Indie Sonucido: The Mage - A turn-based Dungeon Crawler

[Moaning_Clock]

Today, SmokeSomeFrogs is 5 years old. The release of the first game Intra-System: Trust Issues marks also the beginning of my little Indie Studio.

It's an experimental Audio-Adventure and based on your decisions. Still one of the games I'm most proud of.

You can try it out on Itch!

https://smokesomefrogs.itch.io/intra-system-trust-issues


I also wanted to announce that I will work on a new and improved demo for Sonucido: The Mage before it releases.

New locations, more playtime and it will feature all the improvements I made since the last update in September!

 

[Moaning_Clock]

I'm working on the demo and selected the levels which I want to include. They show the variety the game has to offer (different environments, combat, puzzles, incident screens, dialogue).
In comparison to the old demo it will be longer (approximately 20-30 minutes instead of 10 minutes but I didn't test it yet) and obviously contains all the quality of life features and improvements that were added in the last couple of months.



It's not one segment of the game but these are different levels from earlier and later in the game tucked together - some will be slightly abbreviated or altered to fit the pacing/balancing better. It won't feature any of the levels of the old demo, so it will be new even for people who already played it - if you haven't played the old demo, try it out!



I still need to implement automatic saving, buy the translations for all the different languages, test it and fix some minor issues like light bleeding in some places.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Don't forget the demo is also on itchio.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Yes! The new one will also be released on Itch. On Itch there's unfortunately only a fraction of the interest (5800 downloads vs 80 downloads) but I released most of my games there and will release Sonucido also on Itch.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Just played through the demo and it took me 13 minutes. I think my estimate of 20-30 minutes is still correct since I'm pretty fast at playing my own game (who would've guessed) especially if one dies at one point. I played the old demo for comparisons sake and it took me 3 minutes to play, so the new one should give you a better feel for the game. But you can just play both!



I certainly need to balance the new demo properly and will make a couple of tweaks to the levels.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

One of my more experienced testers took ~35 minutes to play through the demo, so it might acutally take 30-45 minutes to play it. That's pretty reassuring. Playing your own game so often warps the perception of the time it actually takes to play it.

An acquaintance suggested that the animations of the weapons are too slow, so I worked a little bit on them and they are faster now (around 12.5%-25% faster) - still not fast enough for him but it didn't feel right to me to swing the weapon near instantly to the front. It certainly feels better now. It's a minor change like many before but it adds up!

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Finally implemented the save system! After crushing a couple of bugs and polishing the load sequence it works like a charm!

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Put the text together and bought all the translations I need to buy. When they are done and implemented, the demo should be more or less ready!

Fixed also a minor bug which was caused by a wrong variable name.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Took a few days off while waiting for the translations but they are all ready now! I only need to put all the text into the game now (my least favorite part of development) and translate the game into German.

After that I will polish it a bit more and then it's ready to be released to the public!

 

[Contagium]

Took a few days off while waiting for the translations but they are all ready now! I only need to put all the text into the game now (my least favorite part of development) and translate the game into German.

After that I will polish it a bit more and then it's ready to be released to the public!

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Oh, I wasn't too clear in the last post, the demo is ready to be released but the game will still take some time!

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Today I learned that most of the turkish text wasn't displayed properly. Canlılık (Vitality) for example just showed up as Canllk. It's not a big deal because I don't think that DRPGs are especially big in Turkey (or now Türkiye apparently): From the 978 wishlists I have, 12 are from Turkey. If I'm generous maybe 15 people wishlisted the game who will use the translation right now and maybe 2 actually played the demo. So it's not too late to make a good impression!

In the old demo are also parts which never even were translated in some languages (I simply didn't to put all of the options into the document) and for one word I used google translate since it was the only word in the manual which was missing. Now I have all of it and can implement that.


Devs usually hate stuff like making menus, UI, etc. but I simply hate implementing translations because I never bothered to abstract it. Everything is hardcoded and I miss stuff and need to navigate through the different scripts of the NPCs etc. but tbh I don't think that I will change my approach substantially, only improve it a bit and certainly translate the next game to less languages or add them after release. Don't get me wrong - I think it will be worth it financially but it's really the only part I dislike about gamedev.

