The Daily Click

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Lunnye Devitsy Released
News posted 28th July, 2009 by Flava
Although this game hasn't actually been submitted to the site, I still think it is worthy of a news post. Dr.James, creator of the upcoming Tormishire, has released Lunnye Devitsy. The game is basically a small exploration game which uses the Tormishire engine, and took James around 2 weeks to complete. Although not freeware, you can download it for a very reasonable price. Comments from the author: Lunnye is an exploration based platform game using a HWA version of the Tormishire engine which was started 10 days ago. It was inspired by a few things; the title comes from a song of the same name (Russian for moon damsels) by a band called Mumiy Troll and also inspired by the recent moon landing anniversary. The goal is to get to the moon from a vast mountainside, there are 6 methods in total. There is no dialogue and it's very puzzle/mystery based. It should be out in a few days and have a couple of hours worth of gameplay. *Click here to visit BossBaddie and purchase the game* Tweet

Posted by Rhys D

28th July, 2009

whats with every indie exploratory platformer having silhouettes? looks ok though, but i'm poor

Posted by Dr. James MD

28th July, 2009

Because it meant the difference between a 2 week game and a 2 month game

at least in my case. I'm sure Patapon and the like took a lot longer.

Posted by Kisguri

28th July, 2009

I think it looks great!, and for 3.20 you can't go wrong, it's from the Doctor!

Posted by maVado

28th July, 2009

Here in germany its the price of four "Snickers" .. hmm I'm hungry! I consider purchasing the game later, looks decent!

Posted by Johnny Look

28th July, 2009

Can't wait for the usual buttholes screaming "omg you cant sell klik gamez !11 It's against the laws of nature or whatever !!"

Looks absolutely great btw.

Posted by Johnny Look

28th July, 2009

oh and where's the demo ?

Posted by Dr. James MD

28th July, 2009

I'll get one up in a couple of days or tonight if I can, fo sho.

Posted by Johnny Look

28th July, 2009

ossum, I was afraid you wouldn't release a demo.

Posted by AndyUK

28th July, 2009

I must say It really does look a lot better in action. Screenshots don't do it justice. The one Flava used for this very news post is a good example.

Posted by Ski

28th July, 2009

" Can't wait for the usual buttholes screaming "omg you cant sell klik gamez !11 It's against the laws of nature or whatever !!"

Why would people make a deal over that?

Posted by Blue66

28th July, 2009

Can't complain about the price, but this price is so small that I must ask myself why in the world he couldn't just release it for free... oh well, guess I'll wait until someone let's plays it on youtube then

Posted by Ski

28th July, 2009

"But it's a lot tougher than it sounds, take it from me, I'm the one who made it!"

Biggest mistake of clickers, to make a game so hard even they find it tough

Think I'll give this one a miss, thanks.

Posted by MrPineapple

28th July, 2009

james and his difficulty......

Posted by Dr. James MD

28th July, 2009

Well this ones not hard in the usual way. You cant die in this, the difficulty arises from the puzzles and how much you explore.

Posted by Sketchy

28th July, 2009

I was getting all ready to rant about how it's not free, but since it wouldn't run on my pc anyway, I'm not going to bother

Posted by Johnny Look

28th July, 2009

adam: I wish I knew.

james: I haven't tried the game yet, but judging by the videos and screenshots I think the game is too cheap. 3$ is nothing, I wouldn't mind paying 10$, at least this way I feel I'm supporting the developers a lot more.
Most people who buy indie games rarely look at the price. 10$ or 15$, it doesn't make much of a difference, if someone really want the game they will buy it and 5$ more won't change their minds.
On the other hand, your profits will suffer quite a lot, after only 20 or 30 sales you'll be amazed at how much money you could have won if the price tag was higher.
I know Plimus or whatever service you're using gets a small cut but look at the example:
3x20=60$
10x20=200$

That's over the triple of the profit.

Well, just my 2 cents.

Posted by MBK

28th July, 2009

Yea, I should make a really crappy game with really good graphics and charge $300 just to see if anyone will buy it. Hahaha.

If I had some money and a bank account set up with paypal or whatever, I'd buy it for $3 right now just to support a fellow kliker and probably not even ever get round to playing the thing more than once or twice.
But for $10 or $15, I wouldn't bother buying it.
Of course, you'd need five sales at $3 for any one sale at $15, but you can buy Xbox 360 games online for less than that so ..... heh.

