Releasing Everything I Know, and Everything I’m Ever Gonna Know has been a much more positive experience than I’d expected. Thus far, critically I’d consider it a success, while commercially it is a failure. This seems to be just what I needed at this stage of my life, so I cannot complain.
My favorite quote on it thus far, which came from a Steam review, is this: “It’s more of a mind ____ than a game, one of those self-deprecating, artsy, and flamboyant experiences if you will”. This review as a whole was not glowing, but was overall positive and came from a seemingly respected curator. This was my first bit of evidence that someone outside of myself could enjoy the experience.
Well, actually, before that I had the two pre-release let’s plays. This one guy did a recording of the full product prior to launch, so technically I had leaks. To be fair, I didn’t say in the email that there was any sort of embargo, so no hurt feelings there. But this was my first exposure regardless, and he did not gel with the visual novel. “Oh no…” I said to myself, “I’ve made something far too abstract for anyone but myself to gain something from it.” He also claimed throughout the video that he believed it was a demo. Even after it was complete. “Did I not structure it as a complete story… I know I did…” This, along with realizing the average readthrough was going to be 1-2 hours rather than 2-3, did, however, cause me to reduce my pricing, which in hindsight seems to have been the right choice, as I have been critiqued that even its current price feels a bit steep. I disagree with this sentiment due to the complexity of the novel and asking of similarly scaled products, but I have come to believe that $9.99 would probably have been too high. (In all honesty, I was even considering $11.99 before!)
After this, another influencer did a readthrough video of the actual demo. From the small amount I could bear to watch, it seemed this one enjoyed the experience more, clicking with the weirdness.
I then had a review that found the storytelling too bland — which, to be fair, I agree with in the demo version — but then we hit release, in which I’ve had all positive reviews so far, such as the aforementioned one, as well as a positive Chinese review and an excellent short video by “where me dad”.
The short by “where me dad” in particular is important to me in its pointed praise towards the “testimony” scene. I spent many sweaty nights worrying about the inclusion of this scene, questioning if it was too personal, if I was oversharing, if it was going to be seen as me mocking Flissa and everyone who relates to her, was it inappropriate to use cartoony characters to talk about such matters, etc. etc. Given that this was pointed out as a favorite of the influencer, I know now that it is not universally considered inappropriate, and could even be seen as a highlight. I’d always heard that writing is best when you get more personal than you feel is appropriate, but it wasn’t until viewing this video that I believed it.
As for sales, things don’t look great right now. Very, very few sales. Almost so little that we can consider having sold practically nothing so far. However, I am seeing sales daily, and it seems that all it takes is one influencer with a large audience doing a video on it for sales to take off, so the tactic going forward seems to be to continue to send out emails informing influencers about the novel. Given that I know it is a more palatable product than I’d expected, this will be much easier.