Some thoughts about translation for fellow devs

First of all: All that stuff is mostly theory. After reading a lot about the topic I came to the conclusion that adding localizations is extremely underrated. Afaik Steam shows games that aren't translated in a language that the player speaks a lot less to these players. Did you ever see a chinese only indie game? They exist apparently. This makes sense since most chinese players who only know chinese wouldn't play an English game since they wouldn't understand much.
Now it gets tricky: If your game doesn't have a lot of words this algorithmic influence seems to still apply! So the common sense of: It's only 10 words and the rest is gameplay so I don't need to translate the game is likely to leave a lot of money on the table. Sure it gets costly if you write a big ass three part book series like Age of Decadence and is likely not worth it in that case but if you have anything between 1-10000 words I would reconsider.
One question that pops up: How can I control the quality of the translation if I don't understand the language? Let another translator revise the whole thing or a small part of it. If you are still unsure buy a third pair of eyes. How likely is it that three translators are dishonest?
Which languages should you support? The Steam Hardware & Software Survey is a good place to start. If your genre is in some countries really popular certainly go for it (like DRPGs in Japan or Simulation in Germany). Russia and Brazil are big but the price for the average copy is a lot less. Many people did localize to Chinese but Steam in China is standing on shaky grounds imo. Not necessary is certainly Dutch since they speak great English.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

A new perspective screenshot! Absolutely useless but looks cool!

Simply procrastinating. I still need to put in most of the translations ... at least I'm making progress.

In more exciting news: The demo will be released in the next 48 hours, presumably in the next 24 hours!

You can still play the old demo on Steam until then: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1535240/Sonucido_The_Mage__A_Dungeon_Crawler_by_Daniel_da_Silva/
The new demo won't contain any of the levels of the old demo version.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

The demo for Sonucido is live for the Steam Next Fest!

Check it out! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1535240/Sonucido_The_Mage__A_Dungeon_Crawler_by_Daniel_da_Silva/

Delve into the depths of Sonucido!

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Just uploaded an updated version of the demo!

Try it out, if you haven't already: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1535240/Sonucido_The_Mage__A_Dungeon_Crawler_by_Daniel_da_Silva/

Full Changelog

- Added missing localized text
- Fixed some light bleeding and shadow lines
- Increased the bomb base damage by 1
- Added a strength potion in a level
- Changed the modern/traditional movement switch key to L (for some reason # didn't work on Windows)
- Improved the transition to the death screen under certain circumstances
- Added sounds to two enemies
- Changed font sizes in a couple instances
- Increased the size of the incident decision boxes

 

[Moaning_Clock]

With the first day of the Steam Next Fest, I finally jumped over the elusive 1000 wishlists mark!



I have two livestreams coming up!

The first one today, 14.6. at 11 PM CEST / 2 PM PDT
The second one Friday, 17.6. at 5 PM CEST / 8 AM PDT

They are accessible from the store page!

 

[Moaning_Clock]

The demo for Sonucido reached over 6000 downloads on Steam!

I will start streaming in less than two hours (11 PM CEST / 2 PM PDT)

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Live right now! :D https://store.steampowered.com/app/1535240/Sonucido_The_Mage__A_Dungeon_Crawler_by_Daniel_da_Silva/

 

[Moaning_Clock]

New update!

Hey guys,

Fixed some minor issues, a bug and made the game a bit easier!

There were certain situations were it was just impossible to progress. Now the demo is a bit easier, especially for experienced players but everyone should have a better time now.

All old saves still work, so you can continue playing after the update

Full Changelog

- Added a bomb and a health potion
- Fixed a shadow line
- Improved the placement of a door
- Fixed a bug in regards to the belly guy near the lake
- Reverted the water color back to a slightly darker hue

 

[Moaning_Clock]

I'm live again! :D https://store.steampowered.com/app/1535240/Sonucido_The_Mage__A_Dungeon_Crawler_by_Daniel_da_Silva/

Watch me play the demo!

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Moaning_Clock]

I gave in. After the millionth person told me that blue is a shit color for health potions, I must admit: You are wrong but I need the money, so you get your green health potions.

Like the audience wasn't ready for Grimoire before 2017, blue health potions won't be a thing before 2042. In a couple of years you will look back and cry. Cry that you weren't part of the blue health potion revolution. This is a day of decline and it shall not be forgotten.

Health Potion

 

[Moaning_Clock]

The green potion has now a slightly darker hue since it fits better with the overall environment.

In other news, I got to over 7000 downloads for the Steam Demo although these numbers are inflated since Steam now rewards playing more demos and people made bots specifically for it.
Got 171 wishlists through the Steam Next Fest - the number is lower than the last Steam Next Fest (424 wishlists) but still a great addition! Right now I have 1158 wishlists!

My goal was, as I stated, to get to 1000 wishlists before launch and it looks like we could get to 1200 wishlists before it. It was certainly a grind to get to that number and the Next Fests account for half of it.

I will release a demo update soon with the green potions and a couple other changes and upload that demo also to Itch then!

 

[Moaning_Clock]

A good acquaintance of mine and the best person in the testing team, has a Steam Deck and tested the demo. It seems to work flawlessly! This wasn't an extensive test and I don't have a Steam Deck myself but it's certainly a good first sign that everything should work as intended. The performance was also good!