Now, i'm being honest here, i really like the game, even though i died like over 1.5K times, it was easy to stay calm knowing that the game is hard, and overall it is very fun to try to find any cool secrets, like the TD levels underwater.
Yep there's actually a bit of psychology at play here. Because the game states "This game is very hard, it's normal to get stuck and frustrated, feel free to take a break." It increases the difficulty tolerance of the average player because they feel like it's normal to die. Very good game design! :)
Awesome behind the scene look at those juicy numbers! I had a great time with Will You Snail. Listening to the sountrack while having a shower gets me dancing like a maniac.
Congrats on the launch! From my view (and objectively speaking) this is a massive success! I must say I was quite concerned following the devlogs over the past few years and seeing how much time you were spending on the game but thankfully it seems like it worked out in the end. I would not have recommended spending so long making a game on such a crowded genre but because of all your hard work and effort on the game and on this channel you were successful in the extremely difficult task of making it with a platformer game! The ratio of first week to first year sales is around 5x so hopefully that should equal $100k first year net revenue which would be awesome! So congrats again! I'd love to see a video on what you learned from this project, specifically on the question, will you also spend 3+ years on your next game?
I have learned a lot from your videos too. Biggest thing I learned (from one of your videos) is keeping the project length shorter and go heavy on programming vs art to fits interest/skills/personality.
@codeMonkey - do you ship games or just assets? Just curious, I took a quick look at the channel and didn't see any devlogs directly related to a title.
Thanks for including some of my gameplay! I went into the game knowing very little about it, and not even knowing it was created by someone who did these sorts of dev logs and behind the scenes looks at development! It's awesome to see some crushing it as both a developer and a youtuber :D I haven't been doing a lot on my channel lately. Tossing up the odd video here and there. This was the first game in ages to catch the audiences attention, and people were immediately asking for a full series! I do a lot of one-offs, but decided to do a proper full playthrough of WYS. And I'm SO glad I did! The game was a delight! There were so many interesting mechanics, twists, bits of lore, and all the secret hunting!! It was hard, but never TOO hard, and was consistently fun and surprising throughout. Indie platformers is a very difficult (you obviously know a thing or two about difficulty haha) space to stand out in, and you've certainly done so!
At this point, the best gameplay of Will you Snail I have seen... also the game has certain fun when you die... I mean, not cause you died but you don't take the death like "Oh god I died" --> ragequit... it's a different way to die. Even if that is an rageinducing game didn't feel like that to me.
Jonas, I am not familiar with the tax laws in your country. However, you should definitely take out your expenses making the game before paying taxes on your profits. That would prevent you from having taxes put you in the negative.
Yes, but the thing is, you cannot really release the game and say that you owe yourself 2 years of payment. Same goes for expenses, since you need to balance monthly income/outcome. I'm not an accountant and there surely are some options, but it's not as easy as it might feel at a first glance and it's an issue, since all of your time will be translated into the taxable profit.
The problem with Indie 2D Platformers is that the market is saturated and even if you make an awesome game it's hard to sell. Shovel Knight would probably fail if they released it today. Braid would definitely fail because it's a puzzle platformer. The fact that you made so much money in a saturated market is actually pretty amazing. I predict Karlson will do 10x as much, not because Karlson is 10x better than WYS, but because even though there are a lot of Indie FPS there aren't so many that the market is saturated yet. Also, Karlson is an acrobatic shooter and other than Ultrakill I can't think of any other acrobatic Indie FPS games. Because of WYS's unique gameplay and sophisticated AI, I predict it will be a slow but steady seller as long as you participate in sales and do what you can to get streamers to play it. It's just the reality of the market that it wasn't a big seller at launch. I think you would have easily made 20x as much if you had launched in 2012.
@@gatewaymusic3598 It will likely still be in development - but real talk, I imagine Dani is struggling to stay motivated with the development of the game. Making a game is hard, making a good game is even harder. Making a successful good game is even harder than that. From Dani's point of view right now, he's putting hours and hours into development of Karlson, which has a crazy amount of hype surrounding it - yet he's making games like Crab game and Muck which are reaching massive audiences. He's a smart guy - I'm sure he can see that Karlson just won't be as successful as these other viral successes without a crazy amount of work, and I'd be surprised if he didn't start to toy with new ideas for different games, or different ways to approach Karlson. All the hype surrounding Karlson is likely causing a lot of stress for Dani, as he has to reach his fanbase's absurd level of expectations, knowing what he knows. The market is tiny - majority of sales will be his fans. His average viewer age is quite low so the percent of fans that will buy the game is even smaller. At this point he likely see's his smaller, viral successes are more fun to develop - and stop him from getting locked into developing one project for a long amount of time. Hope you're good Dani - you're a very skilled developer, don't let imposter syndrome kick in, don't tie yourself to a project because of expectations. You've learned a lot since you started Karlson development, your fans will likely stick around no matter what you choose to do.
The game game came out amazing! Thank you for sharing your journey making it. It has been a pleasure to watch the process over the last few years and I can't wait to see what you start making next.
