Aveyond 2 Released

[Jack Norton]

Congrats on the release!
I'm not really into japanese RPG but is obvious that you spent lot of time and efforts on this one. Good luck with sales

[wazoo]

Looks fantastical Amanda!

Grats on the release and hope it does well for you as well.

[dma]

Very nice, I like this a lot so far. Hope you have great sales from it.

[BantamCityGames]

Looks great! and I wish you all the success of the first and then some! Was this one written in Torque? (I remember you talking about it some time ago).

[moose6912]

Looks great! and I wish you all the success of the first and then some! Was this one written in Torque? (I remember you talking about it some time ago).

I think Grimm's Hatchery was written in Torque while Aveyond was developed using RPG Maker.

[Sakura Games]

As of today still there isn't a mac version out of Grimm's Hatchery. Torque isn't really cross-platform it seems...

[Grey Alien]

Ooh I look forward to trying this out as I love RPGs and I've recently become addicted again.

[Laralyn]

Congrats! I've just started playing it, but it looks great!

So here's the question of the hour: did you enjoy using RPG Maker, and if you were starting Aveyond 3 today, would you use RPG Maker again?

[Roman Budzowski]

I haven't played the game yet, though I'd like to comment one thing:
Aren't you surprised that Aveyond 2 struggles so much to get into top 10 on BFG? It is no. 12 in Top 100, but I would expect it to do much better considering Aveyond 1 success and so big promotion on BFG.

best
Roman

[berserker]

Aren't you surprised that Aveyond 2 struggles so much to get into top 10 on BFG? It is no. 12 in Top 100, but I would expect it to do much better considering Aveyond 1 success and so big promotion on BFG.

Because it's Christmas time and it is very swamped with daily hot releases. Our Svetlograd game didn't hit top 10 on BFG despite being in top 10 on Real Arcade and released simultaneously in both places. No wonder - Real releases only 2 games per week and even considering they promote their 1st party/published stuff better, you still have way less games to compete with.
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MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY

[Grey Alien]

Yeah someone at BFG told me it's a lot harder to get into the top 10 now than it was in the past, especially at Christmas I guess.

[Elder]

Hey I haven't noticed this thread until today!

Good luck with Aveyond 2!

So, any plans for Aveyond 3 now????

[amaranth]

Because it's Christmas time and it is very swamped with daily hot releases. Our Svetlograd game didn't hit top 10 on BFG despite being in top 10 on Real Arcade and released simultaneously in both places. No wonder - Real releases only 2 games per week and even considering they promote their 1st party/published stuff better, you still have way less games to compete with.

I think I made a pretty large newbie mistake when I released the game. I thought that mouse support, good graphics, and good music would sell that first hour. I didn't realize that the story was the key.

Honestly, I got lucky with AV1... sort of like a blind person accidentally hitting a target.

I never had my beta testers test the first hour of AV2. I gave them all full-version keys. Most of them liked AV2 more than AV1, but I didn't know that it took them longer than an hour to like the game. When I released AV2, the sales results were very confusing to me. It did awesome on my site (return users), but on BFG... it wasn't on fire, and they pushed it hard. I knew I'd messed up. Then I found a really helpful comment on The Game Fairy that pretty much threw the answer in my face:

"I have to say the demo does not do this game justice. I wasn't going to buy it afterward just because it didn't (I don't know)reel me in as tightly as the 1st one did,but of course I was talked into it(bad daughter..lol)and now I am extremely hooked."

Ouch, that hurt! But wow, it was a great lesson to learn.

Because the game had only been released on BFG, I decided to re-create the beginning before the game was sent out to any other portals. Now it is a couple of weeks later, and I've got a new version of the game with a much more exciting first hour. In the old first hour, you left Elfwood to find Iya and got a canoe. In the new first hour, you leave Elfwood, find Iya in the snow castle, escape through the castle sewers, and meet the oracle who "shoves" you into your mission to unite the kingdoms against the Snow Queen.

Even the harshest critics on my site seem to like it.

"The dramatic sceces that have been added that occur already during the first half an hour of playing are amazing. Adding the feeling of danger and seriousness and making the player get involved in the story quickly. ^_^ The dialogue between Iya and Snow Queen in Dreamworld is amazingly done. Also the dramatic scene with escaping from the castle and Iya finding her magic. Much better than the first version of Aveyond (2) where things were getting rather slowly and it took so long to get Iya into the party"

If I'm right and I fumbled at BFG because of the story, the game should do a lot better on the other portals it is about to go out on. If my experiment works, and the game does well, I'll post my findings on the forum for everyone.

[moose6912]

Thanks a lot for that tip, Amanda. The part about the 1st hour being crucial will be extremely helpful.

[AnthemAudio]

Are you saying I should download the demo again with the new additions? Because frankly, I wasn't pulled in. I liked some of the mechanics, being able to use a mouse in a console-type rpg was refreshing. The sound mix was way off (some sounds too loud, some too soft) and yeah...the story grabbed me not. I wanted to move forward to see more of this apparently amazing game but I didn't have much reason to go off of.

Yes?

[chanon]

Thanks for sharing!
Also shows that when self publishing, releasing one portal at a time could be a smart move. (If you are patient enough.)