Weekly devlog #26 - Alpha FAQs and marketing

Greetings, travelers! Piemen is busy today but Anubis is here to save the day!

Today I'll answer some questions about the upcoming alpha release (exciting) and explain some of the next marketing steps (less exciting, deal with it). Let's start with the questions!

• What's next for Crystal Realms?

Maybe you live under a rock so you didn't hear.... Crystal Realms is going into alpha!!!! In a month (give or take)!!!! This means new content, new platforms, and new adventures with friends. As you might know, up until this point we have been in pre-alpha.  This meant that we might have had to delete some progress or worlds because of heavy changes in the game. But now, alpha is coming! We PROBABLY won't need to do stuff like that (unless game-breaking bugs require a subtle, small, and demure rollback). Expect this new update in about a month.

• Anubis, did you say new platforms? 

Well, YES, humble player, I did! Crystal Realms is coming to mobile. Until now, Windows and Linux have been the main ways to play the game (and Mac... sometimes?). After the success of our closed Android and iOS test builds, the alpha update will make them an option for everyone. 

There is a small BUT: Although we are very confident about Android being out on update day, iOS MIGHT take slightly more (you guys know how Apple is).

As you might have noticed, I did not mention Steam. That is because we are not launching on Steam. Might happen in the future but not with the alpha launch. We plan to stay on our website and itch.io for PC gaming.

• So now that CR is coming to my phone... Will it have In-App purchases?

Yes! Piemen worked hard for a few days recently to make them work. We do NOT want anyone to have a pay-to-win experience, so we will try our best to make the rewards feel balanced. At least at the start of these purchases, you will only be able to obtain Crystal Shards through them. We don't want anyone to feel left out because they didn't put money into our game.

On the other side, we still have a ko-fi! We are still new to it but it seems to be going well. We might make some slight changes to make the item funding more fair and satisfying, but we are quite happy with how it is so don't expect big shifts. We are also happy with our group of Crystal Supporters, who are getting tons of cool insight into recent development hehe... See you guys in our secret chat!

• Will there be a reset to our accounts?

Short answer: no. Longer answer: kinda, some things will still get changed during the alpha (for example: achievements, quests, unlocked recipes, experience). For example you might have the diamond achievement for mining 100k blocks, but in a future update it might be changed to 10 million blocks, and then you will no longer have this achievement. But items you gathered and worlds you own will not be removed.

• Can I become a mod? Can I be your coffee guy? Do you need my goldfish's soul?

Answers in order:  That is up to us.  Piemen doesn't like coffee.  Not for now but I'll keep it in mind.

The mod team will get bigger as does the game. The hiring method will be the same as last time (we send application links to a few chosen ones, and if they want, they join the applicant pool. After that, we choose who to make moderator).  We are considering opening one or two mods with the alpha update. We will see...

Now that we are done with the questions, let's talk marketing:

1. TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube shorts: You had a taste of these a couple of weeks ago, and we will keep making content on them. We might keep it similar or change it all. Who knows (We are still learning).
2. X/Twitter: Well... I might repost some content from other apps but don't expect much
3. Reddit: We will advertise ourselves as much as we can. We are super thankful to the people who talk about us there, be it inside or outside our subreddit. It has brought lots of new people so I'm very proud of you guys. There's only so much you can do being the official account, sometimes player to player recommendations are the way to go! I'll keep working on it.
4. YouTube and Twitch (other people): Guys, you don't understand how happy we are that you want to make CR content there! It helps us a lot (more than you think). On top of that, we are thinking of contacting big YouTubers in the Sandbox MMO community...
5. YouTube and Twitch (official accounts): Who knows to be honest. Might happen. We have plans but it is still early to share them. Sorry!

That is all for today! I hope having me instead of Piemen didn't disappoint you guys, but some things said today were important!

Stay froggy,

Anubis (your favorite community manager).