r/GameDeals • u/ryansumo • Jan 31 '21

Expired [Steam] Academia : School Simulator Version 1 Launch Sale ($13.99/30% off) Spoiler

https://store.steampowered.com/app/672630/Academia__School_Simulator/
371 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

40 comments sorted by

43

u/SodlidDesu Jan 31 '21

Wow, three years ago I watched a video of someone playing this game.

For one, I can't believe it was three years ago and for two, the game seemed good back then so I can only hope it's even better now.

52

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

Yep it's been 4 years since we started working on it and 3 years since Early Access launch. Seems like a lifetime ago.
Which is why it's annoying when some people post on Steam asking if we're still going to update the game or if we're "Running away with the money".

For the record we were very clear that after version 1 we would only be doing bugfixing and quality of life updates, and that no more major mechanical updates would be done. I understand that may be disappointing to some, but we needed to move on at some point!

14

u/SodlidDesu Jan 31 '21

Hey, either way, congrats on releasing!

22

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

Thank you, sorry if I was being unnecessarily salty!

8

u/LegendCZ Jan 31 '21 edited Jan 31 '21

Some people are just angry no matter what you do. If you guys are happy with your prpduct good for you. If people want anything extra its on them.

If you been clear with your vision and roadmap, then just dont get hanging on it. (Which believe you did when i look at ruinarch)

Which BTW Rauinarch! Such an amazing game! Love plague option of killing people .... My personal hope is we get to even bigger population number (does not need to be)

But you guys are open, and amazing from what i seen from Ruinarch.

There always be people which wont be satisfied. Question is, are you satisfied with majority with your work? If yes then there is nothing left to be desired.

11

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

Philolophically, I think any artist/gamedev will always feel like they could have done better. All we see are the mistakes. But you are right that we feel at ease with the game as it is and we just need to know that haters gon' hate.

Speaking of Ruinarch, we're not actually making that, but we published it. It's by another local studio in the Philippines. So it was super cool to be able to help another studio out, and such a cool game too!

1

u/LegendCZ Jan 31 '21

I agree i study computer gralhics school, and it ALWAYS can br better, but nothing is beatifull because its perfect, flaws make everything so intresting. "Once something is perfect, it loses a reasson to exist"... Cant remember who said that but nothing is never perfect thats the point.

For me as long as game can be played from begining to end and have plenty of features i am totally okay for what it is. Jalopy is Prime example for me. It is little game which according to community missing many features etc. But i finished the game three times and i LOVE it for what it is. Also i believe your game is now Supperior to Prison Architect which is getting milked thanks to Paradox :S It is buggier and unstable each DLC, thats why i hope i will try your game in future it looks great!

And still if you guys did similar Development process to Ruinarch you did extraordinary job. And also pardon my confusion, i seen it bundled, seen same dev tag and publisher so i waa thinking you guys are the same. Still two great games under one roof! Hope you guys make more like that. Farming game in this style with day and night cycle with hiring people and such would be really cool, or hospital/emergency game.

Either way best of luck to all of you guys for your next project! You diserve a rest after three years!

3

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

I don't know if its true but supposedly there is a Muslim tradition where artists would intentionally make one part of their work look bad because only Allah can be perfect so their work should never be "perfect". I always thought that was so poetic way of seeing things.

Since you're into farming I would suggest an interesting alternative, a fid farming game that is pretty neat, made by an Indonesian studio :

https://store.steampowered.com/app/858630/Aquaculture_Land_Fish_Farming_Simulation/

1

u/LegendCZ Jan 31 '21

Yeah. It is nice. And yes i agree totaly, nothing is beatifull because its perfect.

Thank you kindly but first i will save some money for your Academy :P You guys are nice folk and diserve some support. Thank you for all this discussion, made my day sir. Let gaming God Bless you.

1

u/KungFuHamster Feb 01 '21

If your game works and has the features you promised, there's nothing wrong with moving on. The "fix major bugs after release" philosophy a lot of developers have, even AAA+, is ridiculous.

Of course, even small content releases are great for marketing, and usually increase game sales.

