Hello, I’m Crafty Olive.
A little while ago, I entered Shrimprium, the shrimp aquarium simulation game I’ve been making, in the Indiecraft competition. The results came out on Friday, and to get straight to the point, it unfortunately wasn’t selected.
When I first saw the result, I was naturally disappointed. At the same time, I could see many of my game’s shortcomings myself, so it also felt like an entirely understandable outcome.
Still, the competition gave me a great deal of motivation. Having a concrete goal in the form of a submission made me look at the game more objectively, and I was able to fix its weak points one by one.
In particular, while preparing for the competition and writing the pitch deck, I worked hard to show more clearly that my game isn’t just an aquarium decorating game but a shrimp ecosystem simulation close to the real thing, and I kept thinking about which features would be worth adding.
Looking back, though, I also realized that building the game so heavily around features may have made it unfriendly to players. So I used the rejection as an opportunity to review the game as a whole, and added a number of touches that make it more intuitive and easier from the player’s point of view. Thanks to that, Shrimprium is now much closer to feeling like a real game than before.
Recently, the iPhone app has entered its final stage. I’m currently testing how it behaves when installed on real devices through TestFlight, Apple’s app testing service. Seeing a game I made running as an app on my phone was a new kind of thrill.
With help from ChatGPT and other tools, the app runs more reliably than I expected, so if it gets through the App Store’s demanding review, you may be able to play it soon. (The App Store’s review requirements are stricter than I had thought, so meeting them first will be the key.)
To sum up, I didn’t get through Indiecraft, but I don’t think the effort was wasted. If anything, preparing for it let me polish the game much more, and its weaknesses became clearer. I’m now even thinking about trying another competition.
Whatever the result, simply having goals like this seems to be what keeps development going.
In any case, I’m aiming to finish by the end of June, and I’ll keep refining the game little by little until then.