Wishlists seem to be the most important metric when it comes to judging the success of a game pre-release, but I think there are other interesting things to look at.

I’m working on Lexispell, a cozy roguelike word game with a physics twist and since the 2nd playtest, I’ve received a bunch of signals telling me I was on the right path. I’m going to compare Lexispell to my previous two games Hyperslice and Dashpong. Keep in mind there’s a lot of subjectivity in what I’m talking about.

A feeling

The first thing I want to discuss is how I felt about Lexispell. When I started working on the idea, the game was really different and some of the core mechanics where not even there yet. At the time, the game wasn’t working but I had a feeling I was onto something. This feeling is what help me push through the first problems and not-so-positive feedback of the first playtest. This can’t be measured and I could have been totally wrong. I still think that sometimes we have intuitions about certain ideas, and it can be interesting to follow them for a reasonable amount of time.

I guess most games start like this. I’m not a huge company, I don’t make games based on data and what will please 87.9% of players with 75.6% confidence. I guess most indies do the same and work on things they vibe with and that can hopefully resonate with players. That being said, not all ideas are created equal. There are many other prototypes I abandoned the second I realized the idea wasn’t working as I thought. The difference with Lexispell is that I was pretty much sure I could make it work. I didn’t know how at the time, but I believed it.

More than a feeling

With the second private playtest, the game was is much better shape and the feedback was more positive. It was still a small amount of players, but I got feedback like “you’re onto something” or “when can I play more”.

This was even more evident with the first public playtest I ran on Steam. I got more than 650 players, with many playing for multiple hours and the feedback was incredibly positive. More than just being positive, playtesters had ideas, suggestions, things they liked and things they didn’t like. They were excited about the game, willing to share their thoughts and they wanted more.

This is harder to judge compared to raw hard numbers but you get an overall sentiment from player feedback and comments. It is the first time I can feel players really interested in a game I’m making. It’s the difference between someone saying “cool game” and “oh cool game, when can I play? I NEED THIS!!!”. While it happened before, it has never been to that scale. On top of that, I got explicit comments from testers telling me the game was great and somewhat special.

Numbers, numbers, numbers

As I suggested at the beginning, there are other numbers indicating that Lexispell is good. I won’t go into details but here are a few key points:

• Announcement on social did well (for me) and I got to 500 wishlists relatively fast
• 650+ playtesters on the first public playtest
• Many players played for 3h+ during the playtest (and later the demo)
• Got some articles writing about Lexispell when it was announced
• Took part in 3 Steam events so far (Taskbar Treasure Week, Flash Game Vibes, Relaxing Event), got nominated as a finalist in the BIG festival. More events are coming
• Demo: 1000 players on Steam, 1000 download and 23K+ browser plays on Itch
• A bunch of youtubers and streamers played the game around Next Fest
• I crossed 2000 wishlists which is more than what Hyperslice even has now after release..

As you can see, some of the numbers are not crazy like the wishlists or even the demo players. The fact that a bunch of events are including me is a great sign that the games looks interesting. This practically never happened with Hyperslice. I submitted to many many events and was rejected most of the time. The other number I find interesting is the playtime. Reaching multiple hours on the playtest is incredible, knowing how little content was available and the same thing happend with the demo.

Something interesting to consider is that this overall sentiment doesn’t really transfer to a lot of wishlists so far. Don’t get me wrong, it’s doing ok, but I think I was expecting way more. I think it’s in part due to not getting covered by any big content creator so far. I have hopes that I’m going to catch their attention towards release.

Why is Lexispell doing better?

Overall it’s pretty clear that the game is doing better. I think it’s mainly because it presents clearly. Hyperslice is much more detailed and complex but it’s not immediately obvious what the game is and why it’s appealing. There’s a lot going on, it can look overwhelming and because it’s fast you don’t necessarily get what the gameplay is and how it will feel. While the aesthetic is cool in my opinion, it might also look more generic.

Lexispell is pretty niche and I’m sure word games are not the most popular things out there but it looks approachable. I’m saying it’s niche, but the target can be quite broad. It’s the first game my GF actually tried without being “forced”. Even my parents wanted to try the game without me asking. Similar to how Balatro looks approachable because most people know playing cards and are familiar with poker, most people write and are familiar with word games (crosswords, scrabble, wordle).

The difference between Dashpong, Hyperslice and Lexispell is that I knew where I was going with Lexispell from the beginning. I had a pretty clear idea of scope, game loop and theme. This made development way faster and easier. I guess it also transfer to how I talk and present the game and players can feel that. It’s hard to get people excited about your game if you don’t event know what it’s supposed to be.

I hope you found this interesting. Don’t hesitate to share your experience and thoughts below!

Try Lexispell on Steam and wishlist it if you enjoy 👇

Cheers, Eliptik

MrEliptik

Full-time indie game developer using Godot

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