Selatria - A retrospective/post-mortem: Part 2
The development of Selatria was long and tumultuous. It became a long running joke from circles I was in on how long it was going to take to complete the game. It took 13 years, 6 months, and 29 days to complete the game, or 4959 days in total.
Selatria changed my life, and opened up a lot of doors and networking opportunities into software and game development careers. But it was far from perfect, and I wanted to write this not only for others, who may have a dream game they're thinking of doing but not realize how difficult it may be for them, but for myself to see how far I've come.
For veterans of the game industry, some of these points might seem like they're obvious, but these pointers and tips may be useful for someone who is thinking about making their dream game from the get-go.
You can read Part 0 here.
You can read Part 1 here.
Apologies for the long wait on this entry. I wanted to post this as a big update in time for Selatria's first anniversary, since I've been passively hacking away at this entry for months. This will be a part 2 of 3 series after all, as this goes through the majority of my outline I had for this.
Also a thank you to Black Game Developers on Bluesky for giving me a shoutout today.
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Game Difficulty
One regret of Selatria that I have had over its long period of development is our inconsistent stance on the game's difficulty. When we started development of Selatria, the trend was having long and difficult games for players to really sink into. Dark Souls had just come out during my senior year of university, and that's all that people were talking about. When I would (hide) in the back of industry talks and sessions at the IGDA in Orange County and Los Angeles and hear people networking and talking about these types of difficult games and I believe that kind of thought process was making its way into our designs. My apologies to people who may have played it then and thought it was way too hard.
Some game developers may use more advanced levels of telemetry to figure out how and where their players are struggling, and it might be necessary for more substantial bigger titles, but for Whim Indie, I like to look at Steam achievement trends. Where are players playing, how far are they getting, and where are they giving up? Check the achievement percentages. When we started Selatria in 2011, I never considered the game to have achievements, and I thought it wasn't a gimmick worth pursuing, but if done right, you can make them fun, and also a valuable and easy tool to gather data about your players are doing in the game.
Here's Selatria's Achievement trends.
As of this post (August 25th, 2025), you can see that only about 1/3 of players who started the game ever completed Chapter 1. By the time you get to the end of Chapter 2, that number falls to 1/5. Of course you can take these numbers with a grain of salt. Some people may cheat their way into these achievements, but you can see a giant fall off from the 86% of people who booted up the game and got the achievement for starting to that 33% making it to the end of Chapter 1 (about 4 hours of gameplay in.)
We also noticed that there are certain players that love the difficulty and will get angry and replay it. Especially Streamers who may want to play it for the memes, but I've also noticed that even when people applied to work with us (and still work with us to this day), we asked them in their initial interviews if they played our games, and the majority of them said they made it maybe an hour in before it got too difficult, that's what initially motivated us to lower the difficulty curve quite a bit.
By the time we released the game, perhaps we may have made the game a bit too easy, since players would send me pictures of their team in the level 80s and 90s. Maybe it's because they liked it, maybe we tuned it too far, but the players that did make it to the very end and completed the game (12% of players as of this post) did really enjoy it.
Some notes I would take away from difficulty that I do apply to our current and future games in development:
Where do you draw the line at difficulty?
When you design your levels, figure out what your goal of the level is, if it's the introductory levels, you may need to hold the player's hand a little extra just to make sure they understand the mechanic. Don't overload with text boxes and tutorial messages, make them feel like they're playing the game. Show, don't tell.
The importance of in-person playable demonstrations
Watch your players play your game. Take notes of when they get up and walk away. Did they get bored? Did they get stuck? Surveys can also help if they're willing to fill them out after a play session. A lot of game developers now discount the importance of physical demonstrations in favor of digital demonstrations to try and drive wishlists and engagement, but physical conventions are a treasure trove of play testers who may not otherwise play your game. It's well worth the price to get gamers willing to play your game and get really good feedback.
Also if people stop by and play your game at a convention, do your best to be silent, unless they're stuck or ask you for help. If they ask you for help, take note of it. What if you weren't there to guide them? Would they have given up on their own? Suggest help if they need it, but try not to offer or give a solution.
Spite-Based Game Development
I joke with my friends and the team that Selatria turned into spite-based game development, and I feel that passion might burn with some other developers who might be reading it also. At first, Selatria started out from someone who said I couldn't do it, then it turned into people talking down about it since it was just "an RPG Maker game". It even got to the point where someone established in the game industry put me on blast in an overseas talk to game developers as a cautionary tale of someone who never finishes their game.
In reality, there's never been a time where I ever stopped on development of the game, and a lot of this, for lack of better term, shit talking motivated me to keep going to finish it. It turned from the love of the game, to a desire to publish it to prove people wrong, and to prove that yes, I can finish something.
