I Am Overburdened, where have I been?

Published April 25, 2018
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Hello everyone!

It’s been a while since my last I Am Overburdened update and I haven’t posted anything online for more than a month now. In this post I’ll showcase the changes in the latest version which went live today and I’ll go into what happened to me.

Update

So I uploaded version 1.1.7. It does not contain many new features or new content, but has some nice additions.

localization

The game has been localized to French ( 2018_04_20_flag_fr2018_04_20_flag_ca …), Danish ( 2018_04_20_flag_da …) and Romanian ( 2018_04_20_flag_ro …)! These are the first bunch of official translations besides English and Hungarian. I’m hoping the game will reach more players with new languages added. Of course I would like to add even more in the near future and I already started talking to translators to make this happen.

Special thanks to the translators for their work:

Nicolas Fourcroy (French), Victor Fisker (Danish), Fazekas Sándor-Imre and Vezsenyi Ákos (Romanian)

tools

Another addition is the “developer” tools for localization and QA. In the latest build of the game three debug screens can be accessed. Of course these were developed for internal use, primarily to test translations, but I thought they could help anyone who would like to localize the game.

So I cleaned them up and added an option to access them in the release builds too. I also created an official guide how these tools can be used and how new languages can be added to the game.

P.S.: I guess using them could be considered cheating :P (spoiler alert!), since you can see all the items and monsters the game has to offer even if you have not unlocked or seen them previously.

Sale

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To promote the new languages and the game itself a bit, currently it is 40% off for two weeks, so you can get it for 2.99$ (may vary based on region).

You can buy it at Steam or at itch.io.

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What is up?

So yeah, long time no see and this update isn’t a huge one neither. What is going on with Magic Item Tech?!

Last month I stopped focusing on my projects and made the decision to find a full-time job. I already have a position secured at a studio. This does not mean goodbye, my contract allows me to keep my company and I’m not abandoning my games. Magic Item Tech and I Am Overburdened will not be forgotten, only they are becoming a secondary commitment.

Besides job hunting, organizing and integrating the translations, I also worked on new features from time to time. If you checked my Trello board recently you already know that the “save game” feature is getting close to completion. I’m planning to release ports and content updates too in the future. They will take more time due to working on them on the side, but I will try to make all the ideas I mentioned before a reality ;) .

Thanks everyone for reading my blog and for all the support I got from you. I’m not sure when, but sooner or later more posts will follow.

Take care!

6 likes 4 comments

Comments

khawk

Glad to see you're still plugging away.

Just a suggestion to put I Am Overburdened into the Projects area when you get a chance so it's attached to your GameDev.net profile. People can follow the project and get notified of your blog updates that way. You can also put links to the stores.

Also.. I think I'll add a way to allow members to post their Trello boards to pages as another way to share workflow/status. :) 

April 25, 2018 07:53 PM
bdubreuil

Did your game's community self-translated it to different languages or you hired people to do that?

 

Also, on a more personal note, why did you find a job instead of working on your games?

April 26, 2018 03:31 PM
bdubreuil
19 hours ago, khawk said:

Glad to see you're still plugging away.

Just a suggestion to put I Am Overburdened into the Projects area when you get a chance so it's attached to your GameDev.net profile. People can follow the project and get notified of your blog updates that way. You can also put links to the stores.

Also.. I think I'll add a way to allow members to post their Trello boards to pages as another way to share workflow/status. :) 

Ohhh I didn't know of the project area. I actually tried to create a project from the project tab in my profile.

April 26, 2018 03:45 PM
Spidi

Thanks for the tip @khawk! I've been planning to put my games there, but always forgot about it :( ...
Now they are there, I Am Overburdened and Operation KREEP in their full glory :)
;)

Thanks for the questions and interest @thecheeselover.

About the translations:
Both, one language was done by a community member, two were made by hired translators.

About my new job:
That is a hard one and the decision was influenced by multiple things.
I must start with this: working on my own games was the best part of my life from a personal perspective. I woke up every day literally wanting to work, usually rushing my daily routine to be able to start as fast as possible :) . I also worked a lot, but not in an unhealthy crunchy manner. I always took the time to relax and recharge. I just enjoyed spending a lot of time fiddling with game projects all the freaking time :D ...
But I must continue with this: I can say that I wasn't well prepared for running my own business and this work sadly has its fair share of difficulties too. I had problems managing my projects and focusing on delivering even after a lot of practice. I'm also not a seasoned marketing/pr guy so as you can guess I had problems with reaching a broader audience (+ marketing&pr is a huge aspect of the games business, if you don't know how to do it or don't like it find someone to do it for you, like now :|!!!). All in all I made some money, but did not reach minimal wage.
These problematic parts alone would not stop me (I still have savings so theoretically I could continue), but approaching it from an analytical perspective it become clear to me, that I have a lot to learn before I can build and run a sustainable business. It may be, that I can make and finish games, but I'm not efficient in that regard either, and clearly I'm "bad" at selling games and operating my day-to-day work as a business with finite resources.

I decided to take a step a back instead of trying to win an "uphill battle", at least based on my skills, progress and achievements so far it felt like that and putting full-time indie-game development on hold (as a side activity) for a little seemed more reasonable.

April 27, 2018 01:14 PM
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