You definitely don’t need worry at all about the reviews saying it’s too difficult. I thought the difficulty was balanced really well, and I really loved the challenge of beating all the levels on easy
+1 for algorithm juice! As a fellow developer I really appreciate all your content but this one is a touchy subject for a lot of people and you handled it very transparently and with no beating around the bush! First, congrats on the 99% positive reviews. Even if it is influenced by a lot of youtube followers, the fact that you've maintained all of this content throughout the game dev process is more than enough justification to deserve that extra marketing. Even though your total revenue isn't where I'm sure you'd like it to be, yet (I also think $72k in one week is pretty damn good, but considering how many years and how much $$ you spent on it already I could understand being frustrated), the nice thing is that this can now be passive income that flares up every time there's a holiday sale or something like that, and I'm sure the total over the course of a few years will be much higher! Also I appreciate that you read through some of the refund reasons. I also am designing a game where high difficulty is kind of essential to it (even though there is an option to lower difficulty, I'm worried that if people lowered the difficulty they would get bored quickly, since dying over and over again and learning to master a challenge is what elongates the gameplay and adds meaning to it). You talked about doing your best to warn people of that high difficulty, but it still not being enough. That's frustrating! Though the fact that those negative reasons and complaints were kept primarily in the sphere of refunds, rather than all of those people going and writing negative reviews to complain, is definitely good news. If I had the choice I'd rather a larger percentage of people refund my game rather than write shitty reviews, 'cos having overwhelmingly positive reviews is so essential for visibility and future sales and promotion efforts!
Those refund notes were hilarious dev roasting sometimes. :D And its great reality check to see, that even well done, well marketed game (and would love to see some breakdown of it), several years in making, can be at point of breaking even. Also showing those lets plays is very cool, seeing how some seasoned gamers react to it. Looking forward to next game you will make! EDIT: And not posting on Reddit is I think missed opportunity for sure. Especially for such visual and action packed game like yorus. Still time to do so I believe.
Huge congrats on the launch, Jonas !! It’s been so amazing following along with the development of WYS! I’m looking forward to your next project!😄 Also, thank you so much for the shoutout! That’s absolutely incredible- I appreciate it so much!!❤️❤️
I bought the game just to give it a shot and was certain I won't like it and the AI would just feel either "too dumb" or "too hard". But, the game was surprisingly really fun. Probably the most fun I have had playing any platformer in a long long time. The concept is so well executed. Hats off to you!
I see a lot of people saying this, and I understand that this how games get popular and how Jonas' last game got a lot of popularity (jacksepticeye played it), but Jonas can't just tell big streamers to play this game, he simply doesn't know them. Sure, we could all go spam it in youtubers comments sections and streamers chats, but it would just be annoying and probably make them not want to play the game more than anything, You have to remember that the game only exists for a little over a week, for many games it takes months or even years before being played by big creators and getting major popularity. What I'm saying is that the best thing we can do right now is probably wait, if a big creator wants a suggestion for a game then we can suggest Will You Snail to them, but otherwise the best bet would be to let them discover it by themselves. Jonas' best thing to do right now is probably to try and make videos that will get very popular and attract a bigger audience to his channel and therefore to his games.
I found the game like six months after it came out, and after some back and forth I decided to play it. I loved the game a lot!! And you can only imagine my surprise when I found a devlog series to watch. Thank you for sixty hours of engaging gameplay!
I bought the game a few days after launch! It's the most fun I've had gaming in a loooong time! Your launch has gone very well! Couldn't have hoped for much more!
I think you have earned more then 133k people of community it was worth it we all love your content and some day I will reach you.Keep doing bro don’t give up👍👍👍
Really awesome to see this behind the scenes of a developer, at this crucial moment. The negative reviews were very funny, should make a long version of that, if you can stomach it :)
I just picked up the game a few hours ago. I expected it to be annoying and frustrating, but I really loved it! It was clear so much love and effort was put into it. I hope it blows up in popularity.
I really love the transparency on this video. I wasn't expecting a behind the scenes look for the game's release but I'm really happy you did, pretty enjoyable video and I hope the game keeps going well :P
Thank you so much for this. This is not a UA-cam video, it is a documentary film and you are so talented. All the best as we humans rediscover humanity in uncertainty.
So many of the most famous games out there have very simple controls. The depth comes not from the controls but from the levels you use those controls in. If there were a million different buttons to do a bunch of different things it would be a totally different kind of game, and lose a lot of the charm of what it is as it is. That guy is just weird, I don’t get it.
I have released a Steam game recently I was worried my first sales were bad but when I discounted the game and did updates I got many more sales over time you should be fine :) great game design btw
@@pineappleparty1624 Its because it's almost impossible to do, games that blow-up and do super well and turn a profit are the exception, not the majority.
@@pineappleparty1624 It's fine to want to make money working as a gamedev. It's just that a lot of aspiring indie devs fall into survivorship bias and believe their game will be the next big thing while it most likely won't.
Jonas, you absolute entire legend. I found this channel last summer and loved your content and Will You Snail so much!!! I *adore* sassy and slightly evil AI characters in any game, so it fits right up my alley😁😁😁 Then I lost your channel for a bit because of, y’know, a war starting in my country, and finding out you actually finished and released it already is like Christmas, Easter and my birthday have all come early!!! HUGE congrats on the release, watching this project grow has been phenomenal and I’m extremely happy for you!!!🥳🥳🥳
Even though I'm just a beginner and going to upload my own games soon in future...But i learned something very important in this video- no matter how good game you made some people won't like it and as a developer you don't have to get discouraged instead come back stronger....
it's kinda sad how much money went into this, and how little you got back. I love your determination to make a great game that so many people can enjoy. I could never do what you've done, man! I will be making a "Why it's Great" (YT series I've been planning for a while) video on this game very soon. I just have to uncover all the things which takes way to long to make the video in a reasonable amount of time XD
Well done ! It's especially interesting to see how your community really pushed this game into a successful launch (making up for the lack of any significant press attention). Now complete your next game faster ;)
Congrats on this launch! I believe getting anywhere near the front page of Steam, is already an impressive accomplishment for any indie developer to say the least.