I put in my initial notes when I planned out this series to "not make a game just because people say you can't" but maybe that's not my exact feelings on it now I'm typing this out. I would encourage people to have a healthier, less negative mindset and motivation when developing their projects, but that's easier for me to say when I eventually crawled out through the light at the end of the tunnel. If you have a long project ahead of you and it feels like it's never ending, keep going as much as you can. You'll get there.
I started Selatria when people said I couldn't do it, people made fun of me for still working on it, and maybe a sign that I really did get over it is that I can't easily remember these people's names anymore, anyway. It's a step in the right direction.
(For what it's worth, I've also had a hand in releasing a few games since then.)
Game Engine Development
I wanted to expand a bit about my choice of RPG Maker for Selatria. I'll defend my choice of the engine for getting my game and designs on the board, despite what others seem to think about it online or from other peers.
Use the game engine you're most comfortable with. When it comes to designing and programming, I'm a more visual person. A blank canvas with just code still scares me, and I did automation programming in C#/Java for at least 5 years! I prefer to work off existing building blocks and frameworks and then using that to build something. Your mileage may vary.
What I will say about RPG Maker was that it was a poor choice for multiplatform game development. If I had developed in in 2025, I would have used an engine that would export to multiple consoles. The new RPG Maker does that with a Unity foundation, I hope they move the next one to Godot, or a more economically friendly game engine.
Having Selatria as a PC-only game really hurt us and was a nail in the coffin for not making the game accessible. Steam is also oversaturated with thousands of games coming on the platform each week. I will give Jon and Shadoe props for being able to put Selatria on Steam Deck, we were really limited on what we could do with that.
Someday I'd like to rebuild/modernize Selatria and release it for a Nintendo console. Maybe in an HD-2D style. If you're reading this sentence in horror, it's not something I'd like to revisit for at least 25 more years, if I have disposable income to throw at it.
Everyone Needs a "Paul"
The best leaders are those that are willing to listen and take feedback, and be willing to listen and accept "No" as an answer. A lot of people mistake a strong leader for someone with a lot of followers and yes-men, and I think real leaders are someone who can best read a room, and listen to and accept answers from people who are more well-versed in subject matter than they are.
Paul has been one of my closest friends for over 20 years. When I wanted to start this crazy game development journey as a real business, Paul and my other close friend Matt were with me to help me start the studio and keep things going financially and keep development of our games going and consistent all these years. I wanted Paul to be a part of Whim Indie and is an indirect (but VERY important) part of Selatria's development, due to his experience running a tight ship with non-profit organizations.
The reason why I said that everyone needs a "Paul" in particular, is that most of us are working on the game and we have our clear biases towards making the game the greatest it can be, and Paul is someone who makes sure we keep things legal, keeps track of all of our paperwork and contracts, handles negotiations and tough talks. He supports what we do and our mission to make fun games, but he's not afraid to hold back and tell us his honest thoughts on what direction we need to move in, he helps craft our professional messaging, he helps with disputes with contractors, is our Human Resources, and he'll come in and make critical decisions when it's necessary, and this studio would have fallen apart years ago if it wasn't for Paul's support and input into Selatria and Whim Indie.
Indie games are a very difficult and frustrating endeavor. There are a lot of Kickstarters, abandoned Early Access Steam games, and other creative pursuits, where updates will cease to happen for many months, if not years when these people burn out when their support system dwindles. There have been a few instances of auteur creators having very public meltdowns and losing deals because of their inability to bring professionalism and their creative pursuits into one and hold it together while dealing with life and other challenges, and to be frank, a public who couldn't care less about your project when they have lots of other options constantly fighting for their time at their fingertips. There have been times where I would angrily type something, and then delete it: do I post this online and regret this later? Or sit down and chat with Paul about it first? My friendship and business relationship with Paul is something I'll never take for granted.
At LVLUPEXPO in 2024, I was part of a game development panel with some people in the industry about "What I Wish That I Knew, A Survival Guide For Game Developers" - the panel was planned to have microphones and a projector available so we can talk about said talk, but none of the A/V was set up for any of us. Wushensnake came through and recorded what she could and we put the YouTube video up, but a highlight of that panel was the said phrase, people in the audience came by our booth and said "So you're the Paul that he was talking about!"
You can read the presentation I would have shown here.
Selatria Part 3 The final part - About Selatria's 13-year long game development cycle, Crowdfunding, learning from releasing on Steam, The Importance of Localization, Cut Content + Abandoned DLC/Sequel Plans, and Accepting Personal Responsibility will be posted in the future.
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As of this post, Selatria and Spellbearers are currently part of the Game Devs of Color Support Bundle!
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All proceeds go directly toward programs like conferences, games showcases, grants, scholarships, and other year-round initiatives that expand access to opportunities in the game industry. Getting this bundle helps make these efforts possible!
AND
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