itch.io

As explained above, YOU are paying the correct rate of tax (20% VAT) whether you buy it from Itch or Steam, no preference involved. It is the game's base rate (chosen by the developer) that is different, suggesting the product has been setup incorrectly on one of the two store fronts.

> So much, really? £2 is not even a decent meal.

Please try to understand the context. When measuring direct competition £7 is much higher than £5. Especially when they are advertised as the same price.

> Then do it.

Again, please read the context. This isn't a personal complaint but an observation that Itch will do much better if it charges equally with Steam.

> I did.

Well done.

The controls are all stated in the 'How To Play' menu in the game.

Please play the game in Chrome, you may experience issues in other browsers.

The Itch price in £ I'm quoting is simply the converted rate. As offered by PayPal in the UK when going through the checkout.

Steam allows the developer to set regional prices - and presents the cost as per regional expectation (tax excluded in US, included in Europe). This is why the USD price is the same on Itch v Steam.

I assure you the UK final price is different, by some way, I have been through the checkout for both. I have seen this for a number of different games, usually smaller indie games (A Short Hike, Baba Is You). All I can think is when the developer has set the UK price on Steam they have not realised that tax is included in the upfront price, hence the final price being a fair amount higher on Itch.

On that steamdb page you linked it shows the UK price *including* tax versus the US price *excluding* tax. That doesn't seem like a fair comparison.

Hi Oxitran,

I totally agree.

I just want to point out that both Itch and Steam apply the same tax rates to digital products in the UK / Europe, just that Steam include it in the upfront price. You'll see the breakdown in your email receipt. The issue here is the base price is very different on Itch versus Steam.

On Itch = ($7.99) £6.12 + 20% VAT = £7.61
On Steam = £4.82 + 20% VAT = £5.79

On Itch the advertised price is before tax, ($7.99) £6.12, so you end up paying £7.61
On Steam the advertised price is after tax, £5.79, which is the amount you pay.

All I can think is the developer has erroneously set the price much lower on Steam not realising that tax is included in the upfront price, not added at checkout, as is common in the US.

Hi Leafo,

Thanks for the clarification. I do understand this. My query is not regarding how and when you charge VAT but why there are sizeable price discrepancy between Itch and Steam for certain games.

Regardless of whether VAT is charged upfront (Steam), or on top of the advertised price (Itch), there are large discrepancies in base price. My provided example stands, A Short Hike,

On Itch = £6.12 + 20% VAT = £7.61
On Steam = £4.82 + 20% VAT = £5.79

The fact that the Itch price before tax is comparable to the Steam price after tax suggests to me that the developer has made a mistake when setting the price. Is there not a way to approach the developer and highlight the discrepancy, fixing the mistake (by either increase the Steam price or decreasing the Itch price) and thus making them equally competitive?

The article you linked is about how Steam geo-locks activation keys to *prevent* UK customers from purchasing games outside the UK to avoid paying UK VAT rate - that's the exact opposite of what is happening here.

I'll say it again, Steam are *definitely* charging 20% VAT in the UK. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/finance/taxfaq

In fact, here's my invoice from A Short Hike.

From what I can tell the developer has either set their Itch price incorrectly, or their Steam price incorrectly. And I have seen this happen several times. The mix up means Steam ends up charging 20% less than Itch. This needs to be addressed, it makes Itch uncompetitive.

The links if anyone wants to test for themselves - I'm in the UK so not sure if something similar is happening elsewhere.

A Short Hike on Steam costs = £5.79 (which already includes VAT, and is ~$8)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1055540/A_Short_Hike/

A Short Hike on Itch costs = $7.99 (comparable to the Steam price), but adds an extra 20% for VAT when you click to buy = $9.59 (much higher than Steam)
https://adamgryu.itch.io/a-short-hike

I believe that's related to corporation tax, not VAT. The customer pays VAT and that appears to be where this discrepancy lies.

Itch is NOT including VAT in the upfront price, Steam is - yet both upfront prices are the same, hence Itch charging 20% more in total than Steam. This is a problem I have seen more than once.

I don't know if this is an issue with Itch or how a store page is setup, but I've noticed a few different games that report the same price as on Steam, but when I go to buy them on Itch, 20% tax is applied (I'm a UK customer, that's the VAT rate here). This does not happen on Steam, tax is already included, so the game costs more on Itch.

This was the case with Baba Is You (not checked recently), and is currently the case with A Short Hike.  When I try to purchase the game on Itch, 20% tax is added for me, that's $7.99 + 20% = $9.59, which pushes the UK price to £7.61. On Steam the price is fixed to £5.79 (which includes tax). I would much rather support Itch and purchase the game here, but how can it compete if the price is higher?

When I try to purchase your game from Itch, 20% tax is added for UK customers, that's $7.99 + 20% = $9.59, which pushes the UK price to £7.61

On Steam the price is fixed to £5.79 (which includes tax). I would much rather support Itch and purchase the game here, but how can it compete if the price is so much higher?

Also, Steam demand a bigger cut of the sales price, so it makes very little sense that the price is higher on Itch.

What OS / browser are you using?

It's running fine on Win10 in Chrome and FF.

Your graphics are just wonderful, I wish I could draw like this. The buildings are superb.

I love it, graphics are great - and the font is lovely. Really nice idea. I might've missed something but I had to restart the game after getting trapped in the tutorial, while checking out the tools. Will definitely come back to this game though.

The graphics are wonderful, super cute. Garden snails are my nemeses, eating all my plants but I'll let them be the good guys for once. Only minor criticism (as mentioned below) is that the movement and FX don't fix to 64x64 grid, but I think that's forgivable as the assets all do.

The spaceship tech drawings are awesome! I love that stuff.

This is a great little puzzle game, really quite challenging, which is good!

