the reason you think I did, and the result is a lot of the more negative feedback is from the game not being Vampire Survivors enough, like lists of missing features for VS parity, when really the focus was more on a Touhou-themed arena shooter with a weird upgrade system. It also gives an expectation it will be full-time supported for a year, which I am not in a position to do, but I can't really complain about any of this because of the terrible thing I did.

Both games passing 1k units on Steam apparently puts them in some shockingly high percentile in terms of Steam success, and my indie buddies say I should consider this a big win for my first attempts.

I did spend part of this year with a full time job, do some consultancy work, and options I had at a previous company turned into money somehow (this is not my world). So, I'm not dying for my craft or anything. But it has made me question what I want to do in 2023, especially since some expensive things are happening!

Attempting to self-release games with <400 Twitter followers, and a strong distaste for posting stealth-adverts on reddit, gives me something of a discoverability problem. So maybe a publisher or publicist approach would be smarter if I do kick off something chunky in future.

To be honest, I am currently struggling to find my mojo, but we'll see how I feel after I take some time off and get back from visiting family over Christmas.


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in reply to @tayl1r's post:

thank you for sharing this info! it's nice to see how people are doing on itch vs steam (i love itch but it can be really rough actually getting people to buy your game there). the steam issue sounds incredibly stressful to have dealt with...

(also took a peek at your expensive things post - hope the move to japan goes well too (: if you're looking to meet up with devs near tokyo i'm always free for a coffee)

No problem! I probably should have mentioned with itch.io that some of the sales came with a tip (with one being x3 the game price!) and I actually sell games for cheaper on itch.io because they only take 10%.

It's an interesting platform, much nicer backend and smoother launch than Steam, and I think some developers/games have big communties on there. But personally, I think I would need to target Steam first.

That sounds great! I was looking into the indie dev scene over there, asobu and tokyo indies, but I am barely tourist-level Japanese ATM. Would love to have a coffee chat sometime 🙏

the tip system & lower cut on itch is definitely very nice! i'm still trying to figure out what a good balance of itch/steam releases is.

tokyo indies & asobu both have staff/members that can speak english so no need to worry on that front (: but yeah feel free to just contact me here or wherever once you are settled in tokyo!