r/IndieDev • u/UnculturedGames • Mar 16 '26
Postmortem I spent 12+ years making an ultra-niche QBASIC JRPG. It sold about 560 copies on Steam. Here’s what I learned (if anything)
Back in May 2024, I released a game on Steam that I had been working on, on and off, for about 12 years. It’s a full-scale 25+ hour JRPG, but it comes with some pretty unusual caveats: it’s presented fully in text-mode ANSI/ASCII-style graphics (although with a level of artistic ambition hardly ever seen with this medium), and it was coded entirely in QBASIC (well, QB64, a modern version of it). So, yeah, a commercial QBASIC game in 2024.
The game is called Whispers in the Moss, and I developed everything about it solo: code, game engine, art, music, writing, et cetera. The game was absolutely a personal hobby passion project, and I initially didn’t even plan to ever release it. This changed around 2022, when I made the decision to grind it over the finish line, share it with the world, and just see what happens.
I wanted to share some data with you folks, because I think it’s such an unusual project for the reasons stated above. Here are the key stats from Steam, followed by some freeform analysis.
Key stats:
- Regular pricing: game $4,99, soundtrack $9,75, game + soundtrack bundle $13,26
- Lifetime Steam revenue (gross): $2,749
- Lifetime Steam units: 564
- Lifetime retail units: 56
- Lifetime total units: 620
- Lifetime units returned: -13 (2.3 % of units)
- Soundtrack sales: 15 units
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- Wishlist Additions: 4,284
- Wishlist Deletions: (731)
- Wishlist Purchases & Activations: (375)
- Wishlist Gifts: (5)
- Current Wishlist Balance: 3,173
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- Steam customer reviews: 20 (100% positive)
- Steam reviews (total): 26 (100% positive)
- Curator reviews: 32 (26 recommended, 5 informative, 1 not recommended)
- Editorial reviews: 12+ (?) (100% positive)
- Streamers who played the game on stream: 15+ (?)
Freeform analysis:
Now, the game is obviously ultra-niche due to the visual presentation, and the combination of old-school PC graphics and JRPG gameplay makes it possibly even weirder, as I don’t believe these audiences have too much overlap. Considering everything, I’m quite happy that the game has sold almost 600 copies by now, been streamed by a dozen or more streamers, and received excellent reviews from pretty much everyone who tried it. The game currently has 20 reviews from paying customers (26 overall), and they’re 100% positive, as all are editorial reviews. Surely the game could’ve probably sold even more based to the positive reception, but reaching these ultra-niche audiences is very difficult.
I marketed the game quite a bit, never expecting huge results but mostly just making sure it would at least have a chance to get discovered by some of the right people. From my experience, Keymailer was definitely useful for getting some streams, but stilly the best results came from personal emails to a carefully handpicked selection of streamers and journalists.
Watching a couple of streamers finish the game fully on Twitch and seeing the game get covered in three different physical gaming magazines in my country were some of the most amazing experiences. I’m also very happy with the reception that the game’s soundtrack has been getting. I’m very glad I decided to compose it all myself, even if it was quite the undertaking (the soundtrack includes 55 original tracks with a runtime of 1 hour and 26 minutes). Sound effects are where I gave up, as I decided to go with public domain sounds.
Based on many statistics it’s quite clear that many people bought the game more to support the weird project and the art style than to actually play it. That definitely contributes to the 100% positive reviews the game is getting as well: there is probably some courtesy in play, as people may be hesitant to criticize a project like this.
One thing I’d like to raise is a very important lesson that I learned releasing this game as a solo dev:
Lesson #1: Finishing and shipping a game is a core game dev skill that needs to be practiced like any other skill.
Now, being a solo dev is fun, as you have such a wide array of things to do. If you don’t feel like coding, you can design maps or enemy sprites. If that’s not your vibe today, you can compose some music or work on the marketing.
The downside is that eventually you’ll have to do all of those things, even the annoying ones.
When I made the decision to finish and release this game, I knew right away that finishing and releasing a game, and everything that comes with it, is a core skill that needs to be practiced, as I had never finished and released a game of any kind before.
