Auroch Digital is a patron of Bristol Royal Hospital for Children Sunflower Ward 🌻

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In Bristol’s Royal Hospital for Children, there is an amazing ward full of happiness and hope where it is needed most. The Sunflower ward is the neurological rehabilitation ward for children and Auroch Digital has signed up to be a patron of the ward.

Who does the ward help? 🩺

Admissions come from near and far, short term and long term. They can be planned admissions and referrals from across the Southwest region but, due to the nature of the specialists on this ward, they also get young people from all over the world. 

Here is a clip of a recent Sunflower Ward Patient Jayden being discharged after a year of treatment. Isaac, Health Play Assistant for Sunflower Ward, said: “Jayden really worked hard and love to make jokes while on the ward. He is an avid gamer and greatly made use of the VR headset The Grand Appeal donated to the ward!”

Why are we patrons to The Sunflower Ward? 🌻

This ward does such important work that we wanted to support them through donations and raising awareness. The sunflower ward has health play assistants, like Isaac. The play team members are qualified childcare practitioners whose job is to ensure the patients can experience play and a sense of normality, while also assisting with medical procedures.  

Sunflower Ward 🌻

You know how we all like to come home and play a few games? These kids are exactly the same. After they have had procedures done, being able to socialise with other young people brings them joy in such a difficult time and helps with recovery.

Why is play so important? 🎮

Play is more important than we realise. The interaction with others and need to have fun is inside all of us and since these children are already undergoing such a stressful time, they need that normality even more. Playing games in a team, laughing with friends, and being creative are all things the Sunflower ward helps these kids to do.

Everyone loves a movie night, watching anime with friends and laughing at the silliness that happens. Recently, Sunflower Ward got an Xbox one so that the teenagers can do exactly that. Depending on the demands of the ward there can sometimes be a teenager on a bay with three toddlers so having the space and facilities for them to do something more grown up and just for them is really key, and well needed!

We recently donated a load of items to the ward from their Amazon Wishlist and Isaac was kind enough to let us know how some of these have helped.

We gifted the ward some fairy lights and a teenager currently staying in the ward with sensory sensitivity issues has been using these. She can control the brightness and colour which she is really enjoying. 

We also donated a load of Lego from the Amazon wishlist which has been a big hit, especially with Lucas. He sent us a really lovely hand made card saying how much he liked them. Thank you so much Lucas, we love your drawings! 😁

Some of the games and toys in the ward

How can you help? 🏥

If you’d like to support the Sunflower Ward as well there are loads of things you can do:

  • 🎁 Choose some items to donate from their Amazon wishlist - The Sunflower Ward has a wishlist of items you can choose to donate from. The kids have helped select these items and donating any of these will make a child’s day.

  • 🍰 Raise money for donations - Take part in a fundraising event, or organise your own! These can be bake-offs, marathons, or other sponsored activities. The money you raise can go on donations for the ward. For ideas and events you can join check out the official charity for Bristol Children’s Hospital - The Grand Appeal.

  • 🔊 Raise Awareness - Share their Amazon wishlist link, or any posts you see about the ward, including ours! Raising awareness of the important work they do and how people can help makes a big difference.

  • 🐦 Follow them on socials to stay up to date - Follow Isaac (Twitter and Instagram) and The Grand Appeal (Twitter and Facebook) on socials so you can stay up to date with their work, help raise awareness, and get involved with events as they come up.

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

Mars Horizon's Daring Expeditions free update now live, plus a special stream to celebrate

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Take new risks in Mars Horizon's Daring Expeditions update 🚀

Expect new dangerous missions, new flags, and plenty of Spacepedia updates. The Mars Horizon Daring Expeditions update is now live on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch!

Get a look at one of the new missions in our special stream. We played the Rosetta mission, which saw the Philae probe successfully land on a comet, as part of its 7th anniversary with a member of the European Space Agency who worked on the mission. You can watch our special Rosetta mission stream here.

Read on to find out what else is included in Mars Horizon's next update and get more details about this amazing stream 👩‍🚀

Mars Horizon's Daring Expeditions update 🌠

New Mission: Space Tourist 👩‍🚀

We've added a space tourist mission where you can elect to send a billionaire or an educator into space on their request. This is a high risk mission for your agency, possibly wrecking your reputation or granting you huge rewards. We've also added new narrative events and cinematics for this mission.

