My solo project roguelike tower defense game is having a free prologue

FVS@kbin.social to Games@lemmy.world – 57 points – Towerful Defense: Prologue on Steam
store.steampowered.com

Hello, I've been working on the game, Towerful Defense: A Rogue TD, for almost a year now. I'm about to release the game after Steam's Next Fest in June. And I'm about to release a free version of it, a prologue in May 8th. You can wishlist the prologue now to get notified on the launch day.

I'll answer any question you have about the game here :)

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What made you decide to release a separate free app vs a demo on the original app? Not critiquing the choice, just curious what the reasoning could be.

I looked at the trailers and I think it would be helpful if your towers and other friendly buildings / units have a different coloured orb compared to enemies. I found it very hard to distinguish between friend or foe. That could be less impactful when playing, but first impressions leave me slightly confused. Put it on my wishlist!

Hey, thank you for adding it to your wishlist. I created a separate app to help promote the main game, it's quite a common practice in indie's marketing on Steam. Even Valve, not officially, but does recognize it while we communicate with their reviewers.

For some reason I was thinking the prologue would stop being available at release like a demo, but that's just my sprinkled size brain being tired. I totally get it now, thanks

Unlike demo, you get to keep the prologue forever (since it technically is a complete product). While dev can disable the demo so you won't have access anymore, even if the dev disable the prologue from sale, players who acquired it will still can play, and download it whenever they want. Steam treats all purchases, free or not, with the same level of seriousness. Fun fact: I had to rewrite the description for the prologue because Steam wanted to make sure "players know what they'll get with their purchase".