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Monaco steals, sells one million copies
Multiplayer heist game Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine reached a new milestone this week: One million copies sold. Developer Pocketwatch Games noted via Twitter that the sales landmark doesn't include free copies it distributed during special promotions. The game launched in April 2013 on Steam and received a very positive review from Joystiq's own Jess Conditt at that time, prior to its May 2013 XBLA launch. Monaco features clean, retro-inspired visuals and the ability to partake in heists with up to three friends, each using specialized characters with unique skill sets like the Locksmith, Pickpocket and Lookout. Pocketwatch Games issued the final update for the game in April before fully unveiling its next game about a month ago, an arcade RTS called Lead to Fire. [Image: Pocketwatch Games]
Monaco's final update is live now with a weekend Steam sale
The final, free update to Monaco is live now, including the "brutally difficult" fourth campaign that finishes the Gentleman's story. The update is called Monaco: Fin, and it truly is the end of Monaco, at least in the sense of regular updates. Creator Andy Schatz describes Monaco's development story as follows: "I designed Monaco on paper in 2003 when I was still an employee of a much bigger (now defunct) game developer. Development started in October of 2009. Andy Nguyen joined the team in May 2011. The game launched in April 2013. One year later, nearly a million copies of the game sold, and it's time to move on. It's time to bring something new into the world. It's time to start over. It's time for us to earn your attention again." Schatz and his studio, Pocketwatch Games, is now working on Armada, an RTSMOBA with a series of twists to the genres. It's still early in development, but at GDC Schatz told us that his current concept places Armada in the warrior heaven of Valhalla, with players able to battle creatures across all of time, from dinosaurs to robots. That's not the final concept, but it was one Schatz said he'd been kicking around for a while. "I want to do the thing with RTS that we did with Monaco, with the stealth genre, and that's constrain the control set in order to make the actual, physical interaction easy to pick up without limiting the complexity of the game itself," Schatz said. "Monaco's a pretty complex game, right? But there's one button and two analog sticks. It's accessible – not accessible in a way that's for casuals. It's something you can just jump into and instantly start addressing the game design, rather than the physical interaction." Monaco is 75 percent off on Steam this weekend, $3.75, through April 7.
The early (early) concept of Monaco dev's RTSMOBA in Valhalla
Andy Schatz is doing it again. Monaco seemed to linger in development limbo forever because it received attention from the IGF early in its production process. In reality, it took 3.5 years to come out. Schatz's new project, codenamed Armada, is a vague concept at this point: He has a clear vision for the design, but the theme, style and development team – not to mention the name – are all still up in the air. He announced it anyway. "I don't care this time because, fuck it," Schatz tells me at GDC. He's not going to release a game until "it's worth buying," but this time around he plans to throw Armada up on Steam Early Access and get player feedback. Monaco launched on XBLA, so Early Access was out of the question. Schatz isn't shooting completely in the dark with Armada – he knows what type of game it's going to be, and he has an idea for the theme. He wants to build an RTS with MOBA elements, something accessible yet still complex. In the way Monaco twisted the stealth genre, he wants Armada to feel familiar to RTS players, but with layers that smooth out the learning curve. He throws around the name StarCraft, and elements such as "champions" and "decks."
What's yours is mine: How Monaco made player feedback its own
When players first tried out Monaco, the neon-colored heist game by Pocketwatch Games, their feedback was at odds with some of the game's fundamental rules. In a talk today at the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, level designer Andy Nguyen illustrated how the developer listened to players without compromising Pocketwatch's vision for a new spin on stealth. To the uninformed observer, it might even appear as if Monaco simply plugged its ears and shook criticism off. Monaco was thrust into the hands of 400 beta testers, some of whom felt obstructed by the strict line-of-sight vision granted to the game's would-be burglars. They wanted to see the whole map, not just what was in front of them, and plan the heist looking from the top down. "When i think about that, it reminds me of the idea of traditional stealth, and what traditional stealth means to people," Nguyen said, drawing a comparison to another breakout hit in the stealth genre, Mark of the Ninja. Unlike that game, however, Monaco wasn't positioned as a game about observation and flawless execution of the plan. Like a heist film, the goal was to foster frantic escapes, improvisation and exciting moments-gone-wrong.