New Mission: Chinese Rover Zhurong

This adds a new mission for players who are playing the Chinese space agency in the game; Chinese Rover Zhurong as a payload to send to Mars! We took inspiration from this recent dramatic accomplishment by the CNSA and have put it into our game along with brand new cinematics which reflect the activity of the mission.

New Mission: Philae / Rosetta Mission

This adds a playable new mission where the comet that the Rosetta mission targeted appears in the Solar System - and you're able to research a mission to land on it just like ESA did. There's new narrative events which explain the comet's formation and chart its relevance in science. We've also added a bunch of dramatic new cinematics as well as the new payloads.

New flags, Spacepedia Updates, and Bugfixes 📚

As well as these awesome new missions we've added loads of new nation flags to select when you begin your own custom agency. There are new spacepedia entries for space tourism, the Zhurong rover, and of course Rosetta and Philae.

We’ve also implemented lots of bug fixes to address the balance of some missions and some localisation improvements.

Rosetta Mission stream with ESA special guest Andrea Accomazzo 👩‍🚀

November 12th, 2021 was the 7th anniversary of the landing of the Philae probe on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, the crowning achievement of the Rosetta mission.

For this stream, the Auroch Digital team were joined by Andrea Accomazzo, who is the Head of Solar System and Exploration Missions Division at the European Space Agency, and who actually worked on the Rosetta mission back in 2014.

He'll talked about the challenges of the Rosetta mission and how they solved them as we tried to land our own Philae probe during the stream. This was your first look at Mars Horizon's next update so give it a watch for some tips for your own playthrough!

Daring Expeditions Stream with ESA✨

Review Mars Horizon 🚀

Once you are back on land, please remember to leave us a review as it helps indie developers like us! Fun fact - 90% of all consumers will look at reviews before they buy something online? So steam uses review numbers as a way to see which game to promote?

Leave a thumbs up on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation and if you are not sure how, click here!

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

Frequently Asked Questions: Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator

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This is the official FAQ for Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator. We’ve collected the most commonly asked questions and will keep adding more, so check back regularly. We’ve also got our Bug Reporting guide here too.

If there's anything you think we need to add just let us know on Discord or send an email to BrewmasterFeedback@aurochdigital.com.

Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator FAQ

  • What is Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator?

    • Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator is a first person hobby simulation game focused on homebrewing - think PC Building Simulator or House Flipper, but for beer.

      Discover, learn, and master the art of homebrewing in the ultimate celebration of craft beer.  From perfecting authentic, chemistry-driven brewing techniques to naming, bottling and labelling - refine your craft to become the ultimate Brewmaster in the first ever realistic beer brewing experience. With all the tricks of the trade and the best equipment at your disposal, follow a recipe, or experiment with a huge variety of real-world ingredients to hone your skills. Enter friendly competitions, earn beer tokens, and upgrade your equipment to become an even better brewer.

      Learn to brew, refine your craft and become a Brewmaster!

  • When will Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator be released?

    • September 29th 2022 for PC! The Console version will be later in 2022.

  • What platforms will Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator be available on?

    • Brewmaster is coming to Windows PCs via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 & 5, and Xbox One & Series X/S.

  • Can I stream Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator?

    • Yes, we are happy for you to stream the game or upload videos of it. We love to see people playing our game in real time so drop a link to your streams or videos in the coverage section of our Discord. And please tag us on socials when you go live, as we’d love to share it with our community!

  • Can I play Brewmaster on Steam Deck?

    • Yes, Brewmaster is Steam Deck compatible.

  • Does Brewmaster support trophies/achievements?

    • Yes! Brewmaster fully supports both Steam achievements and trophies on the relevant consoles

  • Is there controller support on PC?

    • Yes! You can play Brewmaster on PC with any standard controllers supported by steam input.

  • Where can I report bugs?

    • If you’ve found a bug check please check our Bug Reporting Guide at the bottom of this page for more instructions. It gives more detail on reporting bugs as well as finding any associated log files which helps us a lot to track down issues.

  • Does Brewmaster have modding support?

    • Yes! Anyone who wants to mod Brewmaster will be able to find a DRM-free version of the game on Steam. To access this right-click on the game in your Steam library, select Betas and then select modding from the options available.

    • To support this further, we’ve also created a dedicated modding channel in our Discord as a space for modders to gather and discuss the game. Our team also frequents this channel to offer support and assistance with any questions that may arise.

  • Why does the application ping my firewall?

