Hey good people! On this day two years ago, we released our little experiment The Plan. We’ve been through some exiting times since then, and felt like providing a little retrospective.
Some facts:
- Over 600.000 people have played the game!
- Over 50,000 have downloaded the game through torrents, even though the game is available for free through both Steam and our own website as a direct download.
- 1,293 number of posts in just one of the discussions on steam.
- Almost 8.000 reviews on Steam, lingering at a 9/10 score :D
- Houndreds of thousands of views on lets plays on Youtube.
- 1 unlockable character to be found in the game *wink*
- 1 hidden soundtrack to be found in the game *wink*
Retrospective
The game was made in the afternoon and evenings in the winter of 2013, with no money put into it. It was launched on the 10th of february, with a brief mail to the press and a newsletter to our friends. There it was, right on our page.
Strangely, people actually seemed to play it. Kind people even wrote about it on sites like Eurogamer, RockPaperShotgun, Escapistmagazine and indiegames. Numerous lets plays popped up on Youtube.
We expected it to be this small thing, but suddenly it was talked about, played, loved, most probably hated, in any case cared about. It was a short game, and a humble beginning for us, as we had actually never released anything before.
Releasing a game turned out to be healthy, and The Plan gave us a moral boost that helped a lot during the heavy months of crunch left until ATS was released.
The following summer, it was even selected to be showcased at the Nordic Game Indie Night in Malmø, and later for the Notgames fest exhibition in Cologne!
After that we suspected everything would calm down, and the game would fade away. Until one day, when an email materialized in our inbox, letting us know the game suddenly was Greenlit for release on Steam! This was part of the first huge batch of games to be greenlit, so it came as a huge surprise back then. We were even greenlit alongside one of our friends Rain Games, and their awesome Teslagrad.
And thus, one year after the initial release, our free experiment saw rebirth on Steam as well. Once again, we got to experience countless discussions and more writing.
In the new version we also made an addition to the end, combining previous player’s thoughts and comments into a huge starry sky. Again, we were amazed at some of the reactions, a huge thread detailing what people had typed, discussions about what a game is, stories about overcoming difficult times. We even received touching emails from people around the world.
Numerous lets players also posted lot’s of great videos, delving head first into the game. One made a little short film, and another asked himself after playing the game “Is purple really purple” while looking at his hand. Poetry.
I guess what we’re trying to say is that in the end, hearing and watching the reactions of you people is what makes game development worth it. What makes it count. And we are very grateful for every last person who play and share their thoughts on our games.
Thanks so much playing! (For those planning to play it, make sure you have the newest version: 1.1.3)
Patch notes
- A hidden sound with a hidden message
- Additional error checks when using the Steam API to prevent crashing
