itch.io

Hi! We've just added it to our Summer Sale -- https://itch.io/s/126621/superstring-summer-sale

For other awareness-raising strategies without the luxury of a marketing budget, there's advice and tactics on offer in our book The Zero Budget Game Marketing Manual -- which has a free Lite version you might find useful.  Shout if you have specific questions I might be able to help with!

https://svperstring.itch.io/game-marketing-manual

Hello - sorry for slow reply here. Not quite sure on question, but if you've bought the book and can't access through itch for whatever reason, please drop me a line at jamin[at]superstring[dot]studio

Thanks!

There's a free Lite version, if that's helpful. But also feel it's fairly priced given the pricing of most resource/academic style books of this nature.

Zero-budget refers to the tactics and principles involved in marketing a game whilst self-publishing with no marketing budget, and not the book itself if that makes sense. 

If the price is a barrier for you, please get in touch, though - can try to help you out here. 

Cheers! 

So just to check: you've submitted your evidence, right? You should be in the end-sequence with a few more emails triggering before the final scene. Strange that you're hitting a roadblock. How many pieces of evidence did you find - what's your % total at? 

Hello! Three years in the making, Superstring's new game - Acolyte - is OUT NOW!

Acolyte is a narrative ARG/Detective game that gives you your own Acolyte; a digital assistant you can talk to freely with unlimited dialogue options. Just like a real conversation. 

Become an employee of Nanomax, a well-funded tech start-up looking to change the face of consumer AI with its upcoming Acolyte application. As a remote-worker for the company, you'll interact with its employees and absorb its culture. But unexplained firings, missing employees and a strange, highly-classified bug in the Acolyte code-base point to something being very wrong.

If you've ever dreamed of having your own PA who you can solve crimes and take down corrupt institutions with, Acolyte will be right up your street. 

Huge thanks, and until next time, 

Jamin & The Superstring Team

Drop me a line and I'll sort you out -- jamin[at]superstring[dot]studio

This was an issue in an old version of the game but is fixed now. The latest version of the game on Itch should have addressed this, but if not, there will be a new, updated version live later today. Thanks!

Hello! This scene can likely be tightened up a fair bit, so keen to know any specific notes you have. But have you told Ana what WBE actually stands for? With a certain other piece of key information you should be able to progress....

Hi Dodger - thanks for flagging the issue here. To clarify, the game is still in development with issues like this being fixed and general game quality lifting day by day. 

If you want to play the game ahead of full release that's amazing - and I appreciate all the feedback coming through the door - but if you'd rather wait for the full release, please do. You WILL experience issues until then. 

RE: this issue specifically, I'm on it!

Oh interesting one - thanks for flagging this, will look into it. 

Helllo! There's some refinement still  to do to ensure puzzle answers are sign-posted correctly, but I'm removing posts that straight up post the answers in the comments here. Thanks!

Hello! It is indeed a "stupid careless spelling mistake" - apologies. There is A LOT of text in Acolyte, and there are typos and spelling mistakes still to be purged. 

This has been fixed to "in plain sight" in game now, which will be rolled out in a new Itch build very shortly. I hope you're still able to find the password and get into the Tracker... (which is accessed by a new tab at the bottom right of the nav-menu at bottom of screen)

Hi Marko -- huge thanks for flagging the website bugs/quirks. This was updated some time back and hasn't been updated in line with developments to the game. This will all be sorted this week. 

And no - some of the features listed in the latest post are only available in the full game. 

I really appreciate your comments and commitment to solving some of the puzzles here. If you drop me a line (jamin[at]superstring[dot]studio I'd like to make sure you're rewarded at launch - your flagging of issues is genuinely very helpful!

That sounds like a legacy bug! 

The full beta version of the game will be hitting Itch.io before too long and issues like this are no purged. Apologies, though!

Have you checked outside of the game itself? Nanomax has a presence online...

Hi there! Thanks for flagging this - this issue has now been fixed, and will be rolled out to a new (full game!) build on itch.io very soon. This full, beta version of the game is available to all owners of the Transcendent Edition - so check back in a few weeks....

Jamin

A brand new screenshot from Acolyte, showing off the ARG side of the game more explicitly. 

Acolyte is a natural language narrative ARG/Detective game that gives players their own digital PA. 

The full version of Acolyte will launch on Itch.io on May 26th.

All I'll say is that Nanomax aren't hiding the answer, and it's available for all to see if you find their office details...

Hi there -- please consider Headspun: Dazed Edition approved for the bundle. 

https://svperstring.itch.io/headspun-dazed-edition

Great work setting this up!

For those interested in picking up The Zero Budget Game Marketing Manual - which covers many of the topics raised in this thread,  offering Brand, PR and Community strategies you can employ without budget - the book currently has 60% off in Itch.io's Creator Day Sale. Just wanted to flag in case that helped folk (and your wallets). 

Marketing IS hard. And a constantly evolving world, with different parameters for success, just like development. On top of basic understanding, it just needs dedicated time for experimentation, and working out what works for you. 

We released a free version of our Zero Budget Game Marketing Manual here on Itch.io  last year -- https://svperstring.itch.io/game-marketing-manual

Hopefully sets you down the right path!