    • When you launch the game for the first time, you may get a notification that Epic Games would like access to your network. This is not something we have control over, it is Unreal Engine attempting to call home for a variety of reasons. You can refuse the request if you like and it will not affect your gameplay experience with Brewmaster.

    • There are also optional analytics in our game, which again would need access to the Internet, but they are opt-in only and are set to “off” by default.

  • Where can I get more information about Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator?

  • Where can I talk to someone from Auroch Digital?

Starter Tips & Help

💡 Tips to get you started

  • Start off by opening the “Brewer’s Quarterly” magazine near the front door

  • Choose one of the jobs in the Brewer’s Quarterly, and then a recipe that will meet the requirements of the job

  • Recipes can be pinned to the HUD via the recipes section in the Brewer’s Quarterly or in your journal

  • Use your watch (T / LT) to accelerate time

  • To skip larger amounts of time, use the calendar in the workshop

  • To see the temperature of a liquid, activate X-ray mode when looking at the container

  • To transfer liquids to Conditioning Containers, you’ll have to use a tube

  • When using tubes, make sure the target container is lower than the first, so gravity can do its work

  • If your final brew isn’t large enough to qualify as a small batch, try adding more water to get it closer to 20L

  • If things go wrong with your brew, don’t worry - just return to the start of the recipe. Brewing is a learning experience!

  • To switch measurements from Metric to Imperial, press Escape on your keyboard, then click Switch Measurements. From there you can choose the measurements you'd prefer to use.

Contamination in Brewmaster

There are various times in the brewing process where contamination can creep into your brew, such as leaving off the lid during the fermentation stage, or leaving it ON during the boil. This can be seen by the amount of "off" flavours in your beer. The lower the Contamination, the higher the quality of the beer. Contamination can be reduced by good brewing practices, such as leaving the lid off when boiling wort so that unwanted chemicals can escape.

Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator Bug Reporting Guide

If you encounter any issues with the game, we’d really appreciate you sending us a bug report. Always include as much information as you can about the issue, with screenshots and logs wherever possible. Providing us this info will speed up the process of us replicating the issue in the studio and finding a solution.

  • Capturing Screenshots and Video

    • Providing screens or video footage of an issue is almost always useful.

    • For screenshots, we recommend either using a program that comes with Windows like Snipping Tool, or using Steam’s inbuilt screenshot capture tool.

    • For video, use the Game Bar if on Windows 10. Third party video capture software like Open Broadcaster Software is also available.

  • Utilising the Crash Reporter

    • If the game has crashed to desktop, you will be presented with the Crash Reporter.

    • Rather than sending this file off from within the reporter, the most useful thing to do is zip up the crash logs from the UE crash and email them to us.

    • You can find the crash logs in: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Brewmaster\BrewmasterMain\Saved

    • Remember that the AppData folder is a hidden folder, so you may need to adjust your folder view permissions to be able to see it - thanks to community tech wizard GranitePenguin for this great tip!

    • Alternatively, if you’re not confident on how to do the above, you can copy and paste the text from the crash into a notepad document and include that in your report to us instead.

  • Getting a DXDiag

    • It’s useful for us to know what system you’re running, which we can understand better from a DXDiag. To get one, press the Windows key then type “dxdiag”, and run the program. Wait for the process to complete, then press Save All Information to save the file as a .txt file.

  • Writing Up The Issue

    • We always need a description of what the issue was, when in the game you encountered it, and what actions you took before experiencing it. Here’s a quick example of what we’re looking for in a report;

    • “When getting any equipment item from the cupboard, then selecting that item from the inventory using the number pad the game crashes to desktop. However, selecting using the numbers above the main key set does not cause any issue. This does not seem to affect ingredients either.”

  • Sending The Report

    • Ready to send the issue description, logs, screenshot / video, DXDiag, and any other useful information? Provide us the bug report via this form.

Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator Known Issues and Resolutions

We’ll be keeping this section updated with a list of key known issues, as well as any solutions and workarounds. We will be tackling these items in upcoming patches, and we’ll share with you what gets fixed and when.

INFORMATION CORRECT AS OF: Brewmaster v.1.0.3.3 (29th September 2022)

  1. ISSUE
    Small and Medium Heat Mats don't currently allow fermentation containers or conditioning containers to be placed on them. This affects Mei's story stage "Heat Matters"

    SOLUTION
    Use the Large Heat Mat instead. This allows containers of all sizes to be placed on it.