'Armada' is Monaco dev's new game, an RTS
Monaco developer Andy Schatz has announced his next game will be a real-time strategy game, described as a "battle of wits, not a battle of clicks." Codenamed [Armada], Schatz wants to make a game where experienced players can compete at a high level, and where newcomers might be easily introduced to it by friends at a party. "With Monaco, we took an old school genre (Stealth), we simplified the controls, and then we built an incredibly complex game that could be played at high and low skill levels alike. I want to do the same with the RTS genre," wrote Schatz in the game's announcement on Gamasutra. He says the game's design philosophy will revolve around feeling like a traditional RTS, but all mechanics must be equally fun on keyboard/mouse as they are on a twin-stick console gamepad. Monaco's success has given Schatz the "leeway" to make whatever game he wants to make next. He has not announced a timetable for [Armada]'s launch. [Image: A.Schatz]
Monaco tops 750K sold, makes off with $215K in Humble Bundle 11
Sales of the neon stealth game Monaco have hit 750,000 following its inclusion in Humble Indie Bundle 11. During the bundle bonanza, Monaco earned approximately $215,000, developer Andy Schatz writes in a rundown on his blog. "That's a nice hefty sum," he adds. Monaco was one of the "beat the average" games, meaning customers had to pay more than roughly $4.70 to get it. The entire bundle earned $2.3 million from 494,000 units, and of those, 370,000 were "beat the average" purchases that included Monaco. Most customers chose to distribute their payment with the default settings of 65 percent to developers, 20 percent to charity and 15 to Humble, and with six developers plus three mid-week additions, Schatz walked with 8 percent of the total payments. During the Humble sale, Schatz tracked Monaco's Steam numbers to see if sales there would drop – and they didn't. "Despite the huge number of units that we sold in the Humble Bundle, it doesn't appear that our presence in the HIB affected our day-to-day Steam revenue," he writes. "Why is this? My guess is that customers tend to be loyal to sales channels." Schatz told Joystiq near the beginning of Humble Indie Bundle 11 that he'd never been disappointed with Monaco's sales, even though XBLA numbers fell below his expectations. "Prior to HIB11, we had sold about 375,000 units across all platforms, with XBLA accounting for about 10 percent of those," he said. "Part of the strength of our PC sales have been the huge free updates (of which we have planned one final one, which will wrap up the storyline of the Gentleman and his crew). No plans at the moment for a sequel; I'm actually just beginning work on our next title." [Image: Pocketwatch Games]
Monaco breaks 500,000 sales on back of Humble Bundle inclusion
Top-down heister Monaco: What's Yours is Mine reached the milestone of 500,000 sales this week, no doubt thanks to its inclusion in Humble Indie Bundle 11. Andy Schatz's Pocketwatch Games trumpeted the news on Twitter, saying total sales are around the 520,000 mark, and only include about half of the total HIB 11 sales - at the time of writing the bundle's sold 270,000 odd. Monaco is a "Beat the Average" purchase in HIB 11, meaning it's a bonus for those who spend more than the average spent on the bundle. Monaco hit and ran onto Xbox 360, PC, Mac, and Linux last year, but eight months ago the sales news wasn't as encouraging. Back then, Schatz noted he was disappointed with the game's Xbox Live sales, conceding the parts played by an underwhelming demo along with the delay that prevented a simultaneous release alongside PC. That said, there should be plenty more Monaco sales to hit over the next fortnight, with Humble Indie Bundle 11 not set to conclude until March 3. [Image: Pocketwatch Games]
Monaco's 'The Architect's Patch' shortens, streamlines the game
A free update for Monaco: What's Yours is Mine, which has sold over 275,000 copies since its debut in April, adds an "Enhanced" play mode full of shorter, more streamlined maps that developer Pocketwatch Games hopes will make for an overall better experience. And if you're a purist, relax: You can still play the old-style maps in "Classic" mode. This update eliminates 'huge parts of our least favorite levels," Pocketwatch Games says in its announcement post. On top of tweaking the campaign, The Architect's Patch also adds a new campaign section, automatically unlocked for all players, full of three PVP missions and some new mechanics for the base campaigns – like doors that require certain keys to proceed and roaming NPCs who carry cash and items. A lot of the cuts come from Andy Nguyen, the level designer on Monaco. After the game shipped, he had a long list of gripes with each level – as did players – and so this update was borne. It's an update fueled by stats: Pocketwatch noticed less than ten percent of players who finished the first level actually made it through and completed the last level of the first campaign. The developer is hoping that'll change with The Architect's Patch, which is available now on Steam.
Monaco celebrates successful Linux infiltration with Steam sale
Monaco: What's Yours is Mine has picked the Linux lock today. The free update implements a smattering of new content, including a Zombie mode and new mini-campaign. To celebrate this new update and platform, Andy Schatz's co-op stealth game is down to $6 on Steam. A four-pack, which includes one copy for you and three copies you can gift to Steam friends (not only generous, but also useful given the game's multiplayer nature), is $18. The Steam sale ends on Wednesday, October 23 at 10am PT. Monaco, which is presented in a highly-stylized top-down view, stars eight crooks with varying abilities who team up to infiltrate secure locations and rob them of precious goods. Security cameras, guards and locked doors are just a few of the obstacles impeding player progress.
