The Wizard - Turn-Based Dungeon Puzzler (Release July 23rd) [Phaser]

[hackenstein]

Hey there, guys and gals!

I'm Jan of Hypnotic Owl and I'm proud to announce July 23rd as the release date for our first bigger project, The Wizard!

 

 

The Wizard is a quirky, turn-based dungeon puzzler with an unique spell casting system, lovely 16bit-look and high-quality soundtrack. You play as the exceptionally handsome but uneducated wizard Kevin, whose good looks have just been stolen. The pursuit of the mysterious thief leads you down to the dangerous dungeons underneath the wizard academy. There you'll encounter mythical monsters, discover powerful spell gestures and improve your newfound abilities with the experience you gain to catch the thief and reclaim your beautiful face.

 

The game was developed using the Phaser framework and runs on PC, tablets and mobile devices using an up-to-date browser, preferably Chrome. Upon release, the game will be playable for free on our website. If we see enough interest for the game we plan to develop a sequel featuring a new story and roguelike-mode!

 

Until then you can find more informations about the game, the development and a trailer on our website:

Game page & Trailer

Blog Post: The Birth of The Wizard

Blog Post: The Design of The Wizard Part 1: Walking

Blog Post: The Design of The Wizard Part 2: Spellcasting

 

And here some more screenshots:

 

 

 

 

Cheers!

[rich]

I still don't understand why this is free. It's SO good. It's easily worth some $.

[hackenstein]

How flattering!

 

Basically we're afraid that nobody would try it and see how good it actually is, because we're still unknown. Also, it's not very long with about 2-4h (not counting hard difficulty). But if it garners enough interest, we'll make a longer sequel, that will probably cost a few $

[1-800-STAR-WARS]

Really, really great. You've matched the Oryx art with your own style very well!

[marvster]

Even if free, you likely could ask for donation (pwyw). If it plays as nice as it looks, you would easily get some compensation for your efforts.

[WhiteSoul]

Wow, it seems a really nice game.

Nice job!

[hackenstein]

The game can now be played on our website!

We also added a donate button and made the soundtrack available for generous donors

[rich]

Amusing coverage on IGM too  http://indiegamemag.com/the-wizard-makes-entertaining-magic-for-pc-gamers/

[fatalfluff]

 

 

Also, it's not very long with about 2-4h (not counting hard difficulty).

 

I have charged for games with <10min play time 

[Mike]

Hey I played the DEMO/BETA

 

Glad to see it's ready.

 

About the marketing part - it's cool that is free and I hope the next version/expansion get a commercial success too.

[hackenstein]

Haha, yeah we'll see how this works out at the end. We have already received 2 donations

Also, nice find, rich! Hadn't seen this article, yet.

[fldr]

very lovely game and graphics! i played it on gamebrokerage for a while

dont nonexclusive licenses for that game sell like hotcake?

[hackenstein]

very lovely game and graphics! i played it on gamebrokerage for a while

dont nonexclusive licenses for that game sell like hotcake?

 

Unfortunately, no. At least not yet. It seems like the game is too expensive for an unusual game, so publisher might be too afraid to take the risk. We've just added the game to the FGL Game Shop and switched to non-exclusives on Game Brokerage, today, so maybe this will change now.

[fldr]

i think you should contact some sponsors yourself!

[hackenstein]

We did. I've send like dozen mails, but those who were interested didn't want to pay more than $500 for a HTML5 game. There was one exception, an offer over $1250, which maybe we should have taken. But we really didn't want to go below $1500 and still don't, because we think it's worth that much.

[rich]

As great a game as it is, you'll struggle to get that much from any games portals (on a non-exec basis) - it's just not how they operate. But then I don't think that was your plan from the start anyway? If it was, you've built the wrong sort of game To me this always felt like making a return on either adds, iAPs somehow or direct sales to players via a store of some kind.

[Orbital Game Studios]

I really am enjoying your game. Lots of fun!

[Eduardo]

Really cool game, the sound is great, congrats! ! How much time to develope? 

[hackenstein]

As great a game as it is, you'll struggle to get that much from any games portals (on a non-exec basis) - it's just not how they operate. But then I don't think that was your plan from the start anyway? If it was, you've built the wrong sort of game To me this always felt like making a return on either adds, iAPs somehow or direct sales to players via a store of some kind.

Yeah, we planned to win the Tizen Challenge at first and when that didn't work out we looked for alternatives to earn money with it. We tried to find a sponsor or publisher for a while, but didn't get an offer that made us happy. However when we decided to sell non-exclusives, we did expect to make some money with it. Maybe we'll have to decrease the price after all

 

Really cool game, the sound is great, congrats! ! How much time to develope? 

Thanks! We had a sound designer to help us with the sound effects

All in all I think it took us about 4 months, but there were a couple of breaks, so it's hard to say.

[PXBILL]

Awesome game!! Just an idea, the damage deal and taken maybe using RPG style? with dices? it can give it a +.

[hackenstein]

We consciously decided not to add randomness, especially when it comes to the damage. That would break the puzzle-aspect of the game

[boostk]

Kickass game, I really enjoy playing it!  Your team did a great job. 

 

The market is really gravitating towards casual games vs a dungeon crawler, at least on GB from what I'm seeing.  For non-ex licenses $500-$1000 is common, and prefer to reduce the price / game by any means (usually bundling several games together from 1 developer).  The larger [midcore] publishers are looking at these types of games for native release, so perhaps there's room for you to wrap this html5 game and find a publisher there.

 

How are the stats so far?  Do you have tracking / goals setup to analyze when users drop out?  I'm curious to see what % get to 25%, 50% and complete the game!  This data would be a good indication for potential sponsors.

[enriqueto]

I enjoyed playing your game. Hopefully you get a way to monetize it.

[hackenstein]

The market is really gravitating towards casual games vs a dungeon crawler, at least on GB from what I'm seeing.  For non-ex licenses $500-$1000 is common, and prefer to reduce the price / game by any means (usually bundling several games together from 1 developer).  The larger [midcore] publishers are looking at these types of games for native release, so perhaps there's room for you to wrap this html5 game and find a publisher there.

Yeah, it sure feels that way. I've uploaded the game to Newgrounds and will upload it to Kongregate shortly. Then I will reduce the price to $1000 and see if something changes.

We spoke to one (midcore) publisher, who was very interested and offered us a 50/50 deal, claiming this was an exceptional good deal and we should accept it right then and there. I lack the business experience to judge if this was actually a good deal, but being pressured like that, I knew I didn't want to work with them, no matter how good the deal.

 

How are the stats so far?  Do you have tracking / goals setup to analyze when users drop out?  I'm curious to see what % get to 25%, 50% and complete the game!  This data would be a good indication for potential sponsors.

Since launch we've gotten so much data it actually overexerted our self build analytics implementation. We're working on fixing it, so we can analyse exactly that

[Nereus]

I had a lot of fun playing! I'm just starting to work with Phaser and have been looking for examples that used a turn-based tile system like this. So your game was also very reassuring to me If you don't mind, would you be willing to share which libraries you used? I saw you mentioned Tiled Map Editor on your blog, but was that it? I'm still trying to learn and would love to try to recreate your movement system.

 

Thanks!