I beat the game a few days ago with about 800-900 deaths, and I love it! Some may find the game too difficult, and I completely understand that. Some people are worse at platformers than others, and that's OK.
Gosh you handle everything with such an upbeat and collected attitude. Criticism, deadlines, trending placement. I admire how well you stay composed. I’m stoked to play this game too!
amazing! you have being transparent from day 1 about everything. I was really hoping you would let us know how it went and here you are :) I am really glad is going well and i hope it will keep like this for a long time!
It's such a good game. Once the big video makers post this on their page, you'll be making big sales and will probably be known as one of the most awesome game developers. Thank you for making this outstanding game, I enjoy it very much!
My review as someone who bought the game day one and also streamed my play through of the game (commenting on a alt account since I don’t want to be that one person who says this to get clicks): Game was great if you can get over the difficulty, I never rage quit but I did let the difficulty mix between the hardest and the easiest, only used the easiest for the final boss as it took quite awhile, outside that it was mostly the 2nd from the top difficulty. The levels had good mixes of variety and the water levels were a great surprise and genuinely fun (although I did say towards the end I wanted to go back to the normal levels as there was a lot in a row) Bosses were fun, the basketball boss was one of the least great imo as it was more luck then skill until I finally realized how to do it correctly lol Secretes are great as well Honestly as someone who followed the development on UA-cam I’m plenty happy with my purchase, I bought it within a hour of release and although didn’t get to it until a few days later due to work, I was excited to play. As a streamer it actually did really well for me who gets 3-10 stream views, I stream infrequently so the numbers are ehh, I had 7 people watching at a point which stayed for a litl bit but mostly all dropped out after I died a million times on the final boss being stubborn and raising the difficulty lol. (Mind you, you wont be able to find me by searching on UA-cam although the vids are up since I’m buried in the bottom of the pile of videos since I’m so small so I can’t talk based on views after stream) You made a great game, make great videos, and seem like a great person, 9/10 would comment again. Apologies for the poor quality comment, it’s 8am and I’m half awake and don’t feel like proofreading a comment I made on my phone lmao
When I played the first level I laughed so hard because it's so weird and REALLY cool that my movement is exactly predicted! I'm not lying I even streamed it haha
youtuber and streamer maxim found your game and he was playing it for his new video. thats how i found you. i think the idea of the game is amazing and its super well executed it seems like.
I played this game before I knew you had a youtube channel and I honestly didn't find the game that challenging at all... Well, that's a lie, I died like 800+ times, but it never felt _unfair_ I guess is the word for it. Even during the final boss, when I really started to get kinda tilted about the frustrations of trying to use the different guns, it still felt like a fun and enjoyable experience. I was able to complete most stages between 2 and 3 arrows, some even 4 arrows, but honestly the game was just so charming and fun that I could never get too mad about losing over and over. Dying almost became a game of itself, I can't believe the amount of different scenarios you planned for and recorded voice lines on. Like dying too many times in one spot, or intentionally killing yourself during a race to reset your progress, especially changing difficulty. In all my time playing, I'm not sure if I've ever heard a single recycled voice line, or at the very least they were spread out far enough that it was hard to recognize them as the same.
I really wanna play! I watched your videos back in the development stages and I REALLY hope it’s a great success. I know you were talking about revenue from the game but you should also attribute the UA-cam revenue bc I really hope you came out on top! I stopped the video about half way through bc I don’t want any spoilers bc I’d love to make a video on this game. You were a huge contributor to why I got Inspired and started working on my own game! I’d love to see more videos and games created by you.
i really appreciate how open the gamedev community is about the financial aspect of development. it makes the field so much more approachable, instead of just jumping in blind without knowing what to expect.
For a solo effort this is a fantastic launch. The logistics of managing marketing and patches ( + all the other demands) is hard to comprehend let alone execute. Well done man. I think this will have a really long tail. Can't wait to see you embark on your next adventure.
Hi Jonas I'm so happy you finally made it! Btw I found a way to cheese the puzzle in C01.1 If you invert the water stream (so you get water everywhere) and you go to C01.1 you can connect the battery to the tower which is connected to the platform. While the platform moves you can jump on it and run towards the explorer point; at that point you are right in front of a water stream that should prevent you from going there, but if you spam-jump you can ignore that stream and go right where the explorer point is.
Damn! I got stuck on that level for so long, even trying out that cheese, but never got it to work. Honestly, if you did that, you deserve that Exploration Point.👏
I loved the game Jonas! I think you did a great job with implementing unique ideas and gameplay, and I really like the ost too. I would predict the game selling steadily over the future, and getting picked up by a famous streamer / UA-camr. Even if not, you made a great experience for those that played your game, thank you!