Monaco hits Linux on Monday with free, new content
Monaco is coming to Linux on Monday, October 21, breaking down another barrier to entry for crafty players. Monaco is already out on Xbox 360, PC and Mac, and it even has a European boxed collector's edition because it's a high roller. The Linux edition will have "a ton of free/new content," according to the announcement. Monaco on Linux is especially exciting given Valve's recent announcements: SteamOS, a Linux-powered operating system, and Steam Machines, in-home streaming and gaming boxes running on SteamOS. Every new system needs at least one great game, and now Steam Machines have Monaco. We certainly think Monaco falls into the "great" category. All technical speculation aside, the Monaco Linux announcement comes with a picture of a chibi Redhead in a penguin suit, which is adorable.
Indie developers cautiously optimistic about self-publishing on Xbox One
Microsoft's reversal of its publishing philosophy for the Xbox One has obvious and wide-reaching implications for the indie development community. While the original plan mandated that developers release games through a third-party publisher or broker a deal with Microsoft itself, indies will now be able to self-publish. Furthermore, retail Xbox One SKUs will function as development units, which historically are more expensive and more difficult to acquire than off-the-shelf models. "Ideally, this news could have been broadcast more proudly and loudly months ago, giving indies more time to prepare strategies for upcoming games," Minicore Studios founder and CEO John Warren told us, "but I suppose they don't owe anyone that courtesy. We know now, so now we can prepare for life with a Microsoft console, which is something I wouldn't have said yesterday." Warren and his team at Minicore are in the process of Kickstarting PC, Mac and Xbox 360 versions of their latest project, Laika Believes: The Sun at Night. "I think releasing on Xbox One without a publisher is a big step forward, of course, but the fact that (eventually) I'll be able to use my retail console as our dev kit is huge," he added. "My secondary (maybe flailing and futile) hope is that the fees for publishing won't be insane. It's one thing to only have to shell out $600 for a dev kit, but quite another if we have to spend another $10k on publishing fees. My hope is they'll be content with 30 percent of revenue and be done with it." Cautious optimism was a consistent theme among most of the indie developers we reached out to, though some had greater reservations over Microsoft's inner machinations than others.
Monaco dev 'very disappointed' with XBLA sales performance
Responding to fan questions on Reddit, Monaco: What's Yours is Mine developer Andy Schatz claims that his studio's efforts in porting its co-op stealth game to the Xbox 360 were "largely wasted," due to unexpectedly low sales. Schatz theorizes that many factors contributed to Monaco's poor sales performance on Xbox Live Arcade, including a weak demo and a last-minute delay that prevented a simultaneous release on PC platforms. Schatz revealed that a widespread bug related to online play proved especially troublesome, due to his team's inability to reproduce the issue on developer hardware. "I was never depending on the Xbox being our primary revenue generator, but I was very disappointed in Xbox sales nonetheless," Schatz said. "We put a ton of effort porting the game, and to have that effort be largely wasted was really disappointing." The PC version of Monaco is currently taking part in Steam's Summer Sale, and will be featured in an upcoming community vote.
Andy Schatz lets slip scrapped competitive modes for Monaco
Andy Schatz took some time off from thievery in his recent release, Monaco, and sat down with the fine people of Reddit to answer all of the questions they threw at him, such as, "Which features didn't make it into the game?" "Cops and Robbers, and Thief vs Thief," Schatz replied. "We wanted to add two additional competitive game modes to the game. We got them to playable, but we discovered that for both modes the balance didn't really work within the existing levels." Thief vs Thief had players compete in a single stage, to see who could collect the most coins, grab the trophy and get out first – but the player who left the gate first had a huge advantage, sucking up all of the coins, and the mode didn't turn out to be as fun as Schatz had hoped, he said. Cops and Robbers added a police officer to every level, but the early stages were too easy and the later stages too difficult. With some tweaks, Schatz said he hoped to bring Cops and Robbers to Monaco "at some point," possibly as DLC. Monaco's characters evolved along with the gameplay, and Schatz described how each of them spawned, early in development: "The Gentleman used to be a hypnotist, The Lookout used to be the Prowler (parkour expert), The Mole used to be The Muscle, The Pickpocket used to be The Rat (could rat out teammates to save himself). The Redhead had a taser or a pistol at one point. The Pickpocket started out as dwarf twins instead of a man with a monkey." Stranger things. Once Monaco's final touches were all settled, Schatz said he had an idea to develop a "good console RTS (or at least simple-controls RTS) that is as strategically as deep as the competitive RTSes." First, he has to work on the Monaco level editor, expansions and maybe more ports – he singled out Vita and PS4, while Mac and Linux ports are already on the books.
PSA: Monaco unlocks XBLA, out now
Monaco: What's Yours is Mine has finally scarpered onto the Xbox Live Marketplace. After failing to launch last month thanks to a bug that caused disconnects during online play, the top-down indie sneaker is nab-able right now at a cool 1200 MSP. Going by our review, at that price it's a steal (HA). Jess, a self-confessed crappy crook, gave Monaco four and a half stars, deeming it a "classic heist game for a modern audience."
