Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale — The Steam 1.0 Launch 🚀

10 min readAug 13, 2020

Last time (Meteorfall 2019 — By the Numbers) I left off on Krumit’s Tale, we’d just launched into early access in November 2019. Since then, a lot has changed! Now that we’ve launched the 1.0 version and have turned our sights to mobile, I thought it’d be a good opportunity to take a look at where we’re at.

Finishing Early Access

When we first entered Early Access in November 2019, I’d put 991 hours into the project. By the time we left Early Access on July 23, 2020, I’d nearly doubled that — a whopping 1887 hours. I’d predicted we’d be in Early Access 6 to 12 months (we ended up taking 9 months) and I’m proud that I was able to stick to that timeline.

In April 2020, I got laid off from my job as an engineering manager due to a COVID-19 related office closure. I knew I’d eventually need to go back to work, but given how crazy the world was at the time, I decided to take some time off and work full-time on Krumit’s Tale. Many of the extra 900 hours I put into development since April were only possible because I was working full-time on the game. It was something I’d always wanted to try, but leaving a job was too scary. Being ‘forced’ to try it was exactly the push I needed. I was probably able to shave off at least a month or two from the full release, and also get a head start on some future content.

At the beginning of my funemployment, I’d just released the third hero, Mischief. I had two more heroes that I wanted to add before leaving Early Access, as well as a Daily Challenge mode. Somewhere in there, I also added a new dungeon that featured a new enemy and a new boss (Cardoso) and an accompanying skin in my other game, Meteorfall: Journeys. I’d always wanted to do some cross-over content between Krumit’s Tale and Journeys, and it was fun to have enough time to do a simultaneous update for both games.

The Final Countdown

When we first launched into Early Access, we were able to achieve 1400 wishlists. I wish I’d been able to get more in order to gain some chart positions on Steam, but I didn’t really leave enough runway between getting the Steam page up to get the Early Access launched.

During the course of Early Access however, we were able to slowly build visibility. I think a lot of it came organically (small streamers and folks sharing the game with friends) as well as people that found out about the game due to Journeys. During those 9 months, we amassed 30,000 total wishlists (with a current balance of 23,000). We also used two ‘Visibility Rounds’ on Steam. I didn’t measure the effect of those but I don’t recall any notable spikes as a result of using them (I may be wrong).

We’ve also increased our number of reviews by about 10x (from 30 shortly after Early Access launch to 308 as of the time of writing this) with a 93% Very Positive rating.

The Launch

I wasn’t sure if anyone would care about the 1.0 launch of Krumit’s Tale. It’s one thing for a game to launch for the very first time (being previously unplayable). It’s another to make the largely symbolic transition from Early Access to ‘Full Release’.

That said, I was impressed with the launch day sales for Krumit’s Tale! My benchmark for success was the initial release of Journeys on iOS and Android. In the first 24 hours, Krumit’s Tale was briefly able to top Journeys (if we overlay the revenue graphs from the 1.0 launch) in terms of revenue $4,297.31 to $3,659.78. Krumit was able to keep pace until Day 3 at which point the Steam sales tapered off.

It was around this time that we also sold our 10,000th unit of Krumit’s Tale! 🥳

You can see in the second graph a very notable spike at release which quickly levels off. Steam — based on observation and my own buying patterns — is much more sale conscious. I buy plenty of games at full price but I buy probably even more at a discount, because I know how often Steam does sales. I’m curious to see how Krumit’s Tale does as we participate in some seasonal sales and deeper discounts in the future, especially with all the wishlists we’ve added. We’ve never really done a ‘significant’ sale for Krumit’s Tale before.

Launch Reception

The launch went pretty smoothly overall. Because we’d been battle-tested in Early Access for nearly 9 months, I wasn’t as stressed as I was with the initial Early Access launch. I’d set aside a lot of time to get to work on critical bugs but ultimately, didn’t really need it despite the influx of new customers. I’m also really proud that we kept a Very Positive rating during release, with 93% positive overall and 88% positive recent reviews.

Where we did fall a bit flat was we weren’t able to garner much, if any, press or streamer coverage for the 1.0 launch. I emailed various press outlets, provided keys in advance, sent out hundreds of keys via Keymailer, etc… but wasn’t able to get traction with launch day coverage.

My takeaway is that you get one shot at press — when your game is ‘new’. When we first entered Early Access, we had some great articles in some notable publications, including PC Gamer and Rock Paper Shotgun, as well as an article in the print version of Edge in UK. Getting folks to come back and check us out after we’d added a ton of content and improvements was difficult. I say that without judgment of gaming press— there’s a a bazillion games to cover — but it is worth noting when planning how and when you want to go into Early Access.

There are obviously some exceptions to this; Slay the Spire was a huge hit during Early Access and then got a ton more coverage & reviews for the 1.0 release. For smaller games that don’t have the breakout appeal of Slay the Spire, it may be risky to spread your media coverage out over a period of months, instead of a media blitz to build momentum behind your release.

Country Breakdown

I also wanted to go into the breakdown of units sold by country on Steam.

Thanks to the help of fans and Localizor.com, we were able to launch Krumit’s Tale in English, Spanish, Japanese, Polish, Russian (and Simplified Chinese — provided by Indienova).

I’d heard that US, China and Russia were the top countries in terms of units sold for many games. This does go to show how big of a market China. The month we added the Chinese translation was one of the biggest months in terms of units sold. A big thank you to our Chinese publishing partner, Indienova, for helping us bring the game to Chinese players!

