![]() ![]() ![]() As far as pricing, it was really as simple as asking myself what I'd consider a fair price if I was on the purchasing end of it, and going with that. Mount & Blade had used a similar approach, too. What were the difficulties of pricing and marketing the game considering that Kickstarter wasn't a big thing then? Did you try and get in touch with a publisher for your game?Īt the time, Minecraft was already doing exceptionally well with preorders, so it was clear that it could work as a model. I owe a lot to both of them for raising the game's visibility and helping make long-term, full-time development possible. There was a big spike after TotalBiscuit covered the game, and another one more recently when Scott Manley did. It's a bit of both - the income from preorders is doing a good job of keeping the drain on my savings manageable. ![]() Considering you haven't had the game crowdfunded, are you developing the game mostly out of your own pocket out of passion or is it managing to cover its own development costs as it goes along? The game is technically in alpha and at this moment it is selling as a preorder with early access for 10 USD. A couple of other folks have been involved along the way. Stian is a composer and a sound designer the music and sound effects you hear in the game are his creations. David is an artist, and has also recently taken over writing duties - creating the game's backstory, designing the geographical and political layout of the Sector, etc. Right now, there are three people working on Starsector: myself, David Baumgart, and Stian Stark. That's a bit misleading since the first year and a half or so have been strictly part-time, though. Sort of a mix of Star Control, Mech Warrior, and Master of Orion 2.Īs for how long, let's see - the earliest revision from SVN dates to late in 2009, so looks like it's been about four and a half years now. So, Starsector: build up your fleet, upgrade your ships, improve your character, and influence the goings-on in a fledgling sector abruptly cut off from the rest of the Domain 200 cycles ago. Can you tell us a bit about Starsector? What's the game about, how long have you worked on it and how many people are involved? Good as it is, SC2 is *not* the game you want to play if you're mostly playing games to relax when you're tired. After this phase passes, I'll probably start playing something less aggravating. In my recent spare time (such as it is), I've been torturing myself by playing Starcraft 2. Oh, I'm terrible at this! My name is Alex Mosolov and I'm the lead developer/designer of Starsector. Hello, can you give us a short summary of yourself? i managed to catch Alex Mosolov, the lead developer and head of Fractal Softworks, the maker of Starsector, for a not-so-short interview on his thoughts about working as an indie developer and its inherent hardships and choices as well as rewards and experiences. ![]() This game was not Kickstarted or Indiegogo'd, it didn't have a huge marketing push or saturate the media with emails and with a small team of devs they managed to put out each major release as a completely playable and 'feeling-complete' game.ĭid i mention it's not even on Steam? Or any other digital distribution service for that matter?īut that's enough of my yapping. It's one of the very few that manages to keep my attention all through-out the foggy landscape of the game industry, but not just because it's a great game but because it manages to sustain its own development and maintain a consistent and involved community without any of the crutches that the current indie gaming sphere has begun to take for granted. It can be called "Mount & Blade in space", a game in the same vein as Escape Velocity, Star Control or SPAZ, or widening the net, Freelancer in 2D sprite glory if the other references fell short. For me, that game is Starsector, an indie-developed role-playing, arcade-tactical, star-faring, 2D spaceship game. With games launching every day, both triple-A full releases and early access concepts, with Kickstarters to keep track of and various news flooding RSS feeds, it takes a lot for a game nowadays to lodge itself into our minds for more than a few months. ![]()
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