hackenstein Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 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 & TrailerBlog Post: The Birth of The WizardBlog Post: The Design of The Wizard Part 1: WalkingBlog Post: The Design of The Wizard Part 2: Spellcasting And here some more screenshots: Cheers! ekiscrim, snowkie, boostk and 2 others 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I still don't understand why this is free. It's SO good. It's easily worth some $. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackenstein Posted July 20, 2014 Author Share Posted July 20, 2014 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 $ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1-800-STAR-WARS Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 Really, really great. You've matched the Oryx art with your own style very well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marvster Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 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. hackenstein 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiteSoul Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Wow, it seems a really nice game. Nice job! hackenstein 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackenstein Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 The game can now be played on our website!We also added a donate button and made the soundtrack available for generous donors marvster 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Amusing coverage on IGM too http://indiegamemag.com/the-wizard-makes-entertaining-magic-for-pc-gamers/ boostk and hackenstein 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fatalfluff Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Also, it's not very long with about 2-4h (not counting hard difficulty). I have charged for games with <10min play time hackenstein 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 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 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackenstein Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fldr Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 very lovely game and graphics! i played it on gamebrokerage for a while dont nonexclusive licenses for that game sell like hotcake? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackenstein Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fldr Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 i think you should contact some sponsors yourself! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackenstein Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orbital Game Studios Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 I really am enjoying your game. Lots of fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eduardo Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Really cool game, the sound is great, congrats! ! How much time to develope? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackenstein Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PXBILL Posted July 27, 2014 Share Posted July 27, 2014 Awesome game!! Just an idea, the damage deal and taken maybe using RPG style? with dices? it can give it a +. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackenstein Posted July 29, 2014 Author Share Posted July 29, 2014 We consciously decided not to add randomness, especially when it comes to the damage. That would break the puzzle-aspect of the game Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boostk Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enriqueto Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 I enjoyed playing your game. Hopefully you get a way to monetize it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackenstein Posted August 18, 2014 Author Share Posted August 18, 2014 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nereus Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 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! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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