  2. ISSUE
    There are a few minor graphical issues – some overrunning text, items not preserving their rotation, a tube appearing in an incorrect place, the journal’s numbering appearing wrong in places, a malt bag that is full but doesn’t look it, a can of malt extract that has the wrong label.

    SOLUTION
    No fixes yet, but we’re working on it!

  3. ISSUE
    Item list fails to scroll in the delivery package with the R joystick movement in the controller

    SOLUTION
    Use the mouse to scroll.

  4. ISSUE
    Individual performance settings do not switch to very high when using very high graphics preset

    SOLUTION
    You should be able to switch them manually.

  5. ISSUE
    Unable to use glyphs on package screen to progress.

    SOLUTION
    Use buttons themselves instead.

  6. ISSUE
    CO2 tank disappears when Keg is placed on a Heating Mat

    SOLUTION
    Do not place Keg on Heating Mat.

  7. ISSUE
    Wort transfer gets disrupted and fails to complete on skipping the day after using the calendar

    SOLUTION
    Do not skip days when transferring wort.

  8. ISSUE 
    Some Label Maker options are irrelevant. 

    SOLUTION
    By moving the sliders around you should see whether the option has any effect. (Most customization options, such as stroke and border width only apply to flat label icon shapes rather than illustrations.)

  9. ISSUE
    Cannot bind Mouse Scroll Up or Mouse Scroll Down in the mouse and keyboard bindings screen.

    SOLUTION  
    No fixes yet, but we’re working on it! 

  10. ISSUE 
    Setting “Left Arrow” as the alternate input for the “Move Left” action causes the player to move right instead of left when pressed. 

    SOLUTION 
    Set “Left Arrow” as the Primary input instead.  

  11. ISSUE
    Missing .exe or game not launching

    SOLUTION
    The missing .exe file was caused by a third party. Uninstalling and reinstalling should fix this. If not, please submit a bug report with as much detail as possible

  12. ISSUE
    Cooling tools are removing IBUs, flavors, and some other stats.

    SOLUTION
    Avoid using Counterflow Chillers and Wort Plate Chillers for now. Immersion Coils should be fine

  13. ISSUE
    Wild Vale Brewery is not giving rewards when reaching new Reputation levels, and is not unlocking Commercial Slot as it should

    SOLUTION
    No fixes yet, but we’re working on it!

  14. ISSUE
    In German, several Brewpedia articles have text issues.

    SOLUTION
    No fixes yet, but we’re working on it!

  15. ISSUE
    Achievements related to Competitions are not currently unlocking

    SOLUTION
    No fixes yet, but we’re working on it!

SOMETHING ELSE?

Found an issue not listed here? We’d really appreciate it if you report it to us using the above bug reporting guide.

We have placed our latest patch notes all here 🍻

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

The Brewmaster Closed Alpha ran from 23rd November - 29th November 2021 🍺

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The Brewmaster alpha is no longer live.

What is Brewmaster?
Brew your perfect beer in this relaxing home brewing sim. In Brewmaster you will use a realistic chemistry simulation to brew hoppy IPAs to creamy stouts. Customise your brewing space, create recipes and label your beer, unlock new equipment and enter competitions. Learn to brew, refine your craft, and become a Brewmaster!

Check out our Brewmaster closed alpha trailer for more:

What will the Brewmaster closed alpha include? 🍺
The Brewmaster alpha is a small sample of the game which will let you play around with some equipment and ingredients and brew a beer recipe from start to finish. You’ll be able to:

  • Explore the kitchen and tasting room

  • Follow a recipe as part of the alpha and try making a beer

  • After making your beer you can simply experiment with the chemical simulation

  • Test out a range of equipment including pots, pans, burners, mash tuns, barrels, and more

  • Experiment with a range of ingredients

  • Use the tasting sequence to see what kind of beer you have made

📢 Please note: The Brewmaster Alpha is an early sample of the full game and is still in development. 📢

The alpha is only a small snapshot of the game so we can get early feedback to help us improve it. As the game is still in active development you may well see things go wrong during your playthrough, or things might not work quite as nicely as we’d like - which is exactly why we do these kinds of playtests!

Some examples of things that will change before the game is out include (but are not limited to);

  • The UI (the in-game menus), the alpha UI are placeholders currently.

  • A more extensive tutorial will be included.

  • This alpha contains only a fraction of the ingredients and equipment that will be in the full game.

  • The final game will have story elements and a campaign

  • Many other features, such as decorating the space, competitions, and creating beer labels are absent.