Dude, first big game on steam and you rocked it. You have to think beyong the dollars....think about the goodwill from the good reviews....you are growing in awareness, and in great spot. Congratulations! You did great!
Jonas, congrats on the game and with how busy you are, it is amazing you took time to make this video. Know that the time was well spent, this content is super valuable for other folks making games. Thank you
I saw someone playing this and was like… OMG, that’s a game I was following the development of some time ago! And boooooy have you polished it since. It is so effectively rage inducing and his words cut right on point. Really cool.
Even 50 copies a day is nice, right? It is still surprising how little sales there actually are from a viewers perspective in your channel, because it seems there are so many people interested, when u are part of the bubble. The only game I ever brought to steam sold 105 copies so far :D
This game has so much depth to it. With but three keys, and a self-destruct button, you managed to make a difficult game that constantly introduces new mechanics before you can get bored of the old ones. I think it’s brilliantly designed.
It's great to see how the game is fairing. All the positive reviews are fantastic and I hope you manage to recoup your recent costs. Can't wait to see what else you've got in store for the future!
Great game, Jonas, congratulations on finally releasing it. Hopefully some of the popular streamers will play it which would increase sales quite a bit. And eventually even with the lower sales/day ratio it would probably end up profitable, in the long term. I enjoy your gamedev content a lot, so I am looking forward to see development of your future projects. By the way, your expression at 4:03 was priceless (like how someone could possibly refund such an amazing game). I think difficulty settings were very nicely implemented, but apparently, for some people the game is too hard even on the lowest difficulty.
1:54 Not anymore. Great game by the way. Level 4 difficulty or "easy" feels cheap at times for sure, but it's all part of the fun. I LOVED the story you added to the game and was enthralled with where it would go next. I'm still in the process of trying to find the rest of the messages and be able to gain access to a few levels, but other than that, I've almost done everything main game wise. I loved the twist where you could turn the levels into water levels, that was really clever and the dialogue was extremely entertaining. A great game for sure. I'd honestly like an update video on this :D
the fact that the number one reason for refunds in a rage platformer was ''too difficult'' is just hilarious
Reminds me of the reviews for getting over it
Literally like wtf did you expect
@@LilCheesyBean Those were hilarious
"Elden Ring is great because it's so difficult. That's why it's so success with a million people"
Any other difficult game: "Too hard, refund."
lmao
I mean, it's understandable. Who would want to pay for game you can't even finish?
Now, i'm being honest here, i really like the game, even though i died like over 1.5K times, it was easy to stay calm knowing that the game is hard, and overall it is very fun to try to find any cool secrets, like the TD levels underwater.
i died 8000 times on my first playthrough
I’ve died over 10k times now since I’m trying to do all levels on easy
@@tvs26 oh i died 8k times on my first playthrough with easy lol
Yep there's actually a bit of psychology at play here. Because the game states "This game is very hard, it's normal to get stuck and frustrated, feel free to take a break." It increases the difficulty tolerance of the average player because they feel like it's normal to die. Very good game design! :)
well, atleast you got the achievement
Awesome behind the scene look at those juicy numbers! I had a great time with Will You Snail. Listening to the sountrack while having a shower gets me dancing like a maniac.
I will never get rid of that mental image o.o
@@YaenGamedev bruh
lol
haha
Lol
Congrats on the launch! From my view (and objectively speaking) this is a massive success!
I must say I was quite concerned following the devlogs over the past few years and seeing how much time you were spending on the game but thankfully it seems like it worked out in the end.
I would not have recommended spending so long making a game on such a crowded genre but because of all your hard work and effort on the game and on this channel you were successful in the extremely difficult task of making it with a platformer game!
The ratio of first week to first year sales is around 5x so hopefully that should equal $100k first year net revenue which would be awesome!
So congrats again! I'd love to see a video on what you learned from this project, specifically on the question, will you also spend 3+ years on your next game?
You always have the best advices when it comes to this stuff! You can see that Code Monkey is a man of culture when it comes to steam sale and succes!
I have learned a lot from your videos too. Biggest thing I learned (from one of your videos) is keeping the project length shorter and go heavy on programming vs art to fits interest/skills/personality.
@codeMonkey - do you ship games or just assets? Just curious, I took a quick look at the channel and didn't see any devlogs directly related to a title.
@@thehambone1454 He made a few tycoon games in the past. (He made a video detailing his Journey as a gamedev, recommend you give it a watch)
@@thehambone1454 I have 8 games on Steam, last one in 2019 and since then I've been focusing more on making videos/tutorials.
Thanks for including some of my gameplay! I went into the game knowing very little about it, and not even knowing it was created by someone who did these sorts of dev logs and behind the scenes looks at development! It's awesome to see some crushing it as both a developer and a youtuber :D
I haven't been doing a lot on my channel lately. Tossing up the odd video here and there. This was the first game in ages to catch the audiences attention, and people were immediately asking for a full series! I do a lot of one-offs, but decided to do a proper full playthrough of WYS. And I'm SO glad I did! The game was a delight! There were so many interesting mechanics, twists, bits of lore, and all the secret hunting!! It was hard, but never TOO hard, and was consistently fun and surprising throughout. Indie platformers is a very difficult (you obviously know a thing or two about difficulty haha) space to stand out in, and you've certainly done so!
Hey its Full Graemeplays!
