Demo available now!

Hello everyone! my name is Christian and I am going to tell you about the Beacon of Neyda demo… After a few hectic weeks, I will answering some questions that you have asked me these days.

¿Why now?

Although the demo was published after our game participated in LAGS 2024 (a couple of weeks ago), it honestly did not come out in its best state and we had to make several adjustments to polish the experience, it is still somewhat rough but I think it has improved enough to be an acceptable demo, that’s why we announced it now… also preparing a Kickstarter campaign alongside the demo affected us a lot, the good news is that the demo will be available until August and maybe longer if the campaign Kickstarter has good results.

Where do I try it?​

It is available on our Steam page Here.

What now?

As for the demo, you will receive some more updates, to continue improving your experience (something that thanks to the feedback and opinions about the game that you, the players, give us, we are achieving). The next production phases of the game are still underway, such as new levels, enemies, missions, etc. (things that we will begin to share in the following development diaries). Although there are many factors, I can timidly anticipate that the game will be ready by 2025 and remember that it will be for PC and Xbox.

Can I help?

Yes, of course, your opinion and feedback on the demo is valuable, try the demo and share your experience with us, follow us on social networks and help us spread our content.
But if you’re really feeling generous you can give us a hand when we publish the game on kickstarter or help us with our Patreon.

That’s all for now, stay tuned, we will be participating in several events this month, and we may have some big announcements to make about the game.

JOIN THE COMMUNITY Follow us in our Discord community for more news and development progress.

Gato, the social gaming platform for everyone

Today we bring you a new useful article for players and developers. Our games are available on different platforms, and for the past few months, some of our titles have been on GATO. But…what is GATO? Stay and find out.

To begin, GATO is a free global and social platform with the mission of supporting, boosting, incubating and developing indie games and their creators, while exposing the games in front of thousands of players.

Its idea is to seek to publish and scale games of any type or state, for example: pre-alpha, alpha, demos, experiments, about to be launched or already launched, all this through a multi-device platform that has a large audience eager to play all kinds of games. All this sounds good, on one hand players can find a great variety of games and developers a platform where they can showcase and even test their game ideas for free, but that’s not all, they can also monetize them.

 

Just like other platforms, GATO shares advertising revenue with developers who have uploaded their games to the platform. But the big difference is that the developer doesn’t have to integrate strange APIs or make weird adaptations, GATO takes care of everything, which is a great advantage. Now, how is the balance of what was generated calculated? It’s very simple, when your games get the most attention from users, for example, the more sessions and minutes there are, the more you’ll earn. It is calculated based on the CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions).

 

GATO GAME QUEST

Previously we mentioned that GATO seeks to publish and scale indie games and help their creators, and a wonderful way it has to do this is Game Quest, an event where developers can upload their games, be voted on by the public and finally be analyzed by industry experts who are part of the “GATO Council”, which includes people from Argentina, Brazil, the United States, Spain, Mexico, Peru and Italy. We have to highlight that in its first edition we were part of the council and had the opportunity to play great games.

In its latest edition, more than 600 games were presented and more than 100 were selected to participate. They were played by players from more than 100 countries and there were various prizes for the winners.

 

Finally, if you are players and want to see what you can find on GATO, we share the link to their website with you. Also, if you are developers and found everything we told you interesting, you are invited to upload your games!

 

GATO web

Beacon of Neyda Kickstarter Announcement

We want to make the official announcement that we are going to start a Kickstarter campaign soon.

Yes, the time has come, what we mentioned would be a possibility in previous dev diaries is now a reality

Why Kickstarter?
Kickstarter makes it possible for small, niche video games like ours to thrive. The project was born with an idea in 2022 and after creating the first prototype and showing it at events, we felt confident in expanding the project, winning several awards along the way. At the end of 2023 we got what we needed to be able to work full time on the project and we also managed to have the help of ID@Xbox so that our game is on their console. It is difficult to continue with the pace of development so we realized that we were going to need extra help.

Our Plan
That being said, the game is going to be made one way or another, it may take longer and depending on how it goes in the future we will be able to add more content once it is released with updates. Kickstarter is very important to us, but we do not want to put pressure on our future players. Any collaboration you are willing to make is appreciated, but if you cannot contribute financially, we appreciate you sharing or spreading it, that would also help us a lot.

What happens if we fail?
Having said that, the game is going to be made in one way or another, it may take more time and depending on how it goes in the future we will be able to add more content once it is released with updates. The Kickstarter is very important to us but we don’t want to put that pressure on our future players. If you can’t collaborate, we appreciate it if you can share or spread it, that would also help us a lot.

And that’s all for this announcement. Don’t forget to also follow us on Kickstarter to find out when it will be released and thank you for all your support so far.

Understanding video game development: Wishlists

In a world governed by algorithms, the success or failure of a game can depend on a simple numerical value.