The full game is coming to PC, PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch™ in 2022

  • Step 1: Sign up to the closed alpha here

  • Step 2: We'll send you a Brewmaster Alpha code and email with instructions near the Alpha date

  • Step 3: Log into Steam and redeem your code

  • Step 4: Join our Discord which we’ll be running during the alpha for help, support, and questions

  • Step 5: Play the Brewmaster closed alpha

  • Step 6: We’ll send a survey to players once it’s over

  • Step 7: Fill in the survey and help us improve our game

Please Wishlist Brewmaster on Steam!

We are a small developer and wishlisting a game helps loads to get our game in front of more players on Steam. 

We've written a blog post with more details about why wishlisting is important, but in short, it helps us show Steam that people are interested in our game and helps us get in front of new audiences. It also means you’ll get notifications for important events, like when the game is released or on sale.

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

We’re on the main stage for Steam Digital Tabletop Fest: RPG Edition happening October 21 - 25 🎲🎮

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Auroch Digital are part of Steam Digital Tabletop Fest | RPG Edition running from October 21st October 25th - check out the event page and schedule which is now live!

Steam Digital Tabletop Fest | RPG Edition is a multi-day celebration of tabletop gaming, with featured discounts, a main stage of streaming content, and more. This is the second year we have done this event, last year was a big success so we are running it again, but this year with a special focus on Role-Playing Games.

During the fest there is a main stage of streaming content curated and hosted by us. The main schedule of content starts on the 22nd October and the full schedule can be found on the events page

Make sure to sign up to watch some of the great talks and panels we've organised. Highlights include an hour-long chat with Disco Elysium designer and writer Robert Kurvitz, a Baldur's Gate 3 show with Larian Studios, a Paradox Interactive talk called World of Darkness Goes Digital, and loads of panels covering everything from D&D to a tavern panel discussing drinking and games.

Check below for the talks and livestreams we are a part of!

The Tavern - A panel on drinking & gaming 🍺 (Featuring our upcoming game Brewmaster)

Ah, the tavern! The quintessential space for tall tales, spending some hard-won GP, and the starting point of many an adventure. But focus your attention away from the raucous customers for a moment, and to the bottles and barrels sat neatly behind the owner of the inn. There you’ll find the subject of this panel: the role and presentation of beer, wine, and spirits in gaming.

Disco Elysium - Chat with Robert Kurvitz, lead writer and designer on Disco Elysium 🎤

Join Auroch Digital’s Tomas Rawlings as he gets to know Robert Kurvitz, the lead designer and writer behind the critically acclaimed RPG, Disco Elysium. Discover how Disco Elysium evolved out of physical role-playing games, what inspires Robert in his game design, and just how expansive the dialogue trees in the game are!

The RPG Discovery Club - Auroch Digital share some of their favourites 🥰

Join Auroch Digital’s Allie Liguori & Tomas Rawlings as they roll 2d6 to explore some interesting RPG titles you might have missed. Allie will be exploring the digital plane while Tomas takes a look into the physical realm. You won’t want to miss what you might have missed!

Digital Games

Physical Games

Sci-Fi RPG Settings & Environments Panel 🔫

When we think of an RPG we often think of a fantasy setting with dragons, elves, magic swords and trolls. However there is a huge amount of titles that opt to be set not in fantasy but in sci-fi settings; with technology, dystopias, space, spaces that feel contemporary, inhospitable planets or a setting that re recognise some and yet other aspects of fantastical. This panel explores the attraction of the sci-fi (or non-fantasy) setting for RPGs and how it approaches world-building.

Narrative in Wargaming Panel 💣

Wargaming is arguably the precursor to RPGs, via games like Chainmail, yet while RPGs and Wargames do largely differ, there are areas that share concepts; one key one is narrative. Just as in an RPG the players create the story, so in a Wargame there is a story about why the belligerents are fighting. We’re also seeing more and more wargames leaning into the idea of why more story in a wargame is a good idea! This panel will roll 6d6 to discuss!

The Myths of King Arthur Roundtable 🏹

Swirling up from the mists of time are the enduring stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. In many ways these stories of adventure epitomize many key elements of RPGs; a band of heroes, questing, the search for glory, advancement and magical artifacts plus the mix of a spiritual and physical conflict. In this session we explore all this and more!

Join our Discord

If you want to talk to like minded people about board games and video games you can join the Auroch Digital Discord and you'll have lots of people to chat to.

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

How much does it cost to make a game?

