Monthly Update #40 🎃

Happy Halloween, Sleepyheads! 🎃👻 This month, the last Friday of the month happens to fall right on one of my favorite holidays, so I’m gonna try to keep things very topical and focus on some cool and spooky details from Little Nemo! 🧛‍♂️ But first…

Check your Pledge 📝

First off, just some bookkeeping stuff: we’ve locked in pledges, so if you’ve already set your “Credited as…” name and your platform of choice on which to receive the game, you’ll no longer be able to change it. But there are still a good amount of backers that haven’t entered any of their info into Pledge Manager yet. If that includes you, you’ll have been getting emails asking you to please fill that out, and I just sent out final reminders. If you haven’t yet logged into Pledge Manager to confirm these details, I recommend you do so, otherwise I will just use the details we may or may not have on hand to credit you in the game, and it could impact your ability to get the game on the platform you’d prefer. If you’re not sure, check your spam folder in your email client because I’ve had at least one person mention they were ending up in there. But you don’t even need the email, you can just head to Pledge Manager directly to fill this stuff out (log in using the email associated with your Kickstarter account).

Okay, on to more fun stuff!

What I’ve been up to 🛠️

I’m gonna start off with what I’ve been up to this month because I can keep it spoiler-free. You’ll recall last month I mentioned we’d be doing some playtesting in October, and I just wanted to fill you all in on how that went.

Playtesting 🎮

We had a mix of people who had played the game before, and those that hadn’t. This time around, the game forced you to start with a pre-existing save file that was a little ways into 🍄Mushroom Marsh🍄 already. I asked players to just play as they normally would and prevented access to the last ~1/3rd of the game. This meant they were playing through the middle chunk of the game, but they had access to earlier areas as well. Having access to such a large chunk of the domains means that players had access to an outsized portion of the game’s actual content (because there are elements that only become possible to properly explore once you have unfettered access to most of the world) so playtesters actually spent quite a bit more time with the game than I anticipated (this is great, I think it means we’re on track for my time estimates for the game, and if anything it’ll be a little longer than the 10 hours I’ve been aiming for, but not by so much as to be a problem).

I won’t spoil exactly what the playtesters encountered, but they got to play some bosses and quests, collect several toys, possibly find loads of secrets including optional PJs, Little Buddies, and Lucky Coin Shards. Overall the reaction was very positive, and more importantly it was very constructive. Through a combination of a feedback form I asked playtesters to fill out, self-reported feedback from testers, and even some video footage of playtesting, I was able to identify loads of things that needed to be fixed, adjusted, or just generally changed and improved.

So when looking back at this month’s history of git commits, it’s loads of rather small things that I think all add up to some pretty significant improvements to the game. Overall I’m really happy with how things went and looking forward to playtesting the final ~1/3 of the game soon!

Marketing 📣

I’ve also been digging into marketing stuff this month. The exact plan and timing for release is crystalizing (but none of this will get announced until next year so remain patient ⌛) and so I have been trying to put together a plan where I can spend money on ads at launch that I think will be impactful. That means first exploring what kind of return on investment I can get on my ads. Obviously this is a bit tricky when the game isn’t for sale yet, but I can do some math to estimate how many sales I think I will get from the ads I run (based on an estimate of how many wishlists will convert to sales) and compare that to how much profit I’ll make from the sale of each copy of the game. With all of that I can come up with a cost-per-wishlist target, and that gives me a metric for gauging how my ads are doing.

So this month I have been running ads on Reddit at a very limited rate (just a few dollars each day) to get a sense of which ads do well and if I can get under the cost-per-wishlist target I need to break even on the ad spend. So far, it’s all very promising! And when I compare my numbers to what I see others reporting, our ads appear to be quite compelling. 😊

I’ll probably break this down into greater detail for some post-launch info (it’ll be good to compare to how the numbers actually look once the game has been on sale for a bit), so if that’s something you’d like to see more info about, lemme know!

Okay, so now let’s get into some spooky spoilers and we’ll take a closer look at some exciting details from 🎃Haunted Hollow🎃…

Spoilers Ahead ❗🙈❗

I know we’ve already looked at the enemies in Haunted Hollow, but seeing as today is Halloween, I figured we should definitely take a look at something fun in this domain. There are some spoilers in here, so if you’re trying to go into the game blind you’ll want to pass on this section.

🎃 Haunted Hollow 🎃

I’ve covered a bit about this domain’s Guardian and quest in the past, but I wanted to dig in a bit more about how this all works. But first, meet Alex, the domain’s Guardian:

Meet Alex, Guardian of Haunted Hollow

Cartridge Hunt 🕹️

Alex is seemingly the only Guardian that hasn’t lost control of his domain. He still has his scepter and has not been transformed. But that doesn’t mean your job is done because Alex asks you to do something for him before he’ll help you recall your core memory of Haunted Hollow. Specifically, you’ll need to bring Alex game cartridges for his Super Dreamstation 32 video game console. These are some retro games that his dad really likes, so he’s curious to try them out.

