I've always loved press releases. For us, they've been one of the most (cost-)effective ways to get the word out. The Wonderful End of the World's already getting some great press; here's what we did for the release:

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DEJOBAAN GAMES RELEASES THE WONDERFUL END OF THE WORLD

January 25, 2008 - Cambridge, MA - Dejobaan Games, LLC has released its 12th title, The Wonderful End of the World, for Windows desktop PCs.

You can't save the whole world. It's going to be eaten by a mythological demon with the head of a fish. But as a puppet that absorbs all it touches, you can try to rescue as much of Earth's greatness as you can before the end arrives. The Wonderful End of the World is a new game for Windows PC available for $19.95 at www.dejobaan.com/wonderful.

In the beginning, you roam the Earth, capable of absorbing only the tiniest of objects. A glass marble you collect becomes your head, and a pair of jellybeans becomes your hands. Small creatures overwhelm you, with rats kicking you around and golden retrievers threatening to stomp you to pieces. But with every object you collect, your puppet self grows larger. Eventually, you'll become a towering behemoth with fire engines for arms and the ability to absorb entire buildings.

The Wonderful End of the World takes you through 12 unique locations, with over a thousand treasures to gather before the end comes. Steal some sweets from the candy store, where gummi fish swim in a blueberry river; visit a surrealist library to find that the words have literally leapt out of their books; and explore the Megalopolis, where you'll watch a lively end-of-the-world parade and then gobble it up before making your way to grab the tallest skyscraper ever built.

Availability and system requirements: The Wonderful End of the World is available as a demo and for purchase online at www.dejobaan.com/wonderful. The game requires Windows 2K, XP or Vista; a 1.5GHz processor; 1GB system memory; a 3D card with 128MB video memory; and Microsoft DirectX 9.0c or higher.

Looking good! For me, the "12th title" is the biggest attention grabber there.

Are the screenshots included as we see them here, not at all, or in another format when you post or send the release?

Congratulations on finishing the game - I've played it and it's great, I wish you all the best with it!

Are you using one of those press-release-distributions services or are you sending it out to everyone yourself? And do you plan to keep selling it only on your website or will you use portals?

... Also, I'm sorry. I have no idea what I'm saying. This is the kind of crazy talk I feel I have to say when I'm in the buisness forum.

quite fun. i'd also like to know how you're distributing the press-release.

julz

i must admit: i love you

wish you big sales which you will get for sure!

Are the screenshots included as we see them here, not at all, or in another format when you post or send the release?

I just link to a Press Package page, which contains high-res zips of screenshots and other media. I figure I'd just irritate everyone if I included any in the mailing. :)

Are you using one of those press-release-distributions services or are you sending it out to everyone yourself? / i'd also like to know how you're distributing the press-release.

Yes (SoftPressRelease); and so far, it's been great. Will have to see if it really does the trick, long-term.

And do you plan to keep selling it only on your website or will you use portals?

We're mostly (though not 100%) selling from our website at the moment. I'd like to investigate the portals, and will let y'all know how that goes, if we do. Lots of work ahead, either way.

Anyway, thanks, guys. :)

A Great Congrats to you and everyone involved in bringing

THE WONDERFUL END OF THE WORLD

to release!

After following your work with interest for some time I say it's great to see all your hard work coming together and lead to this well rounded release. It is a true inspiration to us all (well, me at least) that spend a lot of time with a specific production goal in mind. I have a few questions about the process of development, production and release that you have gone through to reach this great point in time. I hope you have a little time and don't mind to help shed some light on what it takes to bring production to market. See it as a mini-interview:

1/ Time from Idea to Release: All in all considering the overall time of development, how much time actually passed from the initial date of conception of the game idea to this years release? Looking back at the time passed for this game, is there anything you would do different or that you think could lessen the time passed, or do you think the time passed is what you reasonably should expect from this kind of development?

