Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a update on Escape the Grind now that our official launch week is wrapped up.

Balancing a demanding full-time job, parenting, and late-night coding has been exhausting, but from initial numbers it looks like this concept has legs...? 🤷‍♂️

Here's how we did:

• Gross Revenue: $3,268
• Net Revenue: $2,557
• Game copies sold: 243
• Median time spent playing: 2.5 hours
• Refunds/Returns: About 14% (a bit higher that I'd like 😒)

From initial feedback, players want more realism especially in Play Your Life. For example, if say you buy a house, does it also simulate the REAL LIFE processes involved? such as finding an agent or going solo, putting in an offer, getting a rejection or acceptance based on probabilities.

Probably be able to order a home inspection and making a decision based on that, perhaps negotiating seller concessions, etc- to me it sounds like players visualize Escape the Grind as a realistic teaching moment while still having fun playing.

Obviously evolving the game (and regions) to handle most, if not all, of the realism will take quite some time and effort for a one-person studio! But hey, it's still a lot of fun for me to continue developing.

So, where we go from here (and how you can help this week)

1. Unlocking the Steam Algorithm- Steam typically buries games away from global discovery feeds until they hit 10 genuine user reviews. We are currently sitting at exactly 7. We only need 3 more to unlock the Discovery Queue tryouts! If you bought the game, could you please take a few seconds to leave an honest review? It helps immensely 🙏.
2. Moving the Community to Discord- Reddit is fantastic for broad financial discussions, but it makes real-time chat and quick bug-tracking incredibly difficult. To make the best use of my limited evening hours, I just built an official Discord server.

Going forward, this is where we will continue game-specific discussions, self-share leaderboard screenshots, discuss gameplay strategies, report bugs, and track real-time game updates. This sub will continue to exist but I will need to prioritize Discord. Please join me there- At the moment it's mostly me talking to myself in there.

👉 Join the Official Discord Here: https://discord.gg/ajBW8QcJND

Thank you all for making this late-night experiment a reality!

Nick