I love the music, and the mice are super cute. Packed a lot of detail into those 8x8s.

Audio works really well, very atmospheric. And really nice title screen.

I spent 20 minutes just making satisfying little loops before I remembered there was a puzzle to do. I know it's a bit much to ask, but I kinda want an export feature - I really like some of the stuff I've made with this! (love the concept)

This is excellent. Graphics are just wonderful, and so glad you didn't turn it into a mindless shooter, that you're repairing stuff is really refreshing. I really recommend checking out https://www.bfxr.net/ and getting some low fi sfx in there - it'll really aid the atmosphere. This game is worth the effort!

Jeez, I wonder how big a t-rex omelette would be. Great concept! Music fit really well.

The character art is really nice. Surprised how readable the font was considering the 3x3. Will you be releasing GameBeans, or is just for personal projects?

I love the level graphics, the dried up ocean bed, the plastic debris. The sand tiles are just excellent.

If you leave a comment when rating I will happily review your game in return.

I love your art work! Looking forward to seeing some more of your games.

Thanks! I do but I've not had time. I will tidy it up soon.

Yeah, I'm seeing that Trojan too. No response from dev. Bit of a shame, wanted to give this tool a try, looks good.

Okay, fair enough. The only obvious things I could think of are the turret not rotating fast enough to track the enemy, or perhaps your algorithm is not targetting the centre of the sprite/hitbox, but one of the corners. Anyhow, I spotted a few other things.

1. You cannot chain junctions, i.e. two junctions next to each other will block up the transport of materials. Not sure if this is deliberate or not, but I've had scenarios where this would be useful.

2. Increasing the cost of drills does not prevent drill spamming, just makes the first few minutes of the game a bit of a grind while you slowly build up your stone industry. I think the conveyor and router speed / capacity limitation is a better way of moderating resources, and already works pretty nicely. Ultimately the more you add to the game the more difficult it'll be to balance. The extractors were a really nice addition though.

Can you specifically test the Flak turret - from what I see it rarely hits - it is the only turret where you have added an overPrediction variable (is this to simulate inaccuracy?) I'm not sure why this is necessary. If the algorithm is correct, and the target doesn't change velocity, then it should always hit and not require any over prediction?

Found a mistake: Titanium Extractor description says it outputs coal not titanium.

And a bug: the game will crash if you remove a conveyor, leading off a junction, as the junction is outputting onto the conveyor.

Also, I mentioned that the turrets were firing wildly off target in version 1.5, you said it was a mistaken in the maths. This is definitely fixed as of 2.0 for the old turrets, but the newer turrets seem to be suffering from the same, or a similar bug. This is most obvious with the Flak, sometimes firing 90 degs in the wrong direction. Could you have copied the erroneous code to the newer turrets before applying the fix?

Yes definitely. I had grand plans for this, but it was for a 48 hour dev jam and a lot had to be cut, hence the jarring sfx.

1) Is that to simulate inaccuracy? Apologies if I'm overstepping, I find the simplest way of handling target prediction is,

aimPosition[x,y] = enemyPosition[x,y] + (enemyVelocity[x,y] - yourVelocity[x,y]) * (distance / weaponSpeed)

Which, ignoring acceleration, provides the perfect firing solution - then I add an inaccuracy factor on afterwards.

3) Yeah, stronger rather than more enemies will help, although it'll still likely lag due to the vast number of turrets and projectiles flying around. You could use a fixed time-step; the game would slow down as FPS drops, but it'd avoid the glitching through walls. Pick your poison.

4) I've been in that exact position, needing that functionality, but can't work out how to use the junction. I stuck it in the middle of two conveyor belts in a cross formation, but the resources just stopped at the junction and started to pile up. Maybe I'm just being dumb, but it could do with an example. Perhaps bung one in to the initial base setup at the start of the game?

5/6) Yeah, totally understand. Though I personally find the online highscore the most complicated bit to implement. I don't know what tools you're using; I usually put something together with socket.io, node and a small AWS server - but the score verification is always the hardest bit - it's really easy to spoof a highscore in some games.

+7) I also forgot to mention, not a bug necessarily, but when you're building things and run out of a certain resource, it auto de-selects that object, which is a little frustrating cos you have to go back and re-select it each time. Also your gun starts firing on that final object placement as you run out of materials.

Jeez, sorry if I'm bombarding you. I'm a sucker for resource management / tower defence games. Do you mind divulging what code / libs you're using for this? I've been mainly using phaser.io recently but I'm not sure it'd handle so many sprites as your game requires.

Great game, really addictive!

I noticed a couple of bugs when I played.

1. turret aim is off - sometimes firing in exact opposite direction to enemies. This is particularly prevalent when the enemies are moving. Could be a rads/degs mix up.
2. I quit a game, returned to the menu, then started a new game. The level reset, but my resources did not, i.e. I started with loads of resources.
3. Late waves (40+) I see FPS drop enough that player and enemies start glitching through walls.
4. I can't find any use for the junction tile? If there is a use it needs more explanation.

And a couple of suggestions; Showing turret range indicator while before you place it would be handy. Also, hard to implement, but an online highscore would encourage people to come back.

Good luck with this, it's cool.

Finished it. I love a puzzle game, and this was very inventive. Worth developing further.

This is a really nice game, possibly my favourite so far. I'm surprised it hasn't had more ratings. You might draw more attention with a gif for a main screenshot - take a look at gifcam.

I found the jumping quite difficult at first, but once you get the bubble and double jump it gets a bit easier. I very much like the health indicator design, when you get hit, no clutter. The music and SFX are good. Great atmosphere for a little game. It all fits together so well.

Music's great!

Thanks! I did use Phaser. There's a list of the tools I used, with links, in the game's description, if you're interested.