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For those who’ve been studying the weblog for lengthy sufficient you’re most likely already accustomed to how enamored with Rusty Lake we’re. The sequence is 12 video games deep and regardless of that manages to shock with every entry and create a novel expertise each time. What’s much more attention-grabbing is the sequence transition from free to play to premium titles. We talked to the sequence’ creators Robin and Maarten to see if they might share any suggestions they realized from creating so many video games so rapidly.
Let’s begin with an introduction, who’re you and what’s Rusty Lake?
We’re Robin & Maarten, the devs behind Rusty Lake, an indie studio based mostly in Amsterdam. Rusty Lake can also be the identify of the universe the place we create video games in.
Neither of us have a gaming background. I (Robin) studied Regulation and Maarten Panorama Structure. I used to be creating gaming portals with small flash video games and Maarten made flash video games as a pastime however we ended up working collectively on small information based mostly video games that went viral actually rapidly. After creating greater than 50 video games with totally different gameplay mechanics, we felt the escape room/level & click on adventures was probably the most appropriate for making a sequence of video games.
We have been impressed by Twin Peaks, and needed to create an identical surreal world the place our video games may happen and join with one another. It was again in April 2015 after we launched Dice Escape: The Lake and Seasons, the primary two entries within the Rusty Lake universe. Each video games have been related in with a code you might you employ in one of many video games that gave a distinct ending. It made individuals really feel like these video games have been a part of one thing greater.
So that you’ve been making video games within the Rusty Lake universe for some time now (the wiki web page lists 12 entries within the sequence) and the sequence was initially mobile-only and free to play. What has the transition from free to play to premium been like?
After creating 6 free to play video games with hardly any adverts, we knew we needed to change our enterprise mannequin. We couldn’t go on like this endlessly since we weren’t close to the break even level. Thankfully we invested loads in our neighborhood by making these free video games. This resulted in a really engaged participant base we may cross promote and hold them concerned into new initiatives. So after we got here up with the concept of Rusty Lake Lodge, a by-product from the free sequence, we instantly requested our neighborhood in the event that they needed to help us by paying for a premium recreation. Fortunately the reply was a giant sure and Rusty Lake Lodge turned our personal “kickstarting” undertaking. Now we will create a mixture of free and premium video games to fulfill the entire Rusty Lake neighborhood.
Do you’ve got any recommendation for different builders who need to make an identical swap?
If we pushed our first cellular video games as premium we by no means would have had the success that we now have now. In our case it was the appropriate choice as a result of we didn’t have a reputation as a developer, participant base nor neighborhood constructed up. If you’re switching from free to premium be certain that to have the participant/neighborhood constructed up, who will take pleasure in the kind of recreation you’re creating.
I believe itch.io is a superb place for a beginning dev (in our days it was Kongregate/Newgrounds), you may let individuals check out a free model of your recreation after which allow them to obtain the larger/premium recreation.
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