By the time you reach Alex, you may have already encountered one or more of these cartridges out in your travels because they are located throughout Slumberland. Once you’ve met Alex, you’ll be able to carry these back to him, but it’s a bit trickier than you might think. When you’re holding something in your hands, you’re unable to do things like dangle from monkey bars, use your pogo stick, or attack enemies with your yo-yo. Making it back to Alex from wherever you find these is a bit of an adventure unto itself for each one and will require some deliberate pathfinding on your part.

Nemo returning a game cartridge to Alex

So rather than battling a boss here, you’ll instead have a long-running quest. You could go ahead and try to get started on it right away (Alex will point you towards the one cartridge location he knows of from the start) or just keep track of cartridges as you find them. They’ll be marked on your map once you spot them, so you can always come back to grab them later. I hope this is a nice change of pace from a boss fight, and that you’ll explore Haunted Hollow for ideal routes back to Alex while carrying a cartridge.

Ghoulish PJs 💀

Once you’ve brought Alex enough cartridges such that he helps you push back the Oblivion, he’ll also offer to sell you some new pajamas, the Ghoulish PJs 💀. With these spooky PJs, you’ll fit right in at Haunted Hollow. Here’s a quick look at how they work currently:

Ghoulish PJs let you avoid damage from enemies but you’ll wake up instantly from hazards

And the in-game description:

These PJs were once worn by a lucid dreamer and allow you to ride the line between being awake and asleep.

Buff - Unawake You do not suffer any damage from enemies, but hazards always wake you up in a single hit.

I made these pretty strong for the first pass, and the reaction was about as expected (playtesters that got these PJs usually responded with something along the lines of “wow, these seem busted!”). So from here I think I do need to tone these down to bring them more in line with other PJs. While I think the one-hit wake-up from hazards is very punishing (maybe more so than players realize at first), I don’t want these to even feel broken. While it’s fun to abuse mechanics and for players to try to “break” the game, if you have one set of PJs that players think is way better than the others, it just removes the decision about which PJs to wear, and the goal is for the players “load out” (PJs and Little Buddy) to always be something they should be considering. So we need a fair balance of pros and cons with this ability.

And here’s some changes I’m thinking of making to this:

• You’ll still actually get hit by enemies (and thus knockback and hit-stun), you just won’t receive any damage from those hits.
• Projectiles get treated as hazards and can also one-shot you.

I’ll test these approaches out and maybe it just needs one or the other, or maybe it needs both. We’ll see how it goes in the next round of playtesting!

Are You Afraid of the Dark? 🔥

The last thing I’ll dig into here that’s kind of cool about Haunted Hollow is how the lighting in the game works, because there are a lot of dark areas in Haunted Hollow. If it gets completely dark, you won’t see anything except outlines of your character and enemies.

It’s tough to see here, but you can just make out the outline of Nemo and some nearby enemies.

This of course makes it very difficult to navigate, so you’re gonna want some light. There are sometimes lanterns strewn about to help you see, and there’s even some enemies that emit light, though you’ll have to avoid destroying them if you want them to keep lighting everything up for you.

These Electric Scarabiners emit enough light that you can kind of see your way around. You might want to avoid destroying them!

But probably what you’ll need to do most of the time is carry a jack-o-lantern around with you. These are a great source of light and allow you to see to navigate through the dark areas, but as we mentioned above with the cartridges, not having your hands free can be a problem. And besides, what if you’re trying to carry a video game cartridge through Haunted Hollow to Alex? In that case you’d definitely benefit from having a Little Buddy that can help you see in the dark, so make sure to explore Slumberland and keep an eye out for clues!

The jack-o-lanterns provide a nice bit of light around Nemo

So what do you think of Haunted Hollow? Did you enjoy this domain-specific overview? Please let me know in the comments below! As a big fan of all things Halloween, I always knew from the get-go that Little Nemo was gonna have to include a Halloween-themed dream domain so it’s fun to get to show it off a bit ahead of release. 🎃

Back to Spoiler-Free ✅🐵✅

Kickstarter Friends 💚

Okay, before wrapping up, I did want to clue you into a Kickstarter for another cute metroidvania that you might be interested in, Stomp & the Sword of Miracles. This one has some really charming animation and has a demo available that you can check out if the trailer gets you hooked! The demo is very promising so I recommend giving it a shot 😊

Stomp & the Sword of Miracles

Embark on a mission to save the world from the god of chaos in this character-driven metroidvania! Play as Stomp, an impulsive young nubkin, as you explore a world full of lost secrets, meet a cast of charming characters, and use the creatures around you to your advantage to reach new heights.

Have a great Halloween! 👻

That’s it for the October update. We’re getting so close to launch. It’s weird to think that there will only be a few more of these updates and then you’ll just be playing the game instead of reading about it 🎮(don’t worry, for you Switch backers, I’ll keep on updating you as to the status of the Switch release as we go 😊). Thanks so much for reading and following along, and I’ll see you again next month!

-Dave