2/ Time in hours actually spent to bring idea to release: This is of course difficult to answer, not least because your mind was probably engaged in your game project even when not being "officially" at work. However, in actual work hours, how many would you estimate were used for the different aspects of your development and production process, roughly breaking it down in the following: Scripting, Art Work (Graphics & Sound), Game Process (technique and strategy), Brainstorming, Business Administration (Necessary paper work etc), Promotion & PR (including ad production), Outlet Representaion (Web Site etc.). Of course, feel free to elaborate on the numbers.

3/ Pro's and Con's of going from Idea To Release: There have probably been a number of ups and downs in your journey leading to the release of THE WONDERFUL END OF THE WORLD. Now in retrospect, did you encounter any particular pitfall or difficulty that used up a lot of time and energy that you'd rather spent on something else and how would you avoid it now if you could?

4/ Last question on the shortlist, a bit of a touchy-feeling one: Thinking about that your work already serves as inspiration to many, in your opinion what is the most important point or points to keep in mind that will help an Indie to follow through with a complete game project all the way from idea to release?

Again, feel free to answer or comment as much as you feel like doing. It will be interesting to hear your take on these questions.

Congrats again Ichiro!

cheers,
tindust
(Mark)

What happened to galaxy rage? I hope its still in the pipeline somewhere? Looking good with end of the world though. Congrats on the release.

Awesome stuff and thanks for showing us the way
Hope everything goes well for you.

Thanks, guys; I really appreciate the kind words. :)

how much time actually passed from the initial date of conception of the game idea to this years release? Looking back at the time passed for this game, is there anything you would do different or that you think could lessen the time passed, or do you think the time passed is what you reasonably should expect from this kind of development?

Well over a year; it went something like this:

1. Hey, wouldn't this game be neat?
2. Let's prototype it.
3. Let's forget about it for a year.
4. Hey, this is a good idea, let's pick it up again.
5. Six months pass.
6. Finished!

I would like to have gotten Step 5 down to 2 months, but I really like the idea of prototyping something and letting it sit for a while.

Time in hours actually spent to bring idea to release

Yanno, I'm embarassed to say that I haven't added this all up. I'll try to do that, as it's worth knowing. It certainly wasn't 6 months full-time, by any means, as we were chewing away at a few other things.

Now in retrospect, did you encounter any particular pitfall or difficulty that used up a lot of time and energy that you'd rather spent on something else and how would you avoid it now if you could?

This project has been great for us all-around, but my Right-Hand Man and I sat down last week to do a project postmortem, and here were a few of the mistakes we made (this is pretty much verbatim from our brainstorming session, so it's a little stream-of-consciousness):

Quote:

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Final crush -- A wee bit too exhausting? We should have known it'd have been an all-nighter. We went to a tapas party, instead of working through, which was actually a GOOD idea.
.
Waste -- Uncontrolled creation of assets led to waste. How many models did we not use? How many maps did we waste?
.
Planning -- A month's plan was never put together. There was no outline/schedule. "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it."
.
Milestone retrospectives -- We should have CONSISTENTLY looked back to see where we'd been. But we didn't. S/b once every 2 weeks? 3 weeks? 4 weeks? There must be a balance. Meta-retrospectives.
.
Scheduling -- The 8-hour blocks of straight paired work were wrong. Too long.
.
Lack of accountability -- THE SINGLE LARGEST PROBLEM. I didn't have to answer to anyone for most of the project. However, when we *did* have the commitment to (external licensors), it worked great.

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Again, a bit stream-of-consciousness. :)

in your opinion what is the most important point or points to keep in mind that will help an Indie to follow through with a complete game project all the way from idea to release?

Took me ten years to get through my thick skull, but I finally figured it out: work on a 2-month development cycle. For the next few years, we will avoid projects that will take more than 9 months, at any rate. I can't take it anymore!

What happened to galaxy rage?

We back-burnered it to do Wonderful. I'm trying to re-jigger the design to make it marketable, but The Wonderful End of the World project brought with it a moment of clarity -- Galaxy Rage, in the direction we were trying to push it, would not have sold any copies. Even if we created it as planned, we wouldn't have made a good profit off of it.

It hurts to realize this, but what can you do? :)