Announcing "Giraffe Town"

A NEW GAME!?! YES!

Check out the official Steam page here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/941480/Giraffe_Town/

     Hello everyone! I'm back! It's me! Your friendly neighborhood "Samer-Man" (nobody calls me that) aka snowconesolid aka the greatest indie game developer of all time and space! (Everybody calls me that.)

I know. I know. I have been away for a very long time. Away from the indie game dev scene, away from Twitter, away from this blog, away from existence and so on. I just suddenly vanished one day and I am sure many of you thought that I gave up on making games, or I died from a coffee overdose or I died from mountain climbing or I died from all the other possible ways of dying. And I am sure everyone missed me and people would say stuff like: "Man, I wonder whatever happened to that one game developer?" and then your friends would say: "Who are you talking about? What game developer?" and then you would say: "You know, that one awesome game developer. The one who makes all those awesome games." and then your friend would say: "I'm not sure I really follow. Who exactly are you talking about?" and then you would say: "I'm talking about Samer Khatib! Aka Snowconesolid! Aka the greatest game developer of all time and space!" And then your friend would say: "I still have no idea who that is. But I love that guy and his games so much!" and then you would all laugh and feel nostalgic and it would be a good time. I'm sure this has happened. I was missed. My presence was missed. Then out of nowhere... Wait! Who is that mysterious figure walking out from the shadows!? Could it be!? IT'S SAMER! HE'S BACK! I suddenly show up. And I say: "It's okay. No more tears. I have a new game!" Then, a burst of loud cheering of happiness and excitement begins to echo around the world as everyone anticipates the launch of a new Samer Khatib game!

This post is just supposed to be me briefly announcing my new game... I think I went a bit off the rails there. Anyway, yes. Today is a very special day. I am back and I am super excited to be announcing my newest game... *Drum roll*

Giraffe Town

"A giraffe born with slippery feet sets out to find love..."

Coming soon to Steam.

Please visit the official Steam page to see the trailer, screenshots, and more information about the game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/941480/Giraffe_Town/

Don't forget to add the game to your wishlist, follow it and tell all your friends and family about it! More information about the game will follow later on in future posts. So be sure to check back here, or the official Steam page and follow me on Twitter here for more updates about my new game.

     Once again, I am extremely excited to finally reveal, share and announce my newest game today. It is a project that I have been working on in silence for nearly 2 years. It is also my next game release since Potato Thriller which, was also originally released about 2 years ago as of this writing. This project also marks my second ever game release on Steam which is a huge milestone and accomplishment for me personally. I am very proud of my work and I can't wait to see what you guys think of it. 

Thank you, everyone, so much for stopping by, checking out the Steam page and for your support which has kept me motivated throughout the years! 

I look forward to releasing Giraffe Town very soon as well as continue making games for many many years to come!

Steam Direct, The Fee & Thoughts.

     It's funny because just yesterday in my latest post I mentioned Steam Direct and how the fee was still a mystery. Today, it is no longer a mystery and if you haven't already heard the news from Steam's blog or any other gaming news website already, then you probably are not a game developer who want's to publish a game to Steam. Or you just don't care.

     Anyway, today Valve officially announced that the Steam Direct fee will only be $100 per game. Also, this $100 fee is recoupable according to Valve.
Steam Blog: Link

     After weeks of indie developers stressing out and being on edge about the Direct price point and waiting for the news to come out, everyone can finally relax.

     At first, I was really surprised to see Valve's decision. Personally, I was expecting the fee to be between $300 and $500 myself actually. However, Valve decided to set the fee at the lowest price point possible so that smaller indies (me being a small indie as well) wouldn't get barred out and that is pretty awesome of them. I am really happy with this price point and I am sure many other indie developers are as well. This is a very fair and more than reasonable price to pay to have your game on the largest PC gaming store front in the world. I believe that this small fee gives every indie game developer the opportunity to shine and possibly become a success on Steam. Also, it just makes everything so much more simpler for everyone. No more running Greenlight campaigns, getting votes and waiting months to see if the game passes. Developers simply pay the fee, fill out some paper work (I think there will be paperwork), set up the game page and release on Steam.

     Of course at the same time this low price point might worry some people because now the Steam platform is available to publish on to anyone with $100. It brings up the argument that the platform could possibly become over flooded with low quality games, joke games, asset flips, etc. The argument that shady developers might abuse this new system and exploit it to set up cash farms just like they did with Greenlight. Developers worry that their games will just become buried under the hundreds of other games submitted making it hard to become visible to potential customers. And gamers worry that they will become overwhelmed with loads of games flooding the storefront pages making it more difficult to browse for games that they would be interested in.

     With a low price point of just $100 it is possible for any of these points that I brought up to happen however, no one knows for sure yet. With that said, the people over at Valve have also taken these potential possibilities into consideration. I have been keeping up with Valve's more recent blog post and it truly does sound like they are working hard to avoid any possible exploitation of the new system. Valve has already made changes to the trading card system, navigating the site, what content is recommended to which users depending on their interest and making changes to the sites algorithms to just make the entire platform the best it can be. Valve really does care about giving the end user an enjoyable store browsing experience and giving the developer the best platform to work on and it shows that they are working hard to constantly improve the site. And this is why in my opinion they are the best. Why they are the number one storefront in the world. With all that said, nothing is perfect and I am sure there will always be users complaining about something and users giving praise.

