I want the takeaway of this post to be about the future of Treasure Adventure World, and what fans of the game can look forward to in the future. However, before I get to that I need to talk about our launch, the reception, and sales.

Critical Response

First off, the critical reception from both fans and the press exceeded my expectations. TAW currently has a 93% positive rating on Steam and a 4 ½ star rating on GOG. The goal of TAW was to recreate what people loved about TAG, fix its flaws, add some new content, and give it a pretty HD makeover. Reading the glowing user reviews from both stores tells me that the game has lived up to the expectations of the fans. Getting to interact with the fans and beta-testers through our Discord channel has also been a highlight of developing TAW.

Sales

Now let’s look at the sales numbers. Unfortunately, this is where the bad news comes in. No matter how I look at it, financially the game is a failure. Even my most conservative estimates were laughable. For the sake of transparency here are the numbers:

Units sold (as of 4/21/18 – rounded slightly):

• Pre-Orders (through Humble Bundle) – 1000 (this money was used on development)
• Steam – 1300
• GOG – 725
• Humble Store – 75

That brings the total number of sales in our first two months to just over 2000. Even though I accrued no debt making TAW, it likely will not make a profit. I’m still not sure why our sales are so low. We had a lot going for us: a game that we knew people loved, a built-in fan base, a publisher with a good track record and low development cost. Visibility was definitely a factor – we didn’t get attention from any major press or influencers. It’s easy to blame the saturated PC market (even more saturated by platformers), but there must be more to it than that, as many quality platformers still break through.

My Response

To say this was a disappointment is an understatement. Shortly after launch, when it was apparent that our sales were going to be poor, I became anxious and depressed beyond anything I’ve experienced in a while. While the fans were getting to play and enjoy the game, I was having a hard time waking up every morning to continue fixing bugs and putting out patches. This anxiety is also why I’ve been pretty quiet on social media, and Discord lately.

A number of folks were working on TAW for a profit share. They worked hard to make TAW great and had a true passion for this project – giving them the bad news was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

I decided my only option was to look for work, so I dusted off my resume and spent some time doing just that. I’m happy to report that I found a fantastic job (though one I never would have imagined doing) in the games industry. Being financially stable has greatly improved my mental health and I’ve finally gained the courage to write this blog post. However, having a 9-5 again has severely limited the amount of time I have to continue working on the game.

The Future

That said, we do still have plans for the future of TAW so let’s get to the stuff you came here for. Since I’ll have a lot less time to focus on development, I’m going to be doing less, but more significant updates from now on. The next update will include some (or all) of the following:

• Bug fixes – There are not many in-game bugs that need fixing, but there are some who are reporting performance issues, crashes and memory leaks. Though somewhat hampered by our engine, I’m attempting to work out the memory leak first in hopes it’ll mitigate the other issues as well.
• Localized editions – The first officially translated languages will be German and Russian. We will continue to release localized editions as we can budget them.
• Mods & Steam Workshop – There are a number of elements in the game that can already be modded but I will continue to expand and improve these features. I plan on releasing an animation editor for Peep, that, combined with texture modding, will give modders a lot of tools to create their own protagonists. I experimented with putting Finn from Adventure Time in the game and it worked surprisingly well (and no I will not be releasing this skin, it was for test purposes only). Longer term I also have plans on releasing a level editor – but I’ll save that for another time. I’m also developing a plugin that will allow TAW to interact directly with Steam Workshop for easy mod sharing! (PS check out our modding guide)
• New Content – Most exciting of all, I have plans on adding entirely new content to the game. I’m looking forward to busting out my notebook to sketch some brand new level ideas and utilizing some that didn’t quite make it into TAW’s vanila release. The screenshot above is a little peak at what you can expect.

I still don’t think I’ve completely processed these last few months. After working on something for so long (nearly 6 years) only to have it abruptly end in a fizzle is surprisingly hard to deal with. It oddly feels like a year has passed in only two months. I’m beginning to feel more stable again and, with that, a desire to make TAW as great as I possibly can before moving onto my next game!