"This is something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid and by this standard I’m calling Captain Kaon a success."
April 29, 2019
Gather round and let me tell you the tale of how I quit my QA job of 12 years to make an indie game all by myself, because I’m slightly mad, or stupid….probably both. In some ways Captain Kaon has been a fantastic success, I set out to make a game of my own and […]
"If you’re looking at trying a Greenlight campaign, I hope I’ve given you enough information to learn from my failure."
July 4, 2018
Greenlight is a bit of an opaque process. I started my quest through greenlight six months ago and I’ve managed to get Captain Kaon bobbling around at 50%, but no farther. Through GreenDB.net I’m able to see how many votes the top 100 have and I’m about 400 short. In fact, in the last three months […]
"I suspect it has to do with how the reader is exposed to the game."
I’ve been looking for ways to promote Captain Kaon’s greenlight campaign and get it moving again, places to connect with indie gamers and gain some exposure. It’s been tricky. My latest roll of the dice has been to try paid adverts. I’d tried to get all the free exposure I could first, but I always figured […]
"This might make it seem like getting through would be easy, but it’s not."
I’ve read a few blogs and articles over the past couple of years that talk about the state of Greenlight. After submitting Captain Kaon recently, I’ve been getting a first-hand look at how it works. There’s been some suggestion it’s dying, certainly the number of people voting is plummeting. The average number of unique visitors […]
"Factoring polish time into your game is an easy thing to forget or underestimate."
Being a dev team of one means I need to work quickly and efficiently. I’ve developed a process for producing my levels that will hopefully be useful to someone else out there. I first developed it back when I was a tester on Shogun 2, when the QA team got to do some map designs […]
"This system allows me to determine which areas in the level are defended, or are ‘combat areas’, and which are for flight puzzles or some other kind of gameplay"
As I progressed with Captain Kaon (Greenlight this way), I needed to figure out some bad guy Ai. This was on the list of stuff I’d not done before and there are probably a fair few people out there in indieland who will find themselves in similar situation. Hopefully this little story will help anyone […]
"I’m fortunate that my QA background makes me better than most at spotting problems"
I’ve just dropped my game, Captain Kaon, on Greenlight (vote here, you know you want to), and it seems like a good time to take stock of where I am. It’s been a little over two years of near ceaseless work to get to this point and my life now is very different to when […]