The most surprising was probably Japan — I think the Japanese translation here was probably crucial. Notably missing — we don’t have a German translation, but that would be another key language to boost that market.

Was Early Access Worth it?

Absolutely!

Despite the failure to produce any sort of media hype for a ‘second launch’ (aka the 1.0 release), I don’t think I could’ve built Krumit’s Tale into the game it is without having gone through Early Access.

For starters, I got a ton of feedback about bugs, balance, and quality-of-life improvement suggestions that were invaluable. Using FeedbackBot on Discord, I collected over 800 pieces of feedback during Early Access. Having a steady stream of new buyers meant that I was always getting a fresh outside perspective on what was (and wasn’t) working.

It also gave me a lot of energy. Even though the Early Access wasn’t a complete launch, I was proud that I’d been able to get something out there in public for folks to play. Getting that last 10% done before launch can be a brutal slog and just being able to say that you launched something is a fantastic feeling. I also got a ton of positive feedback from folks who played the game which kept my hype level high, even while slogging through bugs and other boring / hard parts of game development.

Designing in a vacuum is hard. Getting realtime feedback from eager players is a good way to make sure you don’t have to.

What Worked Well

Shipped something!
Completed Early Access well-within the scope of the original estimate
Achieved a 93% ‘Very Positive’ rating on Steam
Built a very active and supportive Discord community with over 700 members
Significantly increased the production value compared to Journeys — animations, music, voice acting, etc…
Challenged myself and stretched my own programming, game design, and marketing skills
Worked with fans to translate the game into 5 different languages (with more on the way) on Localizor
Unique game design! No games out there are quite like Krumit’s Tale. Part card game, part board game, part puzzle game.

What Didn’t Work Well

Spread media and content creator hype over a long period instead of condensing it into media blitz at launch
Game design perhaps too unique. Some folks find the game difficult or confusing, despite it being much easier than similar games. Some people ‘don’t get it [the design]’
Weaker than expected sales on Steam (when compared to Journeys) despite an established community and higher production value. Possibly mitigated by mobile release of Krumit’s Tale
Never really got traction during Early Access with popular streamers or creators in the way that other games sometimes do (Binding of Isaac, Slay the Spire, etc… — partially related to #2)

As I think about ‘Meteorfall 3’ (aka Artifacts and Accessories), I’d like to bring new mechanics and ideas to something that looks more familiar to players. And yes, that probably means some type of card-based mechanics again ;)

Although I’m really satisfied with Krumit’s design from a gameplay perspective, I think it’s hard at first glance for players to determine what it is exactly. When I think about ‘what didn’t work well’, I think a key factor is that it’s hard for new players to grok what kind of game it is, and that has a negative impact on coverage from creators.

An Aside: A Quick Look at Meteorfall: Journeys

My first game, Meteorfall: Journeys, is still going strong as well. Sales have definitely slowed somewhat — the game is more than 2.5 years old at this point after all — but it still reliably brings in around $100/day with the average somewhere north of that. It’s on track to do about ~$45,000 in revenue for 2020.

In 2020, I released a major update which added Varfa — a new ranger hero with unique mechanics and about 40 new cards. I also did a couple small updates for the game, which added a few new cards and some new skins & daily challenge modifiers. As written in previous articles, even major updates like this don’t really improve sales or even garner much in the way of media coverage, but they do help build the community and give players something fresh to talk about.

Comparing to the previous years:

2020: $45,000 (estimated)
2019: $51,891.41
2018: $88,072.26

Overall, a pretty solid long trail revenue stream and I’m really happy that folks continue to find and enjoy the game. I’ve sold over 70k units of Journeys thus far (probably close to 100k including China!).

Conclusion

Overall, I’m really pleased with how Krumit’s Tale turned out and it feels to me like a worthy successor to Journeys. While I don’t consider it a ‘sequel’ because the mechanics are so different, it does expand upon a lot of the same deck building ideas in a new and unique way.

Krumit’s Tale was my first game on Steam and releasing something on a new platform (and doing it successfully) is a big accomplishment in my book. It required integrating new API’s, learning a new store interface (it’s *way* more complex than iOS or Android!) and working with players to improve the UI for desktop.

I’m also really proud of the fact that the game plays great on multiple platforms, including both PC and mobile, and in landscape and in portrait. Krumit’s Tale has a lot of platform specific UI improvements and interactions to help the game feel natural, regardless of where players choose to play it.

I’m excited to continue work on Krumit’s Tale with the Varfa (new hero DLC), as well as free content updates such as new items, abilities, perks and daily challenge modifiers (mutations). I’ve also started to brainstorm ideas for another Meteorfall game and once the mobile and Varfa releases are completed, I’ll be getting started on some new prototypes for that. More info to share on that once I’ve made some solid progress!

If you read down this far — I hope this post was useful!

Appendix: Tools Used

I get asked sometimes what tools I used for Krumit’s Tale. In case you’re curious, here’s a list. I’d highly recommend all of these:

Unity
Spine (character animations)
Feedback Bot (excellent Discord bot for collecting feedback)
Localizor.com (fan-sourced translations)
FMOD
Photoshop
Illustrator / Fontself plugin(turn hand-drawn fonts into actual fonts)
After Effects (Trailer)
Github Pages / Jekyll (used for the wiki)
Game-Icons.net (great ‘icon’ resource for prototyping)
Trello
Github