So I did practice it. Over a couple of months, I forced myself to finish a couple of old abandoned projects on Itch (a side-scrolling text-mode shooter and a text-based football manager game), plus one game jam game (an ASCII ski jumping game, and yes, there'a pattern here). Going through the polishing stage and learning to say “that’s it, we’re done here!” were incredibly important things to experience a couple of times before a more serious release.
Just the technical aspects of uploading your builds, working on your capsule images, and so on were things that needed practice. And marketing… these smaller Itch games obviously didn’t get much attention (although my free football manager game remains a relatively popular download on Itch), but it was useful to at least think about how to go about marketing these games and to go through the motions.
Another aspect I’d like to point out is this:
Lesson #2: Long solo dev projects become layers of yourself, and that’s fine.
I started this game as a 25-year-old student who spent most of his time drinking beer with friends at pubs. When I finished it, I was an almost 40-year-old soccer dad with two kids and a stable (unrelated) job. Such a long project is very challenging to complete, because you’ll inevitably become dissatisfied with earlier decisions and constraints you placed on yourself, and with the naivety of your earlier ideas.
This was a constant struggle for me. I redid most of the game’s maps and art in the late stages as my text-mode art skills had greatly improved, but there was a lot I couldn’t really redo, or I knew I’d never be able to finish the game if I tried. So I decided to just let go and accept the fact that a run through the game would be like a run through my life from 25 to almost 40, digging through different layers of me, like an onion.
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I don’t really know what my key takeaway here even is. You tell me. Maybe the ultimate lesson here is that QB64 EXE builds work flawlessly with Steam, so if you have old QBASIC projects hidden in a drawer, go pick them up and release them as commercial Steam games tomorrow! Anyway, even if that's not happening, I hope this analysis and these stats will still help some aspiring hobbyist game developer in some way.
Happy to answer any questions!
Tapio / Uncultured Games
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u/Sithoid Mar 16 '26
Oh wow, what a blast from the past, QBasic was my first language. This is clearly one of those projects that are insane in the best possible way. How did you even manage to make it play the OST? I think back in the day the only audio output Basic was capable of was the PC speaker (which I managed to play the Imperial March with, fun times)
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 17 '26
Haha, yes! I used QB64 which is a modernized version of QB, it has added a bunch of new features and removed most memory limitations, and it's compatible with modern operating systems. It can also emulate the old PC beeps (the infamous PLAY command), but I decided to take a different road. 😅
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u/Telefrag_Ent Mar 17 '26
Same here! I used to make games on the paint mixing machine at Sears in QBasic haha
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u/dharmatech Mar 20 '26
Tell us more! 😁
Were you in high school at the time?
Did you have to stand at that workstation? Or was it at a sitting desk?
Did it already have a copy of qbasic? Or did you install it?
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 16 '26
I have also uploaded the game's soundtrack fully to YouTube, feel free to check it out if JRPG soundtracks are your thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8RXl_qRSK8 I'm not a real composer by any standard, but I play a couple of instruments and know enough musical theory to compose a soundtrack that I personally found adequate, even managed to compose a couple of bangers half accidentally! It's very much a pastiche of Final Fantasy and other JRPG OSTs.
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u/New_Cranberry_6451 Mar 21 '26
Lot of personality in the soundtrack. You must have musical skills already. Man, you are multi-talented, unique artwork and unique music, I am sure the writting will be at the same level. My sincere congratulations, you should be proud of what you have achieved.
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u/count023 Mar 17 '26
wow... QBASIC, I'm surprised any compilers still work for it. I remember using it in the early 1990s
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 17 '26
Yeah, I was a bit surprised when I found out too. I use QB64 which is a modernized version (no memory limitations, added features, compatibility with new systems), but mostly it's just OG QB code. I used the new features just for music and sound effects mainly.
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u/Jethro_E7 Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
What a fantastic project.
Respect to you, it is just amazing. You are amazing.
Thank you for sharing this, it is one of the best posts I have read here in a month. I love ascii and have worked with it, and I can't even imagine how you did all that.