At this point, the best gameplay of Will you Snail I have seen... also the game has certain fun when you die... I mean, not cause you died but you don't take the death like "Oh god I died" --> ragequit... it's a different way to die. Even if that is an rageinducing game didn't feel like that to me.
Watched your video and loved it :)
Indeed I was hooked when I saw you play this! Still haven’t finished watching your last few videos on it, ima go do that now
Huge success dude. Impressed
Hi, Thomas. How is your game I mean very cool dog game
You should add this into the Will you snail devlog playlist, would be a great round up
Jonas, I am not familiar with the tax laws in your country. However, you should definitely take out your expenses making the game before paying taxes on your profits. That would prevent you from having taxes put you in the negative.
Definetly true for germany (where he's from)!
@@deetz3950 Germany yeah
@@deetz3950 Jonas is from Germany probably
@@rein556 yes he is, he said it in lots of videos
Yes, but the thing is, you cannot really release the game and say that you owe yourself 2 years of payment. Same goes for expenses, since you need to balance monthly income/outcome.
I'm not an accountant and there surely are some options, but it's not as easy as it might feel at a first glance and it's an issue, since all of your time will be translated into the taxable profit.
The problem with Indie 2D Platformers is that the market is saturated and even if you make an awesome game it's hard to sell. Shovel Knight would probably fail if they released it today. Braid would definitely fail because it's a puzzle platformer. The fact that you made so much money in a saturated market is actually pretty amazing. I predict Karlson will do 10x as much, not because Karlson is 10x better than WYS, but because even though there are a lot of Indie FPS there aren't so many that the market is saturated yet. Also, Karlson is an acrobatic shooter and other than Ultrakill I can't think of any other acrobatic Indie FPS games.
Because of WYS's unique gameplay and sophisticated AI, I predict it will be a slow but steady seller as long as you participate in sales and do what you can to get streamers to play it. It's just the reality of the market that it wasn't a big seller at launch. I think you would have easily made 20x as much if you had launched in 2012.
Is Karlson still in development? I haven’t heard anything about it in a long time
There's a decent few acrobatic fps games, most of them aren't very popular at all. Get to the orange door is my personal favorite
@@gatewaymusic3598 yes it is but Dani is keeping the development more private because he doesn't want to spoil everything.
@@gatewaymusic3598 I think so
@@gatewaymusic3598 It will likely still be in development - but real talk, I imagine Dani is struggling to stay motivated with the development of the game.
Making a game is hard, making a good game is even harder. Making a successful good game is even harder than that.
From Dani's point of view right now, he's putting hours and hours into development of Karlson, which has a crazy amount of hype surrounding it - yet he's making games like Crab game and Muck which are reaching massive audiences.
He's a smart guy - I'm sure he can see that Karlson just won't be as successful as these other viral successes without a crazy amount of work, and I'd be surprised if he didn't start to toy with new ideas for different games, or different ways to approach Karlson.
All the hype surrounding Karlson is likely causing a lot of stress for Dani, as he has to reach his fanbase's absurd level of expectations, knowing what he knows.
The market is tiny - majority of sales will be his fans. His average viewer age is quite low so the percent of fans that will buy the game is even smaller.
At this point he likely see's his smaller, viral successes are more fun to develop - and stop him from getting locked into developing one project for a long amount of time.
Hope you're good Dani - you're a very skilled developer, don't let imposter syndrome kick in, don't tie yourself to a project because of expectations. You've learned a lot since you started Karlson development, your fans will likely stick around no matter what you choose to do.
I'm so proud of you. It was amazing to be on this journey with you.
I played Will You Snail at launch, and it surprised me with how much effort you put into it. You definitely spent the four years wisely.
The game game came out amazing! Thank you for sharing your journey making it. It has been a pleasure to watch the process over the last few years and I can't wait to see what you start making next.
Hi vimlark! Love your content
privacy policy game
You definitely don’t need worry at all about the reviews saying it’s too difficult. I thought the difficulty was balanced really well, and I really loved the challenge of beating all the levels on easy
I love how little sense this comment makes without context
+1 for algorithm juice!
As a fellow developer I really appreciate all your content but this one is a touchy subject for a lot of people and you handled it very transparently and with no beating around the bush!
First, congrats on the 99% positive reviews. Even if it is influenced by a lot of youtube followers, the fact that you've maintained all of this content throughout the game dev process is more than enough justification to deserve that extra marketing. Even though your total revenue isn't where I'm sure you'd like it to be, yet (I also think $72k in one week is pretty damn good, but considering how many years and how much $$ you spent on it already I could understand being frustrated), the nice thing is that this can now be passive income that flares up every time there's a holiday sale or something like that, and I'm sure the total over the course of a few years will be much higher!
Also I appreciate that you read through some of the refund reasons. I also am designing a game where high difficulty is kind of essential to it (even though there is an option to lower difficulty, I'm worried that if people lowered the difficulty they would get bored quickly, since dying over and over again and learning to master a challenge is what elongates the gameplay and adds meaning to it). You talked about doing your best to warn people of that high difficulty, but it still not being enough. That's frustrating! Though the fact that those negative reasons and complaints were kept primarily in the sphere of refunds, rather than all of those people going and writing negative reviews to complain, is definitely good news. If I had the choice I'd rather a larger percentage of people refund my game rather than write shitty reviews, 'cos having overwhelmingly positive reviews is so essential for visibility and future sales and promotion efforts!
