Sin Spire - One Month Later...

Hello everyone! It’s been a few weeks, and it’ll likely be a few more before we properly talk again. I wanted to touch base now that Sin Spire has been out for around a month. I’ve always tried to stay transparent about what’s going on in my life when it comes to development. The biggest thing I’ve been dealing with recently isn’t the game itself, but admin.

What do I mean by admin? The boring stuff. Sin Spire has been a relative success, far more than I anticipated, and that brings a wave of legal and financial nonsense that needs to be dealt with. Most of it is sorted now, but there are still a few things to finalize. It’s been surprisingly stressful. No beach parties or martinis for me.

Sin Spire has now reached 55,000 sales. As expected, sales tapered off after the initial launch, but that’s still a great number, way more than I was expecting. Some people have speculated about the game’s general revenue, and it’s not quite accurate, so I’ll clarify: 55,000 copies does not mean every copy sold at full price. Steam handles regional pricing, VAT, and local duties. Then there’s Steam’s 30% cut on top of that. After this, we deal with taxes. Adjusting to all of this has meant a few weeks of ups and downs. The game sold surprisingly well, but gross vs net vs actual take-home are all very different things. On top of everything else, I haven’t actually received any payout yet due to how Steam’s payment system works, so hopefully there are no issues there either.

Of course, the game selling this well is amazing. I just wasn’t prepared for the scale of it. If my tone comes off as complaining, that’s not the intention. I’m very happy with how things are going. It means I can put more money towards development, as well as potentially getting people to help out with certain things. That said, this was mostly just an explanation as to why I haven’t pushed out another update yet and why there may not be one until the end of March.

I’ve been vague about this, but I’ll say it clearly now: I’m going to Japan at the beginning of March for a little over two weeks. After I return, it’ll be my birthday and I’ll be spending time with family. So, I’ll largely be offline for most of the month.

This trip was planned last year. Tickets were purchased long before Sin Spire released. Originally, Sin Spire’s release was going to be in 2025, but due to various reasons I had to delay it to January. I hadn’t expected to still be patching the game a month after launch, as I wanted to move on to the next project with this trip acting as a book-end of sorts.

My personal goal for this trip is to disconnect for a bit. I’ll still check in occasionally, but I need a refresher. After I return, I’ll release the last major update addressing several issues, and then shift focus toward the next project.

The next update really just focuses on minor fixes. The reason it’s taken so long is a mixture of the above and some experimentation I did that sadly didn’t go anywhere. The next update will include fixes for clipping issues and will also introduce a set of hotkeys to switch between weapon types, avoiding the need to scroll through the entire weapon bar.

After this next update, I will prepare a non-DRM version of the game to release on alternative platforms. As most platforms don’t offer an automated update system, I want to make sure that what I upload is as close to the “final” version of the game as possible.

On the note of alternative platforms, I have one in mind and it isn’t Itch. I may put the game on Itch eventually, but after initiating a payout last month that still hasn’t arrived, I’m hesitant to rely on it for releases right now. Waiting a month for payment is less than ideal.

Whatever alternative store I use, I will make sure it operates in Germany and the UK, as that’s where most people are having trouble buying the game on Steam.

The next project has been up in the air. I initially planned to start a new “big project” after my trip. I’ve been writing up GDDs, narrative documents, and even started drafting a script. But after finishing Sin Spire, I’m not sure I want to lock myself into another year-and-a-half (or potentially longer) development cycle right away.

So, I’ve started drafting alternative plans for a smaller game that, if I still feel is a good idea, I’ll begin working on in April. Something tightly scoped, achievable, and hopefully more polished than previous works.

Sin Spire was built on top of HotPW and inherited some foundational issues. Those issues became amplified the larger Sin Spire grew, which is why some bugs persist. The next project will be built entirely from the ground up, with optimization and modularity as priorities. I’ll also be exploring mod support in future projects, though I can’t say for certain how achievable it will be for the next “small game.”

The larger project will still happen, just not immediately. I want to experiment first.

I tried to keep this post short because, as I said, I’m mostly just touching base. Thank you for the support as always, and I apologize for being quieter this past week. I’ll try to get around to responding to messages and comments soon.

In case anyone is alarmed by what I mentioned at the beginning or worried about my being stressed, it’s all good. I’m doing well and I’m looking forward to the vacation. This coming week will mostly be preparing for the Japan trip and handling some additional admin. When I return, we’ll get back to business.

See you all later.