A new update for Hero-U and an announcement of a permanent price change for all stores.

New Year, New Plans...

Posted by Corey Cole (Creator)

New Features!

Since launch, we've continued to improve Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption with content and combat improvements, bug fixes, and other new features. The latest "Patch 4" makes the Wraith Sorcerer combat more challenging and fixes some problems with Katie's quests and the Aeolus romance options.

 

We've also made a much-requested change to movement speed. While the standard walk, run, and sneak speed are designed to work best with the movement animation, some players prefer to be able to move faster through the hallways. The Options screen now has a Movement Speed slider that lets you customize character movement speed.

There's a detailed update on the patch over at the Hero-U news blog. Keep an eye on that page, because more updates are coming soon! We're already working on a Patch 5 that fixes some combat display and audio issues along with some incorrectly-displayed text messages. That will be a minor patch, likely coming next week.

Game Price Change

 Last July, we launched Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption with little fanfare and not much of a marketing plan. I priced the game at $35 - unusually high for an indie game - for several reasons:

• Give our Kickstarter backers at the basic level the best possible deal
• Position Hero-U as a premium game like Quest for Glory
• Break-even on expenses with fewer sales

In contrast, a $15 or $20 price point:

• Matches other “premium indie games.”
• Encourages impulse buys
• Keeps player expectations reasonable
• “Primes the pump” with early sales

 I took a position, made a guess, and got it wrong.

Take Two

In hindsight, the arguments for the lower price should have been more compelling, and we’ve had very slow sales so far. Part of this is simply that the game market is extremely tough right now. Thousands of new games are released every month. We are also competing against heavily-discounted classic games, including our own. Players have tough decisions to make, and visibility is hard.

Today we are starting over. Rogue to Redemption is now $19.99 on all stores - Steam, GoG, the Mac App Store, and our web site. We are also preparing to launch on Fireflower Games in Europe.

There’s more! We’ve decided to include the Bestiary ebook as free DLC for all purchasers. For Kickstarter backers, I’ve added the Bestiary to all accounts that got the game. 

We are also going to make the interactive hint book free on the Hero-U website.

If you have friends who were hesitant about trying Hero-U at the original price, please suggest that they take a fresh look at the game.

A Page From the Bestiary