Good luck
Congratulations my man! ❤️ Awesome video! Super exciting (and scary) to see your launch! 😅 It’s gonna reach 1M in sales 💪
Can't stop playing this game, I wish you even more success my good sir 😳
Those refund notes were hilarious dev roasting sometimes. :D
And its great reality check to see, that even well done, well marketed game (and would love to see some breakdown of it), several years in making, can be at point of breaking even.
Also showing those lets plays is very cool, seeing how some seasoned gamers react to it.
Looking forward to next game you will make!
EDIT: And not posting on Reddit is I think missed opportunity for sure. Especially for such visual and action packed game like yorus. Still time to do so I believe.
Loved this - thanks for making a great game!
Huge congrats on the launch, Jonas !! It’s been so amazing following along with the development of WYS! I’m looking forward to your next project!😄
Also, thank you so much for the shoutout! That’s absolutely incredible- I appreciate it so much!!❤️❤️
As of march 19, 2022 its sitting at overwhelming positive (98% of 941 reviews). I think its a huge success buddy, congrats!
Congratulations on the success! Love to see it.
If you had 2000 more subscribers, then you would have 100 likes
the fact that you’re totally transparent! showing the refund notes and everything, good or bad! respect ✊
I bought the game just to give it a shot and was certain I won't like it and the AI would just feel either "too dumb" or "too hard". But, the game was surprisingly really fun. Probably the most fun I have had playing any platformer in a long long time. The concept is so well executed. Hats off to you!
Time to get this game in the hands of Ludwig, etc. and I'm sure sales will get another big boost once streamers pick it up.
Dudddeee that's genius!! Jonas, get on this!
Yeah I mean since that was the original point he needs to reach out to some big streamers
@@-Teague- I don't know the big streamers, but Jonas could ask Dani if he has a hookup; he interacted with a bunch of them before.
I see a lot of people saying this, and I understand that this how games get popular and how Jonas' last game got a lot of popularity (jacksepticeye played it), but Jonas can't just tell big streamers to play this game, he simply doesn't know them. Sure, we could all go spam it in youtubers comments sections and streamers chats, but it would just be annoying and probably make them not want to play the game more than anything, You have to remember that the game only exists for a little over a week, for many games it takes months or even years before being played by big creators and getting major popularity. What I'm saying is that the best thing we can do right now is probably wait, if a big creator wants a suggestion for a game then we can suggest Will You Snail to them, but otherwise the best bet would be to let them discover it by themselves. Jonas' best thing to do right now is probably to try and make videos that will get very popular and attract a bigger audience to his channel and therefore to his games.
@@gamean5873 he could give them steam keys 🤦
God i love this guy's Energy. Happy i found your content bro
I found the game like six months after it came out, and after some back and forth I decided to play it. I loved the game a lot!! And you can only imagine my surprise when I found a devlog series to watch. Thank you for sixty hours of engaging gameplay!
It's amazing to see that your game stayed on the Frontpage for so long :D
It was super fun to play. Good job and congrats 🥳
Yannick! Nice to see you here!
I bought the game a few days after launch! It's the most fun I've had gaming in a loooong time! Your launch has gone very well! Couldn't have hoped for much more!
I think you have earned more then 133k people of community it was worth it we all love your content and some day I will reach you.Keep doing bro don’t give up👍👍👍
Really awesome to see this behind the scenes of a developer, at this crucial moment. The negative reviews were very funny, should make a long version of that, if you can stomach it :)
I just picked up the game a few hours ago. I expected it to be annoying and frustrating, but I really loved it! It was clear so much love and effort was put into it. I hope it blows up in popularity.
Why would you pick it up if you expect it to be annoying and frustrating?
@@ararune3734 I've been following its development ever since it started, and I wanted to support the developer
I really love the transparency on this video. I wasn't expecting a behind the scenes look for the game's release but I'm really happy you did, pretty enjoyable video and I hope the game keeps going well :P
Thank you so much for this. This is not a UA-cam video, it is a documentary film and you are so talented. All the best as we humans rediscover humanity in uncertainty.
The person who wrote the "Not enough game-play Depth" review was 100% the person that refunded the game for the same reason XD
So many of the most famous games out there have very simple controls. The depth comes not from the controls but from the levels you use those controls in. If there were a million different buttons to do a bunch of different things it would be a totally different kind of game, and lose a lot of the charm of what it is as it is. That guy is just weird, I don’t get it.
I have released a Steam game recently I was worried my first sales were bad but when I discounted the game and did updates I got many more sales over time you should be fine :) great game design btw
I respect the open transparency rather than trying to make out your launch was super successful, made the video more educational and entertaining.
This is such a great ending to the story that's been 4 years in the making. 💪
This video is honestly a really good reality check for people that want to get into Game dev for the "money"
The best way to get in the gamedev for the money is to get hired by a AAA studio and then climb the career ladder really.
IDK why there is this negative connotation to making games for money. YES I DO want to make games as my job because I love it.
@@pineappleparty1624 Its because it's almost impossible to do, games that blow-up and do super well and turn a profit are the exception, not the majority.
@@pineappleparty1624 It's fine to want to make money working as a gamedev. It's just that a lot of aspiring indie devs fall into survivorship bias and believe their game will be the next big thing while it most likely won't.
