Back up for review

The 7 day timeout is up, and the game is back up for review. I was just going to do a simple change to make player specific save files, but ended up reworking a bunch of behind the scenes user account stuff. I'm glad I did, since I found and fixed one crash bug.

Now I wait. I'm not expecting this review process to go quickly.

Once a couple people review it, I figure I'll throw together a better promo video and do some amount of marketing. The extent of my marketing will probably consist of a couple emails to sites I follow that review indie games.

Breaking out past the usual indie audience is a lot like trying to get a record contract:
You hope some DJ (major gaming outlet) happens to come to your show (plays your game on a whim) and plays your record on air (writes a fabulous review). What generally happens is you beg and plead (send out hundreds of personalized press releases) to anyone and everyone who could possibly promote you (every 2-bit blogger with a pulse). And in the end, you don't make any money, but your mother tells you she's still proud of you (actually this bit might be exactly the same).

So yeah... If I sold enough copies to make back the XNA membership, pay for the music, and still have enough left over to buy a pizza, I'd be pretty chuffed.

Anyway, instead of marketing, I've already started in on a new project. I'll talk more about it later, but it's a puzzle/adventure platformer I initially designed a couple years back.