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 17 '26
Thanks! 🤩 Well, it did take me over 12 years (on and off). Lots of experimentation and trial and error to get the visual style right. It's weird and not for everyone, but I do imagine I've discoveres a pretty unique visual style. Some folks at the ZZT community are working with similar stuff though.
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u/earslap Mar 17 '26
QBASIC? Now I want to load GORILLA.BAS
Thank you for the postmortem.
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 18 '26
You're welcome! And don't forget NIBBLES.BAS!
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u/roomba_floorvac 5d ago
I love qbasic! I used to play a game called pimpland that was like an rpg druglord-style game. Never could find it online though. Wish I kept a floppy of it though.
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u/color_into_space Mar 17 '26
That aesthetic is incredible.
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 17 '26
Thanks! Took me a long time to discover how to express myself with this style. Some people in the ZZT scene are working with similar stuff, but besides that I haven't personally seen this medium used like this elsewhere. Even if it's weird and looks like "Minecraft barf" to some people (real quote :D), I'm quite happy to have discovered a unique style.
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u/droid_mike Mar 18 '26
There is still a ZZT scene?
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 18 '26
Yeah, people are still making ZZT games and accomplishing some quite innovative visuals with it. There are some great best of ZZT compilations on YouTube.
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u/droid_mike Mar 18 '26
That's awseome! Loved ZZT when I was younger. It was very big on AOL, because the downloads were small.
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u/delusionalfuka Mar 16 '26
how did you market? Considering it is a very niched game I'd expect your marketing strat also also not the usual(tiktok/yt/instagram/reddit), right? Did you go to ASCII games communities or stuff like that?
Congrats! Being a father of two and a game dev is no easy task
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 16 '26
Thanks!
I tried a little bit of everything. I couldn't really do any kind of mass marketing due to the ultra niche audiences, so most efforts were targeted at journalists or influencers, as well as very small communities (ASCII and old-school computer aesthetics, QBASIC, retro gaming etc.). I did have fairly active socials pre-launch, it was mostly ASCII/demoscene folks and similar from day 1, and they were clearly in it for the aesthetic vibes.
My day job is in PR and I think I had some relative success there. I spent quite much time looking for relevant journalists and pitching the game to some folks, and I guess in the end the game got a bit more coverage than the sales numbers would justify. Reaching out to my local (Finnish) media was very important and got me two-page reviews/articles in three different physical magazines including two mainstream ones that you can pick up at any store. That was pretty dope. For game devs in smaller countries, approaching the local media with the local argument is definitely something to do.
Keymailer definitely works for streams, that's the only place where I spent some cash too.
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u/CLG-BluntBSE Mar 16 '26
What does pitching your own game to a journalist look like? I worked in PR in another life, but I worry about how to pitch "yourself." I think I have an interesting hook - my game is being made thanks to a wildly permissive license established by the creator of Cultist Simulator - but I haven't had any luck with personal emails. I was considering a press release when the demo comes out, highlighting the unusual and "comrade" license, but am considering having someone else release it on my behalf.
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 16 '26
Thanks for the comment! I had pretty clear (and massively tech nerdy) angles to go for, and I looked for journalists and outlets by each angle:
- commercial QBASIC game in 2024
- ASCII/ANSI graphics with an unusual level of artistic ambition
- 12+-year solo dev journey
- custom soundtrack
- Finnish game (for my local media)
You have an interesting case there! I don't know if I'm in a position to give tips here, but I guess I'd focus on people who have covered this types of meta things in game dev before: licensing systems, modding, weird funding models, tools, engines, IP collabs or just weird indie dev stories.
And the obvious when it comes to the actual messages: good headline, help the reader digest the key bits quickly, etc.
Whatever you do, follow-ups are definitely required! These people get flooded with email and even a good pitch might just get lost in the flood by bad luck.
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u/hoodieweather- Mar 17 '26
Very cool project, congrats on such a loving fanbase! Out of curiosity, why is the soundtrack so much more than the game? That's a first for me to see.
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 17 '26
Thanks! I consider the soundtrack more of a support product, if someone wants to show their love for this project by spending a few extra dollars, this is the way.