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As game developers we sometimes get asked how much it costs to make a game. This is not an easy question to answer because we have to explore what we mean by a ‘game’ and what it is to ‘make’ one. If you wanted a really short answer, it would be somewhere between $0 and $265 million. Yes, that’s a wide range of answers, so our CEO, Dr.Tomas Rawlings digs into the details.

Anyone can download some free gamedev tools and create a game for the fun of it. That could be seen as a game being made for $0 (though, of course, there are other costs to consider - time, powering a computer, access to the internet, not to mention the hours of labour). 

At the other end of the spectrum it cost around $265 million to make Grand Theft Auto V. That equates to teams of hundreds of developers working for many years, all of whom need paying, plus the costs of the office, software, taxes, support staff, outsourcing, and so on. But given GTA V has made over $6 billion in revenue, this particular game has seen a very good return on investment (though developer Rockstar has been spending money on the game since release pretty much continuously.)  

Types of game - from indie to AAA 

As seen in the two examples above, what constitutes a game and the costs developing them can incur includes a huge spectrum. For our purposes, it's best to explore that spectrum by breaking down the different tiers of games and the costs that they usually incur at each tier. 

Below you can see the spectrum of game development split into three distinct tiers.

  • Indie game - This is a game made by a solo developer (or small team) and released onto Steam (or similar storefront). Good examples of this type are our games (so far!) such as Mars Horizon and Dark Future: Blood Red States.

  • AAA game - This is the major publisher release that most people think of when they think of a ‘game’, so your FIFA and Battlefield titles, for example.

  • Triple ‘i’ game - This is a game between the two types above, so a bigger project than a small indie, but not the size of a major AAA game. Examples here include Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

How do you make a game? Development costs and beyond

Part of the marketing for Mars Horizon involved getting astronaut Tim Peake to play our game on the official Xbox Twitch Channel.

Part of the marketing for Mars Horizon involved getting astronaut Tim Peake to play our game on the official Xbox Twitch Channel.

Before we put some numbers on the costs of developing games in each of those three tiers, let’s get into more of what we mean by ‘make’ too. There is the making of the actual game - the design, code, art, sound, etc - that’s what we think of as the development. But there may have been costs even before the development started.

Perhaps you want to make a demo, or before that you may spend money putting together a pitch to publishers, which might also mean attending trade shows like GDC. All of these cost money that may exist outside of the game's development. 

Then there is everything geared towards getting a game into the hands of players. This includes testing, marketing, making a trailer, localisation, advertising, and (if this is being done) the cost of making physical copies and then distributing them. 

To fully work out the cost of making a game, you really need to consider all of the above, though some games you play might not have spent money on all of these aspects.

The Colonists, was originally made by a one person team - Codebyfire

The Colonists, was originally made by a one person team - Codebyfire

How much does it cost to make an indie game?

You’re looking at a range from about $50,000 to $750,000 to make an indie game. The lower $50k amount is the total cost for a solo developer, on average, to work for a year on a game (at least in our experience). As you add more people, the cost goes up. 

Most indie publishers expect games to come in around $250k to $500k for development costs; so think of that upper amount as a team of 5 people working for 2 years on a game. Then the publisher may add another $250k (to a total of $750k) as they spend money on what they feel is necessary to make the game a success (testing, marketing, PR, etc). That publisher cost will vary depending on the number of platforms they're putting the game on, if it has multiplayer, what the marketing plan is, and so on.

How much does it cost to make a AAA game?

When it comes to AAA game development you are generally talking in the tens of millions of dollars. Most AAA games are made by teams of a few hundred people working for two or more years.

You can most clearly see this with the Call of Duty games series, which has three large studios making a new installment simultaneously so that, collectively, the series is able to have a new title every year. Each of those studios will cost many, many millions of dollars to run per year. Then, as these games are still sold as boxed products, there is the cost of manufacturing and distribution, cross-country marketing and promotional budgets, and many more costs adding more than the cost of development again to the overall bill. 

How much does it cost to make a ‘triple i’ game?

Typically these are games costing more than $1 million, but less than $10 million - which puts the example game in this category of  Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice firmly in this costing.

As above, expect there to be another similar cost added for the marketing and promotion of the game - though how much will vary depending on if it is self-published or via a publisher.

Why does it cost so much to make games?

Most of the cost of making the game will end up as wages for people - be they developers, testers, or marketers. Making and selling games is a high-skill endeavour that takes a lot of people, a lot of time, and a huge amount of creativity and problem solving. But we like to think, they are worth the money and effort. So that is, in essence, how much it costs to make a game.

