Truly, thank you
Give me your ideas for my ARG, GDC/playtesting recap, demo completion, and more updates!
After a long, arduous, bug-filled period of working on the lily’s world XD demo, I can (sort of) confidently say that I am finished and working on the full game now! Although the demo is basically ready to launch, I’m holding off on releasing it just yet, but here is some info!
The lily’s world XD demo will be free to play and last around 45 minutes-1 hour+. Although my game is in the horror genre, the demo is not particularly scary, as it more so sets the stage up for the horror to come. The demo is pretty reading heavy, so if you enjoy visual novels or investigative games, this will be for you. There will be a Windows build on Steam and a Mac and Windows build on itch.io. The demo will not be ported and is only available to play on a computer or laptop. TBD on whether the demo will be localized on launch.
Last month, I gave a talk at UCLA about turning your hobby into a career, and some of you were able to play an early build of the demo. I wanted to give a huge shoutout to ACM Studio, who helped me organize the event, and those who attended. Thanks to your feedback, I’ve made a ton of adjustments to the build.
After that, it was off to GDC (Game Developers Conference)! I had the best time chatting with other game developers and meeting some of you guys. There was a SonderingEmily meetup, and I was shocked by how many of you came. I was mildly worried that no one would show up, but alas, my worries were proven wrong! I gave sticker sheets of lily’s world XD art during the conference and have some left over — probably going to do a giveaway on my Instagram of the leftovers + other goodies (and just maybe, an early build of the lily’s world XD demo).
I’ve had so much community support this last month with my game and I wanted to say thank you. I have loved meeting you guys in real life and hearing your excitement about lily’s world XD makes my heart happy. I love what I do! lily’s world XD also hit 30k wishlists, which I am so grateful for. Wishlisting helps a lot, and I can’t believe we’ve already hit 30k — 50k here we come!
If you read the last newsletter, I was deep in bug hell with my game and felt quite stressed. Going to GDC has given me that extra inspiration to keep going, and I am now back to building the game with joy (and mild stress, but a good stress!). At GDC, I got to chat with the developers behind so many amazing games: Animal Well, 1000xRESIST, Mouthwashing, Among Us, and many more that I am forgetting to list. I have so much respect for indie game developers who make it and I hope that I can join them with lily’s world XD.
I’ve had the idea to run an ARG (alternate reality game) as part of lily’s world XD’s marketing and I’d love to hear your suggestions. I had the idea to leave clues on the Steam page and maybe my social media? What are your favorite ARGs I should take inspiration from? Given what you guys know about my game, what are ideas you’d like to see in it? Also, no clues for the ARG are in this newsletter, so you do not need to scrub through this email when it comes out.
Lastly, lily’s world XD will be in the Galaxies Showcase on April 17th at 3pm Eastern time and I’m pretty sure it’ll be featured on the front page of Twitch! Woo!