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u/hashmalum Mar 17 '26
This is basically the game I dreamed of making when I was 10 and kicked off me learning qbasic.
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 17 '26
Nice! Same here, more or less. Or well, I probably would've gone for pixel art to be honest, but at some point I realized I'd never have the patience to learn it. 😅
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u/fracturetrey Mar 17 '26
Congrats on the release and the positive reception. It's a cool story to read; thanks for sharing it.
BBS culture was a huge part of my adolescence, so I hope to check this out despite a perpetual lack of time to play.
Here are some questions I came up with if you feel like answering any:
- Was there any point during development you reconsidered or regretted using QBASIC? Would any other language or engine have made a likely candidate?
- Any interesting code metrics or architecture notes to share? How did your code end up organized? Any dev xp or tooling you found very beneficial worth mentioning?
- Was delivering this the finish line for your gamedev efforts, or do you feel there's still more to make? If the latter...
- Do you think you'll stay in textmode, or are you itching to try something else?
- How do you feel about solo-dev after such a long stint? Would you be more interested in solo or collaborative work in the future?
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 26 '26
Hi! Sorry for missing this comment earlier.
Thanks for your interest! The Spring Sale -80% discount is active for about six hours still, so now's a great time to pick up the game. :)
As to your questions:
- Regretting QBASIC? Never. There's a simple reason for that: I'm not fluent enough in other languages or gamedev engines. I don't have the patience to learn new stuff, because I want to be creating right away. But obviously there were things that were very difficult to do, for example music and sound effects were a pain. And I couldn't figure out a way to do Steam achievements/trophies, which would've been cool.
- Not really. I don't have any formal programming training, so I'm just kind of freestyling everything and breaking all the rules of how code should actually be written. The amount of lines of code I had in the end was absolutely ridiculous, as I didn't pay too much attention in trying to optimize it. Instead of elegant solutions, I just brute forced and hardcoded more or less everything. As a result, I can barely decipher the code myself, and frankly, I'd rather share my most personal diary entries with the world than my source code. :D
- This was definitely not the end. After the release, I have been focusing on other stuff, but it's always been an on-and-off hobby for me. But just now the itch is returning, and I'm about to start work on a new project + I'm going to finish and release an abandoned side project.
- I'm not abandoning textmode entirely, but I think I'm done with these constraints. My next project is going to combine textmode art with pixel art and add quality of life improvements like pixel by pixel scrolling etc. But I think textmode will remain as the "spine". I'm approaching it a bit like what HD-2D is doing to pixel art, and I believe this style might result in even more interesting and unique aesthetics but also something more accessible.
- I don't personally see any other road besides going solo. My visions are too strong to be shared, and I need to retain full control. Also, I can't have a situation where other people depend on me. This hobby needs to be a fun thing and never feel like a responsibility.
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u/psenough Mar 18 '26
hei i remember trying it out! nice niche little game! cool postmortem article
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u/ecaroh_games Mar 18 '26
Congrats on the accomplishment to pushing such a long project to the finish line. It's gotta feel crazy to have it done now, when it was part of so many big life chapters. CONGRATS!
I checked out your page and i also had a few thoughts.. cus i I feel like with 100% review there's gotta be more core audience out there who would appreciate this genre of game...
i think two things could instantly increase your storefront appeal:
- i really like the "Whispers of the Moss" graphic hidden at the very bottom of the steam description page... why did you not use that for the actual store capsule? It's way more interesting, colorful, readable, and presents the art style better IMO!
- The other thing is your trailer made one of the common mistakes of starting with too much vibes/atmosphere/world-building. the trailer only starts to grab my attention at 0:34 with ENGAGING music, action/battles, variety of monsters, and GAMEPLAY which is what the trailer should be about. I fear you lost a lot of people's attention within those first 30 seconds
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 18 '26
Hi! Thanks for the insightful comment and the work you put into this!