With all this in mind, please do support your favourite game creators with a review of their work, so they know you care! (Plus, if you’re a game developer and looking to join a team to advance your skills in this area, please see our Jobs page!)

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

How to get free game codes for streaming 🎮

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If you’re a Twitch streamer, or a YouTube creator, you’ll most likely want to cover a whole host of different games, but that costs! If you’re looking at how to get free game codes as a streamer, you’re probably already visiting sites like Keymailer and Woovit, signing up to PR lists, and reaching out to devs directly. But how do you know if you're doing a good job?

If you’re a new streamer, a veteran creator, or somewhere in the middle, it’s good to know the best practice on how to get free game codes via email.

Here, at Auroch Digital, we deal with a lot of our own game code requests, sometimes our publishers do too, but otherwise we do it all in house. You’ll be emailing Jem, Alice, or Ladell, signing up to our main influencer list, or various game specific ones.

If you’ve never emailed anyone for a game code before, we have some top tips on how to get free game codes as a streamer.

Before we start: make sure you’ve streamed in the last month, if you haven’t, please let us know when you’re planning on returning - we’re all human and we understand the way the world works! 

📧 Email us from the address that’s listed in your bio 📧

If your email isn’t listed in your Twitch bio or on your YouTube channel, we can’t verify your email address against the email that comes into our inbox. Bigger creators often have people pretending to be them, with masked email addresses, or addresses that are a few letters different. We need to fact check to see that you are who you say you are, and if you don’t have your bio in your Twitch, Twitter, or YouTube bio (and not behind the CAPTCHA), it makes our job a lot more difficult. 

This is also helpful with us reaching out to new people we’ve not worked with before. If we have noticed your content lines up with a game we have coming out soon or a game we already have out, we may want to reach out to you. We can’t do this if you have your DMs closed and no email listed. It’s also a lot easier for us to keep on top of emails rather than Twitter DMs. 

Sure, you may get a little bit more spam to your email address, but if you set your filter up properly you should be able to avoid most of it. That being said, sometimes emails that we send out with game codes in can get flagged as spam - this is because they often look the same to each creator (with the game codes changed). Check your spam regularly, confirm what’s spam and what’s not, and get on top of inbox management.

😇 Be polite 😇

We are people too! Remember that when you’re about to send your email. Write the email like you’re writing to any professional. If you’ve not worked in a job that requires you to send emails you may find this a little bit more difficult at first, but making sure you’re polite and helpful is often enough. 

If we have to come back to you and ask for more information, remember we’re doing it so we can get you a free game code, so be your best self. We want the best types of people to represent our games, so make sure that comes across in the email.

You’ll be emailing or receiving emails from Simon, Ladell, and Alice.

💡 Top Tip: Community mangers talk to each other from different studios. Being polite can go a long way, and being rude to someone can affect your relationship elsewhere in the industry.

📝 Give as much (important) information as necessary 📝

We don’t need to know why you got into gaming, what you got in your GCSEs, or what kind of background you come from. What we do need to know is a fair amount of other information from you.

  • Let us know your pronouns - only so we don’t misgender you in any socials or emails

  • Your various socials - any extra ways we can verify your information/email is important!

  • Average 30 or 90 day viewership - be honest, we’ll check! We aren’t focussed on follower count but it’s great for us to get an idea of how many eyes you can bring to our games.

  • Your preferred platforms - We sometimes get limited game codes for specific platforms, so if you let us know you can stream on Nintendo Switch AND Xbox (for example), you’ll be more likely to receive a game code. But please don’t ask us for a PC game code for a game we’re porting to console (we don’t have them!)

  • Your region - Whereabouts in the world do you live? Some game codes are locked to regions, so we need to know this to allocate you the right game code

And finally, not as important, but always useful:

  • What your schedule looks like or when we can expect to see content 

    • We can then keep an eye on our socials if you tag us in your posts

    • We can swing by to a stream, or watch one of your videos

    • We’ll know if you’re not going to be able to get round to making content for a while

Be honest with all the information you give, we will be able to check all of what you send us, and we often watch videos or VODs before we give out game codes, so we can get an idea of who you are and what you’re about. We only want to give game codes to people who are the best of the best, so put your best self forward. 

💡 Top Tip: Have your social media linked, your pronouns, and your 90 day average CCV (Concurrent Viewership if you’re a streamer) in your email signature. It’s really helpful and saves a lot of time when creating a new email with all of the information in. 