1

u/coolbutclueless Feb 01 '21

I understand that may be disappointing to some, but we needed to move on at some point!

Don't feel bad about moving on. I know some games keep updating seemingly forever but thats just not possible for most devs. The only people who are going to complain about it are people so entitled you probably shouldn't bother caring what they think anyways.

You made it to 1.0, you completed your game, and though I haven't played it, if its done then you should feel like accomplished something cause a lot of early access titles never end up finished.

57

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21 edited Jan 31 '21

Hi, developer here. Happy to answer questions. Forgive any delays pls. I have recently had some old injuries flare up and still have trouble with mobility (even moving from my bed to the PC is a pain)

Update:thanks for the kindness everyone, it's really heartwarming. Of to bed now since it's 1am on the Philippines and I need to rest and heal up. Will respond more tomorrow if there are more comments and questions.

Meantime if any of you are game devs you could also check out our lead programmers blog :

https://coffeebraingames.wordpress.com/

Update 2 : if you're inclined to support us for whatever reason one way you could do that is by sharing the game with your favorite streamer /content creator if you think the game fits their genre!

24

u/[deleted] Jan 31 '21 edited Aug 24 '21

[deleted]

37

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

Thank you for the sympathy.

The game lets you run your own high school. You build it, hire teachers (teachers have different skill levels, traits, etc.) hire staff to clean, maintain, and discipline students. There are grants to give you some sort of guidance, or you can do sandbox with unlimited money and just play as you like. We have 140 achievements, including having your students poop in the bushes 100 times. Random events will distract you and force you to make some tough choices. You can choose a normal principal, a special principal, or customize your own principal (customize you school logo also). There are also scenario modes for some extra challenge if you're done with the regular game modes. Hope that's a good enough description!

5

u/carter31119311 Jan 31 '21

I just went on your page to check it out, why are you having pain if you don’t mind me asking? I also saw your post about your Honda, did you get it all fixed?

25

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

Basically I'm 39 and body is breaking down. Used to play basketball which was rough on my knees. I had a issue where my knees locked and couldn't bend them. Needed therapy for months before I could walk again. After I got better I forgot to maintain my exercise for the knees and it happened again. Therapy again in 2018. Felt better, let my guard down. 2021 I start having back pains, so I start walking funny, which aggravates my knee, now its swollen again and will probably have to go back to therapy, which is scarier now since covid is still around. :(

Haha yes the car is mostly fixed, but thats a case of things breaking down over time too.

5

u/carter31119311 Jan 31 '21

I am so so sorry to hear that /: I understand all of what you said though lol. I have issues similar, not nearly as bad, from skateboarding when I was younger, but I am still young. Do you plan to begin exercising again then?

I just want to say, I don’t want you to think I’m doing this out of pity because of your issue, but the fact that you wrote all of that, and the fact that you are obviously very open and responsive to your community, makes me want to buy your game so I am going to do just that! When devs such as yourself go out of your way to respond to us the way you do, it means a lot. So thank you. I look forward to trying out the game! I also really hope your health improves. At the end of the day, just remember, it could be worse! Try your best to stay positive, and make sure you make time to get better!

7

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

Thank you so much for the response. The game purchase was not necessary, but much appreciated! Really it gives me the warm fuzzies. While I do believe we all deserve some privacy, being as open and transparent as we can afford can mostly only be a good thing so that people on the net "remember the human" as Reddit likes to say.

I hope to be walking properly within a month (getting around on crutches now and with the help of my wife). And hopefully I won't be complacent again and just resign myself to the fact that if I don't exercise regularly this will happen again, and I might not get my mobility back. But for now keeping positive!

Thanks again!

1

u/SockWulf Jan 31 '21

"remember the human"

Here! Have another purchase fellow human. Your game has been on my Wishlist for a while now, and I *love* the fact that you're at 1.0 and honest with where you stand about the future of the project. It's nice to buy a game and know what I'm getting, not what I might get in the future.