A good initial strategy is definitely rooted in social media: cross-posting on genre/engine-relevant FB groups,  joining and interacting in fitting Discord channels, hijacking the bigger #'s on Twitter (and Insta to a slightly lesser extent) - #ScreenshotSaturday #WishlistWednesday #IndieDevHour etc. But content is of course king; don't expect success here without strong assets from your game. Virality won't come out of thin air. 

But there's a ceiling to social media, and you'll ideally leverage press and influencers to burst the bubble and reach a wider audience. 

Once you have a following and an interest in your title, you can then start leveraging your own channels to better effect - your store page(s), website and mailing list, primarily. 

There's more on all of this - specifically focused on getting results without budget - in our book The Zero Budget Game Marketing Manual: 

https://svperstring.itch.io/game-marketing-manual

Hope that helps! 

Hi Spencer - we're keen to submit Acolyte to the itch.io Selects Bundle, which is a narrative detective/puzzle game with a big AI hook. 

Any questions about the title, please shout - we'd love to support this bundle. 

Jamin

If you check your active tasks (from the Portal tab) there’s an option to copy the URL from there! 

Hello! We can be found at SuperstringLtd - and generally use Twitter as our primary studio channel. 

Will dig through this thread here and systematically follow every account that has been linked; feel free to say hi!

Marketing, baby!

https://svperstring.itch.io/game-marketing-manual

^ Hopefully a helpful resource for you - $0 budget marketing strategies for indies. 

Oh good catch - thanks. Fixed!

Hi there - it's designed to mimic a phone UI, but it's actually only or PC right now. You can increase the screen resolution from the main menu by hitting Escape. 
Hope this helps!

Hi Spencer - we'd love to submit Acolyte: Transcendent Edition to the bundle here. 

The game, released in the past few weeks, is a narrative puzzle/detective game with a big AI hook in the form of natural language input. 

https://svperstring.itch.io/acolyte

Please shout if any questions - happy to supply any additional materials you might need. 

jamin[at]superstring.studio

Cheers, 

Jamin

As development of Acolyte continues, we wanted to put out a roadmap for the year ahead, which will let players know what to expect and when from now up until release.

The dates presented here are a best approximation at time of writing. Acolyte is developed by one person, so the timelines can shimmy about a fair bit quite easily. Will aim to update the roadmap on a monthly-or-so basis to keep things up to date. 

To everybody that's played the Prologue and shared their thoughts so far: big thanks! Your feedback is shaping the ongoing development, and genuinely making the game a better, tighter experience.

Any further comments, criticisms or questions, please reach out. 

More soon.  

Jamin

Yeah, it probably will have done a little bit. 

Hi there! Saves from the Transcendent Edition will very likely not work with the full game (regardless of whether bought on Steam or Itch)

The Prologue is standalone, to some extent. The story will pick up after the end of the Prologue, but the plan is to work in player feedback and improvements that will likely change the codebase and game-flow too much to use existing saves. 

As for your extra content: the Aura background will be in your Wardrobe from the off, and the new Tasks (and wardrobe puzzesl/rewards) will kick in at the end of the main/free content (after the end screen). 

Hope that all makes sense, and thanks for picking up the game. Looking forward to hearing all your feedback! 

Trello is great! If you're looking for a one-stop-shop for to-do lists, project management, document archiving (maybe for GDDs or story docs), web clippings and more - all with the option to share collaboratively - I can't recommend Notion enough. 

I switched from Trello to Notion for project management and production bits, and it's been a game changer. 

https://www.notion.so/

Hi all! Later this year, Superstring will be releasing a revised second edition of The Zero Budget Game Marketing Manual, with new topics, bolstered marketing strategies,  and an expanded Q&A section that brings in specific questions from the Itch.io community around the PR and marketing of their games. 

Feedback from the book has raised several questions and areas for the second edition to focus,  but if you have specific questions about improving the awareness of your game, please use the comments section here to ask and they might be used in the book. The more specific/niche the question, the better, and no subject is off the table. I'll try and answer the more simple or quick-fix questions in this thread along the way, too. 

Thanks to everybody that has checked out the book so far, and all other feedback welcome as the book is revised for 2021. 

More news later in the year! 

Jamin

Fantastic!

Hi there. Continue from which point? The 'end screen' after the free demo ends? You just need to hit continue, and a new scene will start....

If you have any more details of the obstacle you're facing here I can try to help. 

You can use similar questions to your own Personality Test, but there are a whole bunch of questions that contribute towards this Task. Hope that helps!

Hello! As the full version of Acolyte is still in development, feedback from the Prologue will be rolled into production plans to create a full v1 of the game that caters to as many wants as possible.

Ignoring bugs (which are being fixed and rolled out in ongoing updates to the Prologue) please use this thread to request features, settings or optimisations that you feel would benefit the final game.

Thanks!

Hi there! Odd not an issue that's come up so far, but I'll look into the root of the problem here and roll out a fix with the next update. 

In the meantime, you can use the CLEAR DATA button from the main menu (Esc). Hope this helps!