If you’ve been studying the weblog for lengthy sufficient you’re most likely already accustomed to how enamored with Rusty Lake we’re. The collection is 12 video games deep and regardless of that manages to shock with every entry and create a singular expertise each time. What’s much more fascinating is the collection transition from free to play to premium titles. We talked to the collection’ creators Robin and Maarten to see if they might share any suggestions they discovered from growing so many video games so rapidly.

Let’s begin with an introduction, who’re you and what’s Rusty Lake?

We are Robin & Maarten, the devs behind Rusty Lake, an indie studio primarily based in Amsterdam. Rusty Lake can also be the title of the universe the place we create video games in.

Neither of us have a gaming background. I (Robin) studied Law and Maarten Landscape Architecture. I used to be creating gaming portals with small flash video games and Maarten made flash video games as a interest however we ended up working collectively on small information primarily based video games that went viral actually rapidly. After creating greater than 50 video games with totally different gameplay mechanics, we felt the escape room/level & click on adventures was essentially the most appropriate for making a collection of video games.

We have been impressed by Twin Peaks, and wished to create an identical surreal world the place our video games may happen and join with one another. It was again in April 2015 after we launched Cube Escape: The Lake and Seasons, the primary two entries within the Rusty Lake universe. Both video games have been linked in with a code you would you utilize in one of many video games that gave a special ending. It made individuals really feel like these video games have been a part of one thing larger.

So you’ve been making video games within the Rusty Lake universe for some time now (the wiki web page lists 12 entries within the collection) and the collection was initially mobile-only and free to play. What has the transition from free to play to premium been like?

After creating 6 free to play video games with hardly any advertisements, we knew we needed to change our enterprise mannequin. We couldn’t go on like this without end since we weren’t close to the break even level. Fortunately we invested quite a bit in our neighborhood by making these free video games. This resulted in a really engaged participant base we may cross promote and maintain them concerned into new initiatives. So after we got here up with the thought of Rusty Lake Hotel, a by-product from the free collection, we immediately requested our neighborhood in the event that they wished to assist us by paying for a premium sport. Luckily the reply was an enormous sure and Rusty Lake Hotel turned our personal “kickstarting” venture. Now we will create a mixture of free and premium video games to fulfill the entire Rusty Lake neighborhood.

Do you’ve got any recommendation for different builders who want to make an identical change?

If we pushed our first cell video games as premium we by no means would have had the success that we now have now. In our case it was the correct choice as a result of we didn’t have a reputation as a developer, participant base nor neighborhood constructed up. If you’re switching from free to premium be sure to have the participant/neighborhood constructed up, who will take pleasure in the kind of sport you’re creating.

I feel itch.io is a superb place for a beginning dev (in our days it was Kongregate/Newgrounds), you may let individuals check out a free model of your sport after which allow them to obtain the larger/premium sport.