    Only time will tell how the Steam Direct system will perform so we just have to wait and see.
As for me, I will definitely be using Steam Direct to publish my upcoming future games. I am excited about it and am really looking forward to seeing the changes Valve continues to make. What are your thoughts about all of this? Tweet at me @snowconesolid

See you all on Direct!

Update: 6/6/2017

Steam Greenlight official retired. Steam Direct confirmed for June 13th, 2017

Samer Hills On Steam GreenLight!

     Here it is everyone. My second ever Steam GreenLight campaign for my newest and next upcoming game, "Samer Hills" 

(A game shamelessly named after me, the developer. Feel that big ego)

Samer Hills is a post-apocalyptic thriller about a man who decides to return home after being away for nine years to finish what he started...

Steam GreenLight Page Over Here: http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight/samerhills

Trailer:

Plans, Thoughts, Release Date, Misc Info:

      I have been talking and posting about this new game project since late 2016 but never really wen't too in depth about it (don't worry, i'm not about to.) I have been constantly sharing development progress, screenshots and more behind the scenes stuff  here on the blog and twitter but never anything really about the final product or what to expect. The trailer above is really the first thing that does this. This is the first footage of gameplay, some characters are introduced and maybe you could get a good feel of the atmosphere and types of settings that can be expected from the game. 

     There is still a lot of work that needs to be done on the game. However, after months of development I finally feel like I have a sufficient amount of content created to showcase on Steam and to run my next GreenLight. This is essentially only an introduction and the first step of many that lay ahead. With that said, there is no set release date. But this game is planned for this year, 2017. Keep in mind that I am just one guy after all and there are some days that I just can't spend on developing the game. Just being honest, but I am working really hard on this project and I plan on delivering a really unique experience (said every other indie ever...) Jokes aside, I am really proud of what I have created here so far and I am really proud of the trailer I put together to demonstrate some of the game. I am really excited about this one and having a great time creating it. I truly do look forward to finishing the game and sharing with the world. 

I am always active online and will continue to keep you guys updated on the project. Also, this is kind of off topic, but I am working on transitioning to posting video updates instead of just here on the blog (no one likes reading)

So more updates to follow down the road. YouTube vlogs as well as other miscellaneous none related videos all coming to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/snowconesolid 

Valve Killing Greenlight...

     Hello everyone. This is kind of a surprise post, but I just had to take the time to write about this news. If you are an indie game developer and plan on submitting your game to Steam GreenLight then you might want to hurry up and do so quickly. I am sure many developers using the platform or want to use the platform have heard the news already, but if you have not this is whats going on - Valve is shutting down Steam Greenlight for good.

Source - From Valve themselves:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/announcements/evolvingsteam

Almost every other major gaming site has also covered this already such as kotaku and Polygon
I am sure that many YouTubers will also probably discuss this soon enough as well.

Anyway, Valve is shutting down Steam Greenlight and plans to replace it with something called "Steam Direct". This will be the new program that indie developers will need to go through if they want to make their games available on the Steam platform. Valve didn't release much information on the new submission process and it seems that most of the plans aren't finalized yet but if you are an indie developer hoping to get onto the platform there could be some things to be worried about. For example, it only cost $100 dollars to sign up as a developer for Steam Greenlight. This was a one time submission fee that allowed you to submit as many games as you wanted. Steam Direct aims to remove this and it sounds like Valve will be charging a fee per submission. There is no official price setup for the new fee as of this writing. Valve will be sharing more information about the new process later on.


For more information and questions not answered in Valve's news update I recommend checking out this topic about the upcoming changes in the Greenlight community forums:

Changes coming to Steam Greenlight

According to this post, if you are a Greenlight developer and still have not submit anything, you may request a refund.

For those of you interested in submitting to Greenlight, there is still time and you can do so. If you get greenlit before the changes are made, then it's safe to say that you will be able to release your game on Steam without having to go through Steam Direct or paying another fee price. However, if your game is still hanging in Greenlight by the time Steam Direct takes over, then you will have to resubmit and possibly pay a fee based on the new on-boarding process.

indies worried....

     If you are an indie developer don't worry, you will still be able to bring your product to Steam even after Greenlight is taken down. However, if you are worried, it is understandable. Actually, after reading through the comments and seeing what other developers have to said expresses that many other small time indies are worried.  I personally am worried myself since I am an indie game developer who currently has been through Greenlight once already and planned on submitting more games through it in the future. Actually, I was planning my second Greenlight campaign for my next upcoming game. The game I have been talking about for months now here on the blog. This news about Greenlight shutting down has got me so worried, that I might even launch my next Greenlight campaign sometime next week hoping that it will get green-lit and reserve me a launch spot on Steam before the big changes happen. It might become harder to get on Steam's platform. I don't know yet. We will see. 

Once again, don't get too worried. Valve themselves still haven't really given any final answers on how the new changes will work, how much it will cost etc. In the meantime, it is probably best to submit your game to Greenlight before it's completely gone. 

This news isn't all bad. Valve is obviously doing this in the best interest of their customers and developers. This is a new way to add in some sort of new level of quality control. Steam Direct could mean less poorly designed, broken unfinished games and more quality content for people to buy. 

I will most likely be posting an update about my current game project within the next week or so.