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Four years and $11K: Glorkian Warrior's crippling mistakes
Glorkian Warrior: The Trials of Glork took Pixeljam four years to create, first Kickstarted in 2010 with $11,200 and finally released on iOS in March 2014. An argument could be made that Pixeljam co-founder Miles Tilmann has spent enough time thinking about that little pink alien with the weird name, but he's not done yet. In a post on Tilmann's new personal blog, he outlines the mistakes Pixeljam made during those four years, presented with the perfect vision of hindsight. Before diving into the post itself, Tilmann tells Joystiq that this isn't the happy-ending success story many independent developers may dream about. "Glork hasn't really made much money at all," he says in an email. "None of our games have, actually! We had our best week of sales when we launched Glork on mobile earlier this year, but after the Apple featuring ended, sales went down to pretty much nothing. The Mac / PC release has been much less successful than the mobile version. Pixeljam doesn't actually pay its employees anymore, since it can't support itself based on our existing sales. We make money doing non-Pixeljam-related things these days."
Steam Greenlights 100 more: Light, Probably Archery, EvilQuest, Saturday Morning RPG
Steam's traffic lights turned Green again, with 100 more games zipping towards the client's Parking Lot of Distribution. Those putting pedal to the digital include carb-surd platformer Potatoman Seeks The Troof, Team 17-published stealther Light, QWOP-like sim Probably Archery. 1980s-fest Saturday Morning RPG, and villainous RPG EvilQuest, to name a few. "These titles were selected on the same criteria we have been using in the past," reads Steam's statement on the approved century. "Votes in Greenlight give us a hugely valuable point of data in gauging community interest along with external factors such as press reviews, crowd-funding successes, performance on other similar platforms, and awards and contests to help form a more complete picture of community interest in each title." The full list of games coming to a Steam near you can be found here.
Pixeljam Octology bundle is 8 games for whatever amount you want
Pixeljam's Octology bundle got a makeover and is now a pay-what-you-want offer that includes eight games, apps and albums, with special rewards for the top 10 contributors. The Octology includes the following lo-fi games for PC, Mac and Linux: Potatoman Seeks the Troof, Bitku Beta, Dino Run SE, Dino Run: Marathon of Doom and Snowball, along with music albums Pixeljams Volume 1, Planeteri and the Potatoman OST. Snag all of these goodies for $1 or more, or pay $10 or more and grab access to the Treat List, an exclusive website where contributors can download Pixeljam bonuses every month or so. There are also those physical rewards for the top 10 customers, and right now the No. 10 spot is at $15.33. The Octology bundle will be live through July 25, so stock up on Potatoman and Dinos while you can.
Potatoman Seeks the Troof, Pixeljam Octology finds its way to Linux
All of the games in Pixeljam's Octology – Potatoman Seeks the Troof, Bitku Beta, Dino Run SE, Marathon of Doom and Snowball – are now available on Linux, in addition to previous PC and Mac support, for $10. Not to say we're super trendy or anything, but we hear Linux is currently all the rage.The Octology also includes the albums Platneteri, Pixeljams Vol. 1 and the Potatoman soundtrack. Potatoman Seeks the Troof is a platformer that tells the tale of a spud as he leaves the farm and seeks the meaning of life. No, it doesn't make much more sense once you play it, but it sure does make for a wonderful live-action trailer.Potatoman is also on Steam Greenlight, if that's more your style. You fashionista.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Potatoman Seeks the Troof
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We believe they deserve a wider audience with the Joystiq Indie Pitch: This week, Pixeljam co-founder Miles Tilmann discusses the philosophy behind Potatoman Seeks the Troof, which we learned about through this intense trailer. What's your game called and what's it about?The game is called Potatoman Seeks the Troof. It's about an anthropomorphized potato that decides to leave the comfort of his family farm in search of enlightenment. Although, for some reason, almost everything he meets along his journey is trying to kill or mislead him.What inspired you to make Potatoman?The Potatoman character himself. Rich (Pixeljam's lead artist) had created him as just an animated gif years ago, and it was hard to look at him and not want to give him his own game.Also, in October we had just finished a very long series of games for other companies (Adult Swim, etc.), and were itching to release something of our own. We were working on multiple things at once – Glorkian Warrior, Gamma Bros iOS, Dino Run iOS – but none were anywhere close to completion, and at the time it seemed that we would run out of funds before any of the games could reach a state acceptable to us for release. So we tried something we had always talked about: pour our time and hearts into a very short game and get it done in about two weeks. Several months later, the game was done.
Potatoman Seeks the Troof in the fields of a live-action farming trailer
Potatoman Seeks the Troof isn't a live-action agriculture roleplaying game as its trailer would lead us to believe (unfortunately), but it does look intriguing in its own right (fortunately). Potatoman comes from indie developer Pixeljam, and it's available for PC and Mac now, solo for $3, or in a variety of fresh Pixeljam bundles, spanning the Trilogy, Octology and Holiday Bonus.The Trilogy costs $5 and includes Potatoman, Planeteri and the Bitku beta. The Octology doesn't include any squid-like sea creatures, but it does have all three games in the Trilogy, along with Snowball, Marathon of Doom, the Potatoman soundtrack, Pixeljams Volume 1 album and Dino Run SE. For $15, grab the Holiday Bonus, which includes all of the above goodies, along with the Dino Run text adventure and Beezlebuds alpha.The above cinematic trailer for Potatoman Seeks the Troof, however, is completely free.
