A coalition of indie game developers have launched the Nintendo Switch Point & Click Sale, offering 15-76% discounts on great adventure games and highlighting the challenges of Nintendo eShop discoverability for indies.
Late last year, Not Tonight publisher Mike Rose detailed the difficulty in selling a game on the Nintendo eShop, especially in light of the lack of understanding with how people purchasing your game tend to drive further sales. These problems were compounded for some (and eased for others) when Nintendo closed the “100% discount”:loophole in the eShop’s discoverability algorithm.
The challenge of selling a game on the Nintendo eShop led Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye Games (who recently released Unavowed on the Nintendo Switch earlier this year) and a bunch of other indie game developers to create the Nintendo Switch Point & Click Sale after publicist Emily Morganti originally conceived the idea due to her work with doing PR for several adventure games. These game devs also held an AMA on Reddit earlier, highlighting some interesting tidbits from gaming history.
The Nintendo Switch Point & Click Sale Games Have Some Pretty Good Discounts
There are ten games in total in the Nintendo Switch Point & Click Sale; you can conveniently buy them all on the sale’s official website. Here’s a list of the games and their discounts:
- Unavowed – 15% off (Our Review)
- Sam & Max Save the World – 20% off (Our Review)
- The Longing – 25% off
- Guard Duty – 50% off
- Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption – 50% off (Our Review)
- Nelly Cootalot: The Fowl Fleet – 50% off (Our Review)
- Thimbleweed Park – 60% off (Our Review)
- Gibbous – A Cthulhu Adventure – 70% off
- Lair of the Clockwork God – 75% off
- Jenny LeClue – Dectivu – 76% off (Our Review)
Indie Adventure Game Devs AMA Detail Business Dealings and History
The Nintendo Switch Point & Click Sale is being complimented with an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session over at the Nintendo Switch subreddit, Many of the developers talked about their games, but they also revealed some interesting tidbits about the industry’s history.
One of the issues some of these developers have had was with porting their games to the Switch. It’s not about power, per se, but rather the interface. Jenny LeClue’s developer didn’t have any issues, but Unavowed developer Wadjet Eye Games notes that the touchscreen can be a problem.
“One interesting thing is how imprecise a touchscreen or an analog stick is compared to a mouse,” Wadjet Eye Games’ Dave Gilbert explained. “A tiny hotspot on a PC game is no big deal, but on a console or iPad it is impossible to land on. So the biggest task is to go through the game and enlarge all the hotspots and clicky spots to something more reasonable.”
We also got to hear a bit about the business side of things. Quest for Glory and Hero-U developer Corey Cole explained that they believe a $1 million budget is the “sweet spot” for making them making good adventure games, noting how varying budget sizes will affect their capabilities to develop a complex story.
Naturally, we couldn’t go without same requests for information on upcoming games. Several people in the discussion inquired about a new Sam & Max game. Unfortunately, Skunkape Games says there’s nothing to announce on that front.
There’s some pretty interesting discussion in that Reddit AMA; it’s well worth checking out if you’re a fan of classic adventure games. Make sure you check out the Nintendo Switch Point & Click Sale while you can — these discounts will end in a little less than five days.
What’s your favorite game in the Nintendo Switch Point & Click Sale? What’s your favorite adventure game of all time? Let us know in the comments below!
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