Monaco for XBLA goes full monte this Friday
Monaco will break out of its Xbox Live Arcade certification holding cell this Friday, May 10. The game, which was supposed to sneak onto XBLA April 24, was delayed due to a bug, which would cause disconnects during online play. The PC version launched as expected. Our review of the game a couple weeks ago said Monaco "runs deeper than its heist theme, presenting a challenge for hardcore fans of strategy and clever design."%Gallery-168499%
Monaco made good on Indie Fund $100K before launch, what it means
Since 2010, Indie Fund has helped launch high-profile games such as Dear Esther, QUBE and Antichamber, each one recouping investment within days or even hours. The first game in which Indie Fund ever put its faith (and money), Monaco, launched last week and made back its $100,000 investment in negative time, before the game went live on April 24.Developer Andy Schatz opened Monaco pre-orders via the Humble Store in December, and Steam pre-orders went live on April 17. By April 20, Monaco had grossed $120,000, Schatz said, exceeding its Indie Fund investment a full four days before the game launched."For me the most significant thing about the early success with regards to Indie Fund is that it shows that there are many ways of approaching funding, from crowdfunding to investment models like Indie Fund, to personal loans – I know a number of devs that have taken loans from other devs – to the traditional publisher model," Schatz told Joystiq. "More options means the studios can customize their relationships to fit their personalities and their projects."Schatz used the Indie Fund investment partially to pay contractors and then to sustain himself and company expenses, including trips to PAX. Regardless of the cold, hard numbers, we thought Indie Fund's investment paid off particularly well with Monaco.
Monaco XBLA delay: Half of bug fixed, another patch to MS this week
Monaco was supposed to hit XBLA on April 24 alongside its PC version, but one day before launch, an issue forced developer Andy Schatz and Pocketwatch Games to delay the XBLA release. Today, Schatz explains that he submitted one fix for the bug, but it needs more work before it can officially launch on XBLA."It was a minor but important bug that was causing disconnects in online play," Schatz writes on Facebook. "I submitted an update to attempt to fix the bug early in the week, but unfortunately it only half fixed the problem. I'm working on another fix now that I'm hoping to submit this week. Once it's confirmed fixed it shouldn't take long to push it through and get the game out."Schatz can't set a release date now since that decision is up to Microsoft, but he promises to share more information as soon as he steals has it."I do know that fans are starting to get a little impatient with the lack of information," he says. "I wish I could give you more specific information, but until I have a confirmed fix, I won't be able to give a date. Hoping to have a little more information for you and fill you in on more of the details as soon as I have it!"For what it's worth (we know you don't get out of bed for less than six figures) we found the PC version of Monaco to be a complex and gorgeous strategy game in the vein of Ocean's 11, but with more pixels.
Monaco review: A good day to spy hard
I'm a terrible thief.If ever there were an investigation into a string of high-profile burglaries in my neighborhood, all I'd have to do to clear my name is invite some police officers to sit down, get comfortable, and watch me play Monaco for five minutes. The officers would see my glowing, pixelated character get caught on the walls around doorways while running away from hordes of angry guards with guns; they would laugh as I rushed into rooms full of alarms and set off every single one; and they would leave soon after I forgot, again, that my character could dig through walls, hack locked doors or easily knock out unsuspecting enemies, and I'd be a free woman.Just like I'd planned all along.%Gallery-168499%
Monaco delayed on XBLA
Monaco, the award-winning indie heist game from Andy Schatz will miss its launch date tomorrow on XBLA."We just discovered that there is an issue which requires that we push back our Xbox Live Arcade game release date a little," reads a missive posted on Facebook. "We've already submitted an update to Microsoft to fix the problem, and as soon as we know that the issue is fixed we'll have a new release date. I know our fans have been waiting a long time for the game, and hopefully they'll have the patience to wait just a little while longer. What's mine will be yours very, very soon!"Monaco will still launch on PC via Steam tomorrow, April 24, as scheduled. Monaco won the IGF Seumas McNally Grand Prize in 2010, and we've been playing it in various stages of development in the years since.Majesco is in charge of publishing the XBLA version, while Schatz and Pocketwatch Games are self-publishing the PC version (eventually to be joined by Mac). This is the final day to pre-order Monaco on Steam and grab that 10 percent-off price.
Monaco takes what's yours on April 24
Monaco is coming to Steam and XBLA on April 24. From Pocketwatch Games, Monaco is a top-down heist game that's been crawling the indie convention circuit and awards shows for years, and it's finally pretty enough to sneak out of development.Monaco is $15 on PC, with pre-orders available through the Pocketwatch website right now. Take what's yours – and everything that isn't, as the tagline goes.
