Ukrainian indie developer Artem «Flatcoon» Bazdyrev, who recently released his card roguelike based on Menace from the Deep, told dev.ua that the release was «very stressful» for him. He also denied claims by some players that he allegedly received funding from a publisher for the Asian region.
Ukrainian indie developer Artem «Flatcoon» Bazdyrev, who recently released his card roguelike based on Menace from the Deep, told dev.ua that the release was «very stressful» for him. He also denied claims by some players that he allegedly received funding from a publisher for the Asian region.
The Lovecraft-inspired game Menace from the Deep was released on Steam on November 11. Controversy flared up in the Ukrainian segment of social networks around the project when players noticed that Menace from the Deep is available for purchase in the Russian region of Steam and is included in numerous bundles with Chinese games.
Other players indicated that the project has a full Ukrainian localization (including dubbing) and one of the lowest regional prices for Ukraine. It also has no Russian localization.
Subsequently, Artem «Flatcoon» Bazdyrev commented on the dissatisfaction of Ukrainian players, and reported that he submitted an application to Steam to remove the game from sales in the Russian Federation. He admitted that he «overlooked» certain points, because he is working on Menace from the Deep alone.
«The release was very stressful for me — at first the rating of the game fell to „mixed“, I thought that this was the end of the game. The next day, it turned out to be everything that they started to disperse. So really, I missed something somewhere and overlooked it. Because this is my first big release. And specifically, what I read about myself was written in a very rough form. That’s why I aggressively answered everyone myself at first. But when I came to my senses, I realized that this was a bad decision. Because many people really wanted to understand how it happened», — said Artem in a comment to dev.ua.
He noted that currently the assessment has generally normalized. At the time of writing, Menace from the Deep has «highly favorable» reviews (81% positive) based on 388 player reviews.
The developer also noted that all the bundles added by the publisher in Asia have already disappeared. According to him, this was done without warning. Flatcoon also commented on claims of alleged «Chinese investment» in his game.
«The publisher I work with does not provide me with any funding. I actually got into it on the advice of a Canadian game developer a couple of months before the release. I don’t have a publisher around the world. That is, I give myself to the world. But the Asian segment is very specific, it is very difficult for even AAA-projects to enter there without having some local distributor (publisher)», — explained the developer of Menace from the Deep.
«That is, in our cooperation with them, they do not dictate to me what to do, but on the contrary. They have no right to give me any advice about the game. Or somehow influence the game outside their region (Asia)», — said Artem Bazdyrev.
He explained that under the contract, the publisher receives a share of sales in the Asian region. Therefore, the company is very interested in selling as many copies as possible there. For this, the publisher initiated the participation of Menace from the Deep in the festival of Chinese indie games on Steam, which was also a surprise for the Ukrainian developer.
«By the way, the game also took part in the festival of Ukrainian games on Steam in August. In which I played about 15 different demos and 60% of them did not even have a Ukrainian localization. Festivals do not indicate any affiliation. Right before the release, I participated in a horror festival, although my game is not a horror game at all», — Flatcoon noted.
According to him, such festivals are needed to attract as many potential players as possible. Therefore, his game takes part in everyone who accepts it. «Sometimes on those that I didn’t even know about. Well, some players are now coming up with theories that the game is Chinese», — the Ukrainian developer added.
He said that he is currently working on fixing the most common problems faced by players, adjusting the balance and adding new features to the game.
Menace from the Deep is a deck-building roguelike card game. Its events unfold in the USA in the 1920s around a secret occult society. In the Ukrainian region of Steam, the project costs UAH 306 (with a 15% discount) and is no longer available for purchase in Russia and Belarus.