Dr. James is on the right track. You have to make games quickly and charge small amounts OR make something so fantastic that noone can resist getting it and charge alot. And you can't always tell what people will like, so the quick cheap way is probably best until you've made a name for yourself and are associated with quality games (not just within the klik community as klikers are usually not good customers rarely buying anything).

All Klikers (including myself) have the habit of making games too difficult in one way or another. I believe it's because it is much easier to make a difficult game than it is to make a well-balanced game or even a game that is too easy.

Posted by Ski

28th July, 2009

Noitu Love 2 was definatley worth $10.

Posted by Marko

28th July, 2009

Dr. James, the games you knock out in 2 weeks puts alot of us to shame - nice video, i'll download this in time

Posted by MBK

28th July, 2009

Yea, I woulda probably bought that one if I had things set up for online pay. But NL2 was worked on for a much longer time and probably has more content etc.

Seconded, your games are good.... quite good.
I've not even made one truly quality game yet.

Comment edited by MBK on 7/28/2009

Posted by [DELETED]

28th July, 2009

The never-ending discussion on how much click games are worth.. it's $4.07AUD, that's cheap as chips.

If bought, does it come with a nice case and/or box?

Posted by Johnny Look

28th July, 2009

What's up with people acting retarded and randomly attacking each other's opinions lately?

MBK, hum dude, 10$ isn't 300$ and I don't know where you got the idea of the game being crappy without even playing it.

Making a crappy game can take a huge lot of time, the same way making a great game might only a few months to make. Now tell me which one would be the most profitable, a crap game made in a few weeks or a great game that took several months to make ?

Also you do realize that people like you who would "buy the game just to support a fellow clicker" are a minority right ? If every indie game's sales depended on that, they would all go bankrupt. So take a second look at my post and tell me if I am right or not.

If james was to follow your advice, it'd be better off by selling chinese manufactured products in the market, selling crappy products at a ridiculous price but at higher quantities. Way to go !

Comment edited by Johnny Look on 7/28/2009

Posted by Guru Rinpoche

28th July, 2009

If it's built on the Tormishire engine, then you can't say it only took 2 weeks. If it was 2 weeks starting from stratch, it probably wouldn't be that good. But seeing as the engine was already there, I can see why this would be great with only 2 weeks of level building.

Posted by UrbanMonk

28th July, 2009

I just bought it, I'll say whether it's worth it or not later. 3$ is mighty cheap.

Posted by 3kliksphilip

29th July, 2009

If it was made by anybody else then instead of 'oh it's cheap stop complaining and buy it!' people would be saying 'nah it's probably crap'.

Posted by Asholay

29th July, 2009

I do wish the average age of this place would rise above 14; it's so weary having to sift through all the petty shit just to get any info on something.

Jthongbai - I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you get a download key rather than get sent a tangible product, so most probably no manual, box, etc

Posted by markno2

30th July, 2009

The price of $3 was a good decision, except for releasing it for free, which is what I would have preferred.

This way, more people get to play the game, and it builds more hype for Tormishire.

Posted by nim

30th July, 2009

There are so many things I want to say about Lunnye. I haven't played it yet, but here are my initial impressions from what I see so far.

Graphically it looks stylish. Silhouettes are the new lens flares! But as for the actual game - or what I've seen of it - I'm kind of disappointed actually; It looks like Tormishire Lite. So, Tormishire minus enemies plus black fill tool = Lunnye? It's immediately obvious what you've done in the "Hello Boss Baddie" video since you put the two right beside each other. Exactly the same engine, camera movements, ambient effects. Some sprites are just Tormishire sprites painted black. That's not to say that Lunnye won't be a good game, and I'm still looking forward to Tormishire but I feel that my enthusiasm has been quashed a little by Lunnye. It's as if you've taken a juicy steak (Tormy), squished it into a burger bun and given it away as fast food. Of course, this is coming from the perspective of someone who has been following Tormishire first, and then saw Lunnye appear out of nowhere. A newcomer to your site and games might see things differently, but it's hard to avoid the similarities in the video.

If you think Lunnye is worth buying then get a demo out. Seriously. Regardless of how many downloads Satan Sam got back in the day, it's too subjective for you to expect people to automatically buy Lunnye. I didn't like Satan Sam at all but I've seen your more recent work and would be much more convinced by that.

As many commenters here and on other sites have mentioned, the video of Lunnye just makes people wonder why you're charging for this when Knytt and Seiklus are free. I don't think that's your mistake, necessarily. I sometimes think it's ridiculous that we give our work away for free. The problem is that while Lunnye is stylish and whatnot, but it looks no better than the games we expect to be playing for free these days. Still, good for you, I say.