@@biznessman3830 Idk about that. It's understandable that everyone wants their game to succeed.
Jonas, you absolute entire legend. I found this channel last summer and loved your content and Will You Snail so much!!! I *adore* sassy and slightly evil AI characters in any game, so it fits right up my alley😁😁😁 Then I lost your channel for a bit because of, y’know, a war starting in my country, and finding out you actually finished and released it already is like Christmas, Easter and my birthday have all come early!!! HUGE congrats on the release, watching this project grow has been phenomenal and I’m extremely happy for you!!!🥳🥳🥳
Even though I'm just a beginner and going to upload my own games soon in future...But i learned something very important in this video- no matter how good game you made some people won't like it and as a developer you don't have to get discouraged instead come back stronger....
it's kinda sad how much money went into this, and how little you got back. I love your determination to make a great game that so many people can enjoy. I could never do what you've done, man! I will be making a "Why it's Great" (YT series I've been planning for a while) video on this game very soon. I just have to uncover all the things which takes way to long to make the video in a reasonable amount of time XD
Your "little side project" is finally finished! :D Who would have thought it would turn into this?!
Well done ! It's especially interesting to see how your community really pushed this game into a successful launch (making up for the lack of any significant press attention). Now complete your next game faster ;)
Congrats on this launch! I believe getting anywhere near the front page of Steam, is already an impressive accomplishment for any indie developer to say the least.
I beat the game a few days ago with about 800-900 deaths, and I love it! Some may find the game too difficult, and I completely understand that.
Some people are worse at platformers than others, and that's OK.
I loved this game :)
Thanks for the update!
I got w ill you snail a couple days ago and I love it. Keep up the good work.
Very impressive, that you worked through that whole project alone. Awesome!
Gosh you handle everything with such an upbeat and collected attitude. Criticism, deadlines, trending placement. I admire how well you stay composed. I’m stoked to play this game too!
The honesty of this video is fantastic. Thank you Jonas.
Your game was awesome! I enjoyed every single second of it!
amazing! you have being transparent from day 1 about everything. I was really hoping you would let us know how it went and here you are :)
I am really glad is going well and i hope it will keep like this for a long time!
We can tell how much effort you put into your game and videos. Stay awesome Jonas!
I have waited eagerly to see this video, I will check it out right after I get home
Very Grateful for your channel's inspiration in dark times. My game is set for Steam after two years of learning!
It's such a good game. Once the big video makers post this on their page, you'll be making big sales and will probably be known as one of the most awesome game developers. Thank you for making this outstanding game, I enjoy it very much!
Amazing game so far! (Aside from
The occasional black out that I can’t fix ;w;) but it’s still really fun! And smart!
I worked on one of the steam titles at 2:37 (Mad Streets). So surreal to see it displayed in one of Jonas's videos :)
Congrats
Congrats dude! You were my source of inspiration for the last few years!
My review as someone who bought the game day one and also streamed my play through of the game (commenting on a alt account since I don’t want to be that one person who says this to get clicks):
Game was great if you can get over the difficulty, I never rage quit but I did let the difficulty mix between the hardest and the easiest, only used the easiest for the final boss as it took quite awhile, outside that it was mostly the 2nd from the top difficulty.
The levels had good mixes of variety and the water levels were a great surprise and genuinely fun (although I did say towards the end I wanted to go back to the normal levels as there was a lot in a row)
Bosses were fun, the basketball boss was one of the least great imo as it was more luck then skill until I finally realized how to do it correctly lol
Secretes are great as well
Honestly as someone who followed the development on UA-cam I’m plenty happy with my purchase, I bought it within a hour of release and although didn’t get to it until a few days later due to work, I was excited to play.
As a streamer it actually did really well for me who gets 3-10 stream views, I stream infrequently so the numbers are ehh, I had 7 people watching at a point which stayed for a litl bit but mostly all dropped out after I died a million times on the final boss being stubborn and raising the difficulty lol.
(Mind you, you wont be able to find me by searching on UA-cam although the vids are up since I’m buried in the bottom of the pile of videos since I’m so small so I can’t talk based on views after stream)
You made a great game, make great videos, and seem like a great person, 9/10 would comment again.
Apologies for the poor quality comment, it’s 8am and I’m half awake and don’t feel like proofreading a comment I made on my phone lmao
When I played the first level I laughed so hard because it's so weird and REALLY cool that my movement is exactly predicted! I'm not lying I even streamed it haha
youtuber and streamer maxim found your game and he was playing it for his new video. thats how i found you. i think the idea of the game is amazing and its super well executed it seems like.
I played this game before I knew you had a youtube channel and I honestly didn't find the game that challenging at all... Well, that's a lie, I died like 800+ times, but it never felt _unfair_ I guess is the word for it. Even during the final boss, when I really started to get kinda tilted about the frustrations of trying to use the different guns, it still felt like a fun and enjoyable experience. I was able to complete most stages between 2 and 3 arrows, some even 4 arrows, but honestly the game was just so charming and fun that I could never get too mad about losing over and over. Dying almost became a game of itself, I can't believe the amount of different scenarios you planned for and recorded voice lines on. Like dying too many times in one spot, or intentionally killing yourself during a race to reset your progress, especially changing difficulty. In all my time playing, I'm not sure if I've ever heard a single recycled voice line, or at the very least they were spread out far enough that it was hard to recognize them as the same.
