A retrospective story and trailer of the release of Chronik Spartans first commercially released game GLO.

Posted by Chronik_Spartan on Apr 25th, 2018





It’s done! After 3.5 months of hard work Glo is finally released and available to buy.

Yesterday was a strangely surreal and exciting day. Yet overall it was pretty relaxed. Over the past few months I’ve read and listened to countless post mortems of developers releasing their games. One thing I’d noticed is that a lot of them dread the day of release. It seems to be met with a lot of hop that can quickly turn into crushed dreams and even worse depression. The one thing I told myself is that even if I didn’t sell a single copy I wouldn’t let that day be anything other than a day of achievement. Because after all that hard work I know I’ve created a good game that people enjoy. Sure it might be difficult to sell a game but when people have played it they seemed to genuinely enjoy it.

With that being said as 11:00 GMT came around I started to get a rush of excitement and nerves. I recorded the build-up and moment of release. Not that it was anything spectacular but getting my first game on Steam is something I will always be proud of. When I started this journey of game development in January I wouldn’t have believed anyone who said that I would be releasing a PC game 10 months later. The weird thing about this journey is that as I planned and catered for each step, nothing has really come as a surprise. Things have kind of naturally evolved. But if I compare the start to where I am right now it’s quite a leap.

So 11:00 GMT rolls around and I finally hit that button. Glo is released on Steam! I check the store page and after 10 mins it pops up on the New and Trending list. Now there seem to be more than one New and Trending lists. The one I’m referring to is just the one that lists in release order the most recent games. The ‘other’ New and Trending list is the one everyone wants to be on, on release day. To clear up any curiosity Glo did not get onto the ‘other’ New and Trending list and probably won’t. Throughout the whole of the first day I had a steady 10-20 viewers on the Store page at any one moment in time. This was thanks to being on the first page the new releases. As time passed and other games released Glo moved onto the second page and pages views went down to about 5 on average. After the first day there have been a few sales (exactly how many I can’t say due to the Steam agreement, but let’s just say I won’t be quitting the day job just yet).

Around 11:30 GMT one of the guys I met at the PLAY Expo ran a live Twitch stream playing through the first 25 levels of Glo. It was really fun to sit down and watch with a nice cup of tea and have a bit of a chat with him about the game.

Throughout the rest of the day I updated the itch.io site for Glo and started the process of getting Glo onto GOG.com and HumbleBundle.com. Hopefully if all goes to plan it will be uploaded in the next week or two. The rest of the day was an attempt to not try and refresh my sales report every ten minute to see if I’d sold another copy. It was a bit of an up and down day emotionally. From one moment feeling a bit down that I wasn’t hitting jackpot (I never expected to but there’s always that glimmer of hope) to the next moment remembering how much I’ve achieved in the past few months and people actually are buying Glo throughout the world!

The one frustrating thing however is the amount of fake Steamkey requests I keep getting! About 3 out of 4 emails have been just that and it’s frustrating but I’m starting to learn to spot them a mile off now. I’ve also had a few interesting emails from some genuinely decent promotional companies looking to help promote Glo. There’s one in particular I’m considering but I’ll have a think over the next day or two when might be best to take that route if at all.

Overall it’s been a rush and it’s amazing to see Glo selling on Steam ☺ as the community builds up I can’t wait to engage with all the players and maybe even find ways to improve Glo. Another great feeling is the chance to start work on something different. Working on Glo has been amazing but after the first month I had a solid idea as to what it was going to be. After that it was just a case of making that a reality. During that time there are so many other game ideas that pop into your head that keep trying to take away the focus. But I need I had to stay on track no matter what. Now Glo is released I have a bit more breathing room to start looking at new ideas and knock up a few prototypes for my next adventure. I’m really excited about one in particular so watch this space. In the meantime go check out Glo, I genuinely love it!

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