I think you're onto something with the pricing. $3.20 (would it hurt to put the price on the game info page, by the way?) is a steal and I hope it attracts more impulse buyers. It certainly would if it were on the iTunes Store, but unfortunately there's a couple of credit card forms where 1-click-purchase would otherwise be. Case in point: I'm a frequent impulse buyer, but I'm putting off buying your game because of the lack of a demo and the fact that I've rarely gone through so much trouble to spend $3.20 before. It's a shame that the iTunes Store has set such a low standard for indie game pricing.

I'll update again with thoughts on the game after I've played it, but it doesn't seem like you're open to feedback since you're already selling it. As for this post, sorry it's so long, but I can't apologise for coming down a bit hard on Lunnye because if you raise the expectations of yourself when you decide to sell things that were previously free. I've given you my honest impression.

Anyway, good luck guys. It's always nice to see indie games being sold, especially those made with MMF.

Posted by Dr. James MD

30th July, 2009

Hey this has silhouettes and lens flares, I'm sure thats bonus points. But yea this was a total experiment. I wanted to see what would happen if we got a proper domain, I wanted to make an experimental game (yes I keep hearing these comparison messages but really it's got a more casual setting than either those games and an original concept in finding all the exits back to the same place) which is why its cheap. And all the graphics are new for this game too, only the engine is from Tormi.

It was supposed to be a Tormi lite but that changed fairly quickly. It's still got the open ended gameplay but everything else (even the music) is completely different. This is just a puzzle game at heart where Tormi is an adventure game.

And as for other free games looking better - you'll always get that. A lot of paid games look worse than free games, and vice versa. (to use an example I'm familiar with) L4D looks worse than a lot of cheaper games but it's the gameplay that sells it, TF2 took the art right the way back to cel shading too. Patapon is a commercial game that also "looks worse" than its companies sister product (LocoRoco). Isn't Night Game also going to be a paid game sitting alongside Aquaria and co? Also a lot of them free games don't have this kind of tech behind it, Seiklus is the kind of game you could build with a few events and default movement.

Posted by Callebo

30th July, 2009

I think it would be cool with some sort of package were you buy Lunnye Devitsy, Tormishire and new Satan Sam for a speciel price, kinda like the orange box...
About Lunnye Devitsy, I got nothing to say. It really looks like one of those game you can't say anything untill you've played it

Posted by Klayman

30th July, 2009

Hey, bought the game and having a small problem. For some reason, every 2 seconds or so the game pauses for a half second. It's consistent and makes it very frustrating to play. Which is too bad, because from what I've seen so far, it looks gorgeous

Posted by Guru Rinpoche

30th July, 2009

It's true, the game trailer for Lunnye didn't make it look any better than any other clickteam game. But as a TDCer who has come to EXPECT free games, I can't say I represent the ordinary casual gamer. Do they pay for small 2-week games? I don't know.

I think it would've been a better idea to spend a little bit more time on it and construct it as a game set in the universe of Tormishire. It'd be a small storyline not necessarily having anything to do with Tormishire, but still set in that world (and using the same engine, obviously).

This would be a good stand-in for a Tormi demo, and it would get people psyched about Tormi.

I guess you could say it would've been like what Portal is to HL2...sort of. Oh well.

Posted by nim

31st July, 2009

Sorry, when I said that it "doesn't look much better than other free games", I meant it as a synonym for "seems". I wasn't talking about graphics. I should've made that more clear. A little man running around on his own is exactly what Seiklus and Knytt did, and for free. If there are puzzles in Lunnye then why not show some off in the video?

Posted by Guru Rinpoche

31st July, 2009

I meant it both ways, actually. It doesn't seem particularly interesting, and the graphical style is kind of tired.

Posted by Klayman

31st July, 2009

I downloaded it on my laptop and it's working fine. I absolutely love the atmosphere of the game and how the tone and music fluidly changes as you move from one place to another. I'm envious of your abilities

That said, twice now it seems that I've gotten stuck in an area that I'm not able to get out of (it's very possible I'm dumb and missing something). I found one spaceship part, a moon thing and i activated a super spring thing that shot me to the top of the level. I'm going to keep trying though. Great job, definitely worth the $3 (price of a Starbucks coffee, how can anyone complain?).

Posted by Rob Rule

1st August, 2009