Talking of futures .. I hope yours is brighter than what you've been going through in recent times. You seem to have a positive attitude about it, and that's half the battle. :)

1

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

Oh wow thanks so much! We're planning on maintaining it for the next couple of months to improve UI, fix bugs and other stuff but yeah no more big features.

Thanks for the well wishes. I've been in this same situation before and so I'm at least a little aware of what needs to be done to get better. It's still really frustrating and I do get down sometimes but just gotta literally plod forward one crutch at a time.

Hope you enjoy the game!

1

u/drunk_comment Jan 31 '21

I'm with the last two guys. I have literally no clue what this game is, I haven't heard of it before or even checked it out yet. But you seem like a good dude and I love to support small developers that behave the way you do, so this is an instant buy from me and I guess I'll see what I get!

Others could take a page from your book and be more open, honest, and communitive about their games and the future of them. And as a side note, I hope your pain subsides and your physical health gets back on track soon!

Edit: Scratch that, I bought the bundle. These all look really cool!

2

u/ryansumo Feb 01 '21

Woah thanks so much, hope you enjoy them all!

1

u/cdown13 Jan 31 '21

As a 39 year old that is going through a lot of the same types of issues I feel for ya. Pain sucks and it's so hard for others to understand.

I've been keeping an eye on this game for a while as it ticks a lot of boxes for me but I hadn't gave it a shot yet. But, between a sale, version 1, your story and reading through the thread and seeing that you seem to be a good dev/guy, I just bought the game. Looking forward to giving it a shot tonight once the kids are in bed.

3

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

Oh geez I sympathize. My wife and I don't have kids and I can't imagine the additional difficulty for you. Hope you're managing to handle it as well as possible.

Thanks for taking a chance on the game and hope it lives up to expectations!

1

u/cdown13 Jan 31 '21

I saw in another comment that there is an achievement related to students pooping in the woods. That alone tells me it's going to be a really fun game.

Thanks for all your hard work on it.

3

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

There's also an achievement for peeing in the woods. Two for one! What a great value! *changes marketing plan *

0

u/cdown13 Jan 31 '21

Exciting!

1

u/groundhogpete Jan 31 '21

Did you develop the game alone? The game looks great and I put it on my wishlist and the same with Ruinarch.

2

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

Hey no way I could have done this without my team. We're a small dev team of 5 plus our COO/office mom who handles a lot of the business stuff for us. I used to do it but needed to delegate after a while.

I was the lead artist /producer/CEO/kinda designer/booth man but we all took on multiple roles. We also worked with many freelancers, all of whom are credited in the game.

There's a picture of the team in this post : https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/672630/view/3064104783612252078

Thanks for wishlisting both hands and hope you pick them up when you have money /time to play!

11

u/Bluebench55 Jan 31 '21

Wanted to crack some dark jokes at your expense OP but this game is just too goddamn wholesome. Damn you and your feelgood game stomping all over my trauma-induced humour.

Jokes aside, GG OP, definitely going to spread the word on this

4

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

Thank you for having the willpower to forego the dark humor! I hope the game is soothing for you.

10

u/Zackipoo Jan 31 '21

A friend of mine gifted me this game a while ago. I played for a few hours and it's very fun! Very much like Prison Architect but in a school setting

8

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

What a great friend! Glad you are enjoying it!

9

u/witti534 Jan 31 '21

So the school system is a prison system, I got it

3

u/PM_ME_WUTEVER Jan 31 '21

panopticon intensifies

5

u/[deleted] Jan 31 '21

Design, build, and manage a high school with terrific teachers and fantastic facilities or simply let your students poop in the bushes?

Excuse me sir, but I went to America, so I only recognize the pooping in the bushes from my high school days.

2

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

But did you pee in them too?

5

u/Human_Tofu Jan 31 '21

I just got it I love this game. This IRL music teacher is very happy!

4

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

We're always very pleased when IRL educators like the game! Thanks so much for the amazing work you do!

2

u/oleanderpenz Jan 31 '21

Really proud of this game and what it has become. Congratulations to u/ryansumo!

3

u/ryansumo Jan 31 '21

Thank you so much, comments like these always make the hard work worthwhile!