I really wanna play! I watched your videos back in the development stages and I REALLY hope it’s a great success. I know you were talking about revenue from the game but you should also attribute the UA-cam revenue bc I really hope you came out on top! I stopped the video about half way through bc I don’t want any spoilers bc I’d love to make a video on this game. You were a huge contributor to why I got Inspired and started working on my own game! I’d love to see more videos and games created by you.
i really appreciate how open the gamedev community is about the financial aspect of development. it makes the field so much more approachable, instead of just jumping in blind without knowing what to expect.
Congrats mate! This is just the beginning :)
For a solo effort this is a fantastic launch. The logistics of managing marketing and patches ( + all the other demands) is hard to comprehend let alone execute. Well done man. I think this will have a really long tail. Can't wait to see you embark on your next adventure.
Dude, great job, the game was amazing, and I'm looking forward to your next one!
Hi Jonas I'm so happy you finally made it!
Btw I found a way to cheese the puzzle in C01.1
If you invert the water stream (so you get water everywhere) and you go to C01.1 you can connect the battery to the tower which is connected to the platform.
While the platform moves you can jump on it and run towards the explorer point; at that point you are right in front of a water stream that should prevent you from going there, but if you spam-jump you can ignore that stream and go right where the explorer point is.
Damn! I got stuck on that level for so long, even trying out that cheese, but never got it to work. Honestly, if you did that, you deserve that Exploration Point.👏
lets goooooooooooooooooooo.................... let's recommend big streamers this wonderful game
That was an interesting watch.
Nice Jonas, you did well!
I loved the game Jonas! I think you did a great job with implementing unique ideas and gameplay, and I really like the ost too. I would predict the game selling steadily over the future, and getting picked up by a famous streamer / UA-camr.
Even if not, you made a great experience for those that played your game, thank you!
Congratulations for the lauching, I dont folow the devlogs but seeing on prep, I felt like playing you game, Good Job and keep it on!
Congrats on the launch!
Dude, first big game on steam and you rocked it. You have to think beyong the dollars....think about the goodwill from the good reviews....you are growing in awareness, and in great spot. Congratulations! You did great!
Jonas, congrats on the game and with how busy you are, it is amazing you took time to make this video. Know that the time was well spent, this content is super valuable for other folks making games.
Thank you
I didn't realize this game came out, I'm going to get it and rage to support you!!! Amazing work!
Congratulations! It Was So Inspiring to Watch You Go Through The Progress of Making This Game and Can't Wait to See What's Next! :D
Grats on the release. It has been very funny and informative to follow the process - Looking forward to your next "tried your games" vid. :)
I saw someone playing this and was like… OMG, that’s a game I was following the development of some time ago! And boooooy have you polished it since. It is so effectively rage inducing and his words cut right on point. Really cool.
Even 50 copies a day is nice, right? It is still surprising how little sales there actually are from a viewers perspective in your channel, because it seems there are so many people interested, when u are part of the bubble.
The only game I ever brought to steam sold 105 copies so far :D
congrats on the launch man!
Congrats! This is an amazing start for the game. I can't wait to finish Elden Ring and play Will You Snail :D
This game has so much depth to it. With but three keys, and a self-destruct button, you managed to make a difficult game that constantly introduces new mechanics before you can get bored of the old ones. I think it’s brilliantly designed.
Store: here's how much money you made.
Taxes: whoa, you there! Hold your horses! :D
Damn! Congrats man, you really wanted this one!!!!
Congratulations on the successful release! :) Was cool to see the numbers!
Wow, huge kudos to you on the success but moreso a big thank you for the transparency in this video. Great stuff, I look forward to your next one.
the game is INSANELY difficult, but AMAZING! i recommended it to all of my friends and they loved it too. best game of the year
Amazing fun to follow you on this journey! :) Well done!
Congrats and thanks Jonas for releasing this masterpiece to us!
It's great to see how the game is fairing. All the positive reviews are fantastic and I hope you manage to recoup your recent costs. Can't wait to see what else you've got in store for the future!
Great game, Jonas, congratulations on finally releasing it. Hopefully some of the popular streamers will play it which would increase sales quite a bit. And eventually even with the lower sales/day ratio it would probably end up profitable, in the long term.
I enjoy your gamedev content a lot, so I am looking forward to see development of your future projects.
By the way, your expression at 4:03 was priceless (like how someone could possibly refund such an amazing game). I think difficulty settings were very nicely implemented, but apparently, for some people the game is too hard even on the lowest difficulty.
Congrats! I think most indie devs can hope that our games does as wells as yours did! Very fun game!
Congrats on the launch, Jonas! This game looks really creative, so, seriously, well done.
1:54 Not anymore. Great game by the way. Level 4 difficulty or "easy" feels cheap at times for sure, but it's all part of the fun. I LOVED the story you added to the game and was enthralled with where it would go next. I'm still in the process of trying to find the rest of the messages and be able to gain access to a few levels, but other than that, I've almost done everything main game wise. I loved the twist where you could turn the levels into water levels, that was really clever and the dialogue was extremely entertaining. A great game for sure.
I'd honestly like an update video on this :D
never heard of the game before but congratz on the successfull release and thx for the informativ video
Always nice to see a new video from you.
It-s crazy how little of the total revenew actually goes to you
Loving the transparency there