Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption Update #109 – New Year, New Plans

If you’re someone who enjoys games that combine point-and-click adventure and role-playing elements, then Transolar Games’ Quest for Glory-inspired Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption should be right up your alley. However, if you felt that Hero-U’s original asking price of $35 was a bit too steep, you’ll be pleased to know that according to this Kickstarter update, the game has gone down in price and should now only cost you $19.99 or your regional equivalent.

The aforementioned update also talks about the recently released “Patch 4” for the game and mentions physical rewards. Check it out:

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.

Fulfillment Status

Geekify is handling fulfillment of the boxed games and other Kickstarter rewards. They are currently working with our Backerkit database to get everything shipped.

There are two exceptions – autographed postcards and the Yearbook. Lori and I have the postcards here, and will be autographing and sending them out soon. We printed extras, which we will make available on the Hero-U website.

I’ve mentioned previously the issues we’ve had with completing the Yearbook. We now have a designer who will help us get that done. We will get the assets to him soon, and plan on shipping autographed Yearbooks in April.

Keep an eye on the Hero-U “Leaders” news page for more updates – http://hero-u.com/leaders/.

Thank you for supporting Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. The game would not exist without you. We’re excited to be delivering the final Kickstarter rewards even as we move forward to upcoming projects. We hope each of your New Years will be exciting, fun, and rewarding.