This article seeks to explain to both developers and players the importance of the accumulated amount of wishlists on Steam and other similar platforms.

 

 

An sea of games

 

With the number of games available growing year by year, having a good game is no longer enough and standing out from the crowd becomes a priority for all developers. There are many variables that influence the success of a game (as well as its failure) but we are going to try to understand one of the most basic ones.

 

 

Wishlists 

 

What does this mean for the player? In simple terms, it is a means that allows you to make a reminder about a game that you visited and were interested in, which you could add to a list of possible games to buy in the future, either because that game has not yet been released or it is simply waiting for a better time to buy it (discounts, seasonal events, etc.) and you don’t want to lose it among this sea of games.

You can find this feature not only on Steam but also on other platforms.

What does this mean for the developer? It is a preview of the interest that your game can generate, a statistic that can be used to calculate possible future sales or even a number that allows you to negotiate with publishers. The number of wishlist that a game has can influence its launch and is a highly valued number.

It also has effects on the different platforms, but we are going to focus on Steam, a high number of wishlists ensure that the platform promotes the game in a “natural” way, it also allows it to be positioned more frontally at events when it is shown on the platform. “If you have many wishlists it is because many are interested and if many are interested, it will be shown to more people.”

The logic seems simple, but it isn’t all that matters, the moment and how those wishlists are achieved also affect, it should be noted that this is between “myth and reality”, because Steam assures that it is not a real factor, but according to the experience of many developers it seems so.

Let’s take a practical example, an indie game may have “100.000 wishlists” but they were collected over 5 years and during the last 3 months before launching, only “5.000 wishlists” were added, the “momentum” of the game was lost and most of those wishlists are “cold…” as a result the launch may not be as effective and that game is in danger of not having much scope.

In the next video Steam explains a little more how it handles the visibility of games.

 

 

The reality

 

As we saw, for developers the importance of players wishlists becomes essential and they are affected much more by their use. 

As players, I believe there is a certain responsibility to help the games we like or are interested in by clicking a simple button, the cost is free and we can help make that game a success.

As developers we have to understand that “wishlists” are important, but it is only one factor among many, being aware that possibly only between 10% to 30% of those wishlists become sales (with a good launch) and that hopefully throughout the life of the game we cover 50% of the total of those wishlists. There are always special cases that break with these statistics and sell much more or the conversion rate is higher but they are just that… special cases.

But then, does having many wishlists ensure success, yes or no?

No, but it does give a good base and opportunities to each game that is presented on the platform, let’s say that the greater the number of wishlists, this becomes a beacon of light in this sea of games to stand out, if they are more recent the light It will be strong, if they are very old the light will be much dimmer…

And speaking of beacon, have you already added our game Beacon of Neyda to your wishlist? No? Well, this is your chance.

Yes, I know, it was a very smooth transition, I hope you found this article of interest, I invite you to follow us on our social networks and be sure to see what other things we have on our blog, until the next article!

Dev Diary 1 – Road Map – Pixi Poxi

Hi everyone, welcome to the first Dev Diary of Pixi Poxi, my name is Christian and I will be in charge of telling you about this game.

To begin with, Pixi Poxi Autorunner Lab is a game that was born several years ago in the past when Ghost Creative Studio was just starting out, but it was forgotten after the studio focused on other projects. But personally, for me, it was always a small passion project that I knew I would revive at some point…


Road Map

 

And that moment has come during this year, first with a proof of concept built for mobile and then with an improved version, designed for PC with a demo to see what the public thought. In general, the feedback was good, which reignited my interest in bringing to life the game that I had imagined back in 2019.

This roadmap shows what I have planned for the game. Please note that the entire studio is currently working full-time on our main game, Beacon of Neyda, a side-scrolling strategy game where you have to survive waves of enemies while creating your base and exploring a post-apocalyptic world. Therefore, I am developing Pixi Poxi in my free time. My idea is to slowly add the missing test chambers and conversations between levels to add a narrative guide to the game.


Early Access


For the reasons mentioned above, I will start with an early access, which will be available in the coming weeks, as I am finalizing the last details such as achievements and Steam integrated elements in the game.


Test Chamber 4


After the release of the early access, I will start working on the new test chamber, 10 new “electrifying” levels with a more industrial setting. At the current pace of work, it will probably take me a couple of month for each new update depending on various factors. Ideally, I would have more time to work on this project and add someone else to help. Therefore, I am announcing that I generated a Patreon for the studio is available. The focus is simple: to complement our studio maintenance expenses and concentrate more on having time to develop our games. Everyone who joins will have their names in the game credits and a game key when it is released.

And that’s all for this first dev diary. If you want to talk about ideas for the game or see more things about the development, I invite you to our community!

 

JOIN THE COMMUNITY
Follow us in our Discord community for news and development progress.