"Building up a community is the #1 thing that boosts computer games chances of success these days"
So two days (60 hours ago to be nearly exact) we announced Before We Leave to the world, and the response has been ... humbling. The art style, the non-violent gameplay and the idea of space whales seem to have all resonated very well with people, which is just such an amazing boost! Of course I hoped for something like this, but I never dared to expect it!
I like numbers, so:
- The trailer has been viewed nearly 70,000 times across YouTube and Twitter
- The Discord server has gone from ~40 to over 1000 users
- That I know of, 8 game press sites have put up articles about the announcement, including PC Gamer, Kotaku and Rock Paper Shotgun
In particular the Discord server has just exploded. If anyone out there is considering announcing their game like this, I cannot recommend enough having a server ready to go, AND having something to do there. On the Before We Leave server there's an idle game that people can play that sort of mirrors the final game, which has been hugely useful both to get people to visit and to get them to stay. Building up a community is the #1 thing that boosts computer games chances of success these days, I'm told, so the effort seems to have really paid off!
I'm not sure quite how to celebrate all this here so ... umm ... here's a picture of the latest building to be added - the School! As your people emerge from their long stay underground, pretty soon you'll run out of people waiting. Once that happens, you'll need to build schools in order to raise new people to join your growing civilisation and take it into the future. Although I should probably leap ahead of any conclusions you're tempted to draw and say that this isn't a 'generational' game as such :)
And yes, the clock does work.
