ToF II Devlog #13: Full Steam ahead!
18/11/2024
Yet again, it was months (six, actually) since last entry, and things happened. Most important of them is that Tanks of Freedom II got full release!
YES! THE GAME IS COMPLETE AND RELEASED!
We have reached version 1.0! 1.0.3 even! As hinted in the previous devlog, there wasn't much left to do with the game, and that was (mostly) correct. I have recorded a Let's Play series where I played all campaign missions available in the game. And it helped me test it as well!
Plenty of bugs were squashed, dialogs fixed, and even some tiny features added. Game got polished as much as I was willing to do. In hindisght I could do a LOT more to make the game even better, but after 4 years I got really burnt out on it. I might revisit it in the future and add stuff. We will see.
And... one more thing happened. Someone ripped ToF II off of itch and tried to put it up on Steam. The game is MIT-licensed, so anyone picking it up and selling it is fine. But blatanly copying the itch page contents as well (these are not under the free license!) and just trying to lazily monetize it is not cool. This person copying entire game page was reason enough to strike it down. And strike it I did!
This event finally pushed me into action, and I decided to publish the game on Steam myself. It was basically done anyway. Setting up the Steam page, preparing some new screenshots and a trailer, then putting in some work to get a build through a review. All while being a little stressed out, not being sure if that guy is not going to try and push back on me (due to MIT license and all). But it was all fine. I intended to release the game as soon as possible, but decided to postpone it a little bit, so that it could be a part of a Steam Next Fest. And since SNF required a demo to be submitted, a demo build is now available as well!
I gathered some wishlists, then got some more during SNF. Nowhere near enough to get the game featured anywhere, but that's fine. The release happend on November 1st, when I was on holidays. Predictibly, the game sold very few copies. Since then I read up on how to market a game on Steam and learned a lot about mistakes I made. Good thing this was a hobby project and I did not expect sales anyway.
You can find the game on Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3071660/Tanks_of_Freedom_II/
And that's mostly it. The deed is done. Two weeks after the release I have published an updated version with a couple minor improvements, but nothing too serious. I am thinking about creating some Steam-exclusive campaign as a thank you to people who bought it. Maybe when I get back and create more units for the game?
(All images here can be found in original resolution on Github)
Just for the sake of documenting, here are two minor things that were added to the game post-release.
While playing the game I disliked how it wasn't obvious which unit has already moved, and which still needed to be used. I have also noticed that players have great difficulty picking up which units still have AP, as the grey-out effect is too subtle apparently. Now units have second bar underneath their health bar, that shows their remaining AP for the turn. You can tell at a glance if unit will move, retaliate, etc.
Since the game is on Steam, and most of these users might not even know about changelogs, I have added Patch Notes in the game. Just for that one person that cares. I have also added patch notes to the Steam release, so that people can check them there.
At the same time as the 1.0.3 release on Steam, the same version was added to itch page - with an important change! The builds on itch are no longer released under MIT license (big sad, I know). That's what happens when people just copy stuff without a thought. The source code on github is still free, so anyone can still sell the game. They just need to put in that minimal amount of effort to make the build themselves.
There is a new post on itch, with a list of changes that covers both 1.0 and 1.0.3: https://czlowiekimadlo.itch.io/tanks-of-freedom-ii/devlog/834110/version-103-is-out
See you in the next game!