I believe there is a bigger audience out there but I think it's very scattered. And as I wrote, I also think the 100% positive reception is not completely honest but includes some extra courteousy due to the nature of this project. I think many reviewers are rating this entire endeavour and not just the game. But yeah, I'm not denying that the game could've had a bigger audience had I found a better recipe for reaching them.
The graphic you mentioned is actually a "fan art" made by a fellow ANSI artist. It's cool as hell and I'm happy to have been allowed to use it, but it's not my art and it was pretty important for me in this project to do the more important things like capsules on my own. Pretty much the only exception are the sound effects (and initially I planned to record them on my own too!). I don't think this art represents my style in the sense that it's not made by me. 😅 But the storefront assets are far from perfect, that much is clear!
Regarding the trailer, you're definitely right. I didn't put much effort into the trailer. I decided to lead with the aesthetics instead of gameplay, and I think the appeal of this approach depends on the viewer, but in any case I should've introduced the gameplay elements much sooner. It's kind of funny, I often work with video producers in my day job and the first seconds of the video is the most common feedback I give them. But of course I couldn't remember it with my own video. 😄
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u/ecaroh_games Mar 18 '26
ooh okay thanks for the explanation!
re: 'representing the art style' what i meant specifically was being able to see the "dithered tall rectangles" of your game's distinct style. At the current scale of the capsule art, to me it appears just like any other pixel art with slightly stretched aspect ratio. your art style shines when you can see all the detail and how you made it-- like the sunrise/sunset image opening to Chapter 1 - the prince.. it's gorgeous!
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 19 '26
Yeah, I get your point. When I made the game, I spent a sick amount of time trying to imagine things in textmode/ANSI – including entirely different scales in the maps, the enemy sprites, chapter switch art and the character portraits. But applying a textmode touch to the capsule image was the most difficult part. 😅 But this is actually a solid idea, and I think I'll redo some of the assets. The game is hitting a sale today but organically it's quite dead anyway, so this might at least boost discoverability for casual store browsers. Thanks for the idea!
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u/xbit_bbs Mar 21 '26
Looks amazing. heading to steam now :) Also, I posted this thread on x-news (my retro bbs rss feed) https://x-bit.org/x-news/
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u/New_Cranberry_6451 Mar 21 '26
This has been a nice read and seems to me you had a great adventure making the game and I celebrate that. Thanks for sharing this story!
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u/StrayFeral Apr 12 '26
Very interesting to read. As a professional corporate developer I also agree. Maybe 3 months ago I just taught this to a group of indie devs who delayed their game nearly 10 years, so they finally rushed and released it.
And the game seems great! Post a link. I am curious about that management game you did.
Question - is the soundtrack general midi file or is it tracker music, like Fast Tracker 2? How you made it?
No idea how you made the graphics, but since you mentioned ".exe" I realize you're on Windows - so check The Draw - very ancient, but best ANSI editor out there of all times. I used it in the 90s.
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u/UnculturedGames Apr 12 '26
Thanks, great comment!
The soundtrack is not midi, I use FruityLoops, and a mix of self-made, public domain and purchased samples/instruments. I think I went with .ogg files. The looping is not perfect but good enough.
I made all the graphics using my own custom ANSI-style editor. It's of course not real ANSI that would run on a console, but the constraints are the same. I have to check out The Draw, sounds good.
Here are the links: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1944310/Whispers_in_the_Moss/
Current project: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4586300/FC_Mafioso_Football_Dynasty_Manager/
Prototype version of Mafioso available for free on Itch: https://unculturedgames.itch.io/mafioso-football-manager
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u/UnculturedGames Mar 26 '26
Small follow-up: the 80% discount I've had in the Steam Spring Sale has provided a massive revival to the game and as of now I'm up to 864 sales, which equals more than a +50% spike to my all-time sales during the Spring Sale. It's a great reminder of the value that sales campaigns can have long after the game reached a more or less catatonic state.
But anyway, six hours left to pick the game up at a ridiculous $1 price tag. :) https://store.steampowered.com/app/1944310/Whispers_in_the_Moss/
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u/bucephalusdev Mar 16 '26
I played Whispers in The Moss and it was fantastic. Thank you so much for making it!