Charting New Paths

As mentioned in a preceding post, I intend to release the full version of Transfigure in late 2025. This post is about how we are getting there and some of the potential paths going forward.

Basically, the core question is: what do I do with the demo once it is finished? There are several strategies even within Steam that can change the way I develop the game. For example, the current strategy is I put out the demo and generate wishlists and then later in the year release the full game (while patrons get to test new builds on the way). I expect a bump in my following but it still means no real sales or income until the end of the year or when the project finishes.

Another path is something very common nowadays: early access. That is essentially what patrons already get and will have way more of in 2025. When I compare my game with other similar ones, this is clearly the current leading strategy along with breaking up large games into seasons.

There are two thoughts that have been poking at me lately: EA funds would potentially improve the game vs just grinding my beak away for the next year for a pot of money that may or may not exist.

The second thought is questioning the purpose of my excessive demo. I’ve listened to a lot of devs, players, and checked myself against third party products to be sure that Transfigure is ridiculously large. It is basically at the scale where a lot of my peers are like “Tango, you are an idiot, you should have this broken into four $20 games instead of trying to make a single ~70 hour game by yourself in one go.”

Why does it have to be 70 hours? I ask myself this question and I don’t really know the answer except that is what it needs to be complete.

Side note - is Transfigure actually 70 fucking hours long??? Yes, it is seventy fucking hours long. It has almost exactly a one million word script. An average reader nowadays is under 250 words a minute. This is over 70 hours. The game is also voice-acted acted where the spoken word is much slower and often paused for other actions, art viewing, and dramatic effect. Plus I hope to create a game that has some decent replay value. There is also some effort involved in tracking everything down so I wouldn’t be surprised at all by play numbers above 80-100 hours when the game is finished. That’s what I want and intend to make but there is a lot of work ahead of me.

I suppose it doesn’t have to be all 70 in one package at once… but maybe it should be. In my mind it has been the complete project with 100+ endings since near the beginning. The idea of breaking it up never really occurred to me except to put out individual stories as stand alone novels. 

This made me think about money and commercial appeal. In my heart I want to just to go blam, there is everything in one package. Enjoy. No nickel and diming, just good stories and good value. I realize I don’t necessarily have to do this and it might not even be the best route. I’m not obligated to release 70 hours at once when most indie developers think 6-10 hours of polished gameplay is ambitious. Most adult devs appear to be pricing their games at around $2-3 per hour of advertised gameplay (some are a lot higher). At that rate Transfigure would cost like $130+ which is insane sounding but less insane when you consider it contains about 20 novels and a million word script. I always felt the fairest way to price the game is just to finish it, make it as good as I can with the resources I have, and then survey my patrons and beta testers what they believe the game is worth when it is at a near finished state. 

The issue with that is pretty obvious. Who the hell would buy a $130 game? Very few people because that’s insane. The consensus with my own opinions and friends is generally if you are averaging out to less than a dollar per hour of fun, interesting, or engaging gameplay then they feel they are getting good value but that still doesn’t mean a 500 hour game is worth $500. Let’s assume they are fast readers and skip a bit of text too, so they get 60 hours in the complete game and we price at the bottom of the market rates, that’s still $60 and more than I want to sell the game for ideally but below peer rates. I was getting made fun of the other day for having multiple endings in my DEMO and it being longer than some full games and I’m like “Yeah, they kind of have a point…”

I never at any point intended to sell the game for over $60. My general target is ~$40-$50 (I want to sell a game for X and have it be worth 5-10X in a consumer's mind so I never felt the price was very relevant). But there is a market rate for similar projects and it is about $1-2/hour on the low end. I also don’t want to get into a common VN dev thing where I sell only an average amount of copies and then under-price myself. I am fine selling my VN for less than average but not dramatically less. Of course lower priced products will often sell more units than higher priced ones but within niche markets the opposite strategy is generally advised.

Another consideration I recently became aware of is timed demos on Steam. Most demos you put out a little slice or a sandbox corner and players can play forever until they get bored. With a timed demo players can get a way better experience because they aren’t constantly gated by the demo’s limitations. Most developers seem to think 15 minutes is an awesome demo. The older Transfigure demo took ~1-2 hours… My demo is only really a demo because Transfigure is enormous. For a 6 hour game, 15 minutes is a decent preview. For a 60-70 hour game it is not, so that’s why it was always like this by design. Even the original html release had a bunch of different routes in it because that’s one of the key elements of the game I’m trying to make.

It is clear the distinction between a normal demo, Transfigure’s demo, and a normal EA release have been blurred, especially with respect to the average amount of content expected.

In the end, I just want to make a good game and have it be successful so I can make even better ones in the future. Success to me means three things. I want to please my audience. I want to fulfill my creative vision. Lastly, I want the endeavor to be profitable so that it is sustainable.

I’ve always thought about this as my sort of my dev compass. These goals can be at odds, but somewhere there is a sweet spot where each aspect is satisfied. After years of searching, I think I’m getting close to finding it.

To summarize, I am considering a bunch of different launch options. My gut says to change course a bit. I should polish the demo, launch Steam into early access with the updated demo (which later becomes timed when the full release comes out) and use the resources to build out the graphics for the full game or potentially a limited cut of the game for the end of the year or early 2026. I want to leave the game intact as a single unit because part of what I want to achieve with Transfigure is an artificial feeling of freedom within a curated story. If existing pieces (ie content and options) are removed or separated then this undermines the illusion of choice that exists within the game. It is one thing to prune dead ends, it is another entirely to split off content into a separate or a combined package.

The ducks are almost all lined up so I should be able to go: Demo, Steam launch, advertising launch (comic, logs, trailers, public demo marketing, a rogue html release) > EA > EA build 1 at demo launch, monthly updates until completion. Getting a better sense of what the project is worth monetarily will be interesting. If the response is positive I can only see that speeding things up vs me toiling away in seclusion for another year. It may even lead to a greater number of animations and CG in the final product. If it leads to a better game, I have to consider it.

The last thing I want to announce is that I intend to give patrons over a certain donation threshold a free copy of the game. Many of you have gone way above and beyond in your support so the least I can do is offer you a “free” key when the time comes. If you are well off then you don’t have to redeem it of course or you can give it away. I’d love a few extra sales and honest reviews but I want to at least make the offer to those that have helped me the most over the years.

In my mind it makes the most sense to have this threshold be at the EA line. Basically, if you’ve paid me the approximate value of the game, you get the game. There will probably be a cut off at some point and some basic rules but that is my intention. This will also include inactive and former patrons. Please voice your opinions below.

I’d welcome any thoughts or feedback you may have. I’ve included a poll as well. Thank you for your time and input! 

Please choose the survey options you agree with.