💬 Keep your socials up to date 💬

Your social media is the best way to market yourself as a streamer - don’t just use them to post go-live links. This will make your page look spammy and insincere. Even retweeting the occasional meme or posting the odd thought will make your social media look even more legitimate. 

💡 Top Tip: Having a pinned tweet is a great way for us to see your most proud achievement, most recent achievement, or your channel trailer. We can learn a lot about you in a quick glance, and it’s really helpful for us to see if you’re someone we want to work with!

💕 Keep up a great relationship with the studio even after you’ve got the game code 💕

If you decide that you’ve got everything you want from us after you’ve received your game code, that’s fine. But what’s better is for you to keep up a good relationship with the studio. When we have more new games come out our first port of call are streamers or YouTubers we’ve worked with before as we know them and already have a good relationship. You can do this in a few ways:

  • Reply to emails 

    • If we send around emails seeing if you’re interested in covering any of our other games, please reply to us even if you’re not interested in it! It helps us a lot and makes us see you respect our time

  • Reply to tweets

    • Becoming active on Twitter with us really makes you stand out from the crowd of other creators we work with

  • Become active in our Discord

    • We have a whole room on Discord dedicated to creator coverage, where you’re free to share your go-live links and videos!

💡 Top Tip: Another great thing you can do, as shown by the wonderful Hannskini, is call out the studio a lot in your content. This support from a streamer means a lot to us and builds strong relationships so we want to work with you again in future.

🌟 We hope these tips will help you when contacting studios and help you conduct yourselves professionally when you do! 🌟

You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, like our Facebook page, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and join our Discord to ask us any questions you may have.

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

Fight the Secret War in Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics 🐙 On sale now!

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Back in 2018 we launched Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics - this was a collaboration between us, MODIPHIUS (the creator of the Achtung! Cthulhu tabletop game) and Ripstone (the publisher).

The game is set in an alternative World War II where the Nazis have allied with the Mythos powers in their goal to take over the world.

The allied forces are having to now fight two wars; the one we all know about on land, sea and in the air - and now another, the ‘Secret War’ where agents use forbidden technologies and mysterious powers to counter the Nazi-Mythos threat! 

The game is a blended hybrid of a few choice concepts;

  • A turn-based strategy; where the player is controlling a team of agents, XCOM style. However we added our own take on this using the facing and ‘awareness’ of the unit as key parts of the game.

  • The Achtung! Cthulhu Tabletop RPG, Inspired by this the player’s agents have skills that the player can select how and where they develop.

  • The Achtung! Cthulhu skirmish wargame; We added some of the amazing characters and enemy units of this game. 

Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics is currently on sale on Steam and Switch so you can join the fight against the Nazi-Mythos evil now for an amazing price!

 
 

🐙More on Achtung! Cthulhu 🐙

🎲 Tabletop of Achtung! Cthulhu 🎲

While we’re on the topic, the Tabletop of Achtung! Cthulhu now uses the excellent 2d20 system, which you can find out about here. 

📺 Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics at Digital Tabletop Fest 📺

We also recommend this panel from Digital Tabletop Fest 2020 where we explored what Lovecraft’s work means in a 2020 world.

🎤 Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics podcasts 🎤

We also did a bunch of podcasts about the game and the Mythos:

Keep up the fight!

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

Two of Auroch Digital’s games are coming to Gameboard!

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After its huge success on Kickstarter, we’re pleased to announce that Auroch Digital will have two titles coming to Gameboard. Keep reading to find out more about Gameboard, and which games of ours you’ll be able to play on it!

What is Gameboard?

Gameboard is the next dimension in tabletop, a complete gaming system that you’ll be able to play with anyone, anywhere, and with any game piece you have on hand! It’s a 16” x 16” square screen, with 3D touch, network play, and will turn your game nights into a whole new experience. 

With technology that is so sensitive it can detect real hand movements and physical pieces on (and above!) the board, it’s not to be confused with just any other tablet. It also comes with stereo speakers and two microphones so that anything happening in the Gameboard feels like it’s right there with you. Talk about immersion. 

We are working hard to bring two of our games Gameboard, Ogre and Mars Horizon: BLAST OFF!

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Steve Jackson’s Ogre

Ogre is the official adaptation of the legendary wargame from Steve Jackson games, where you engage in futuristic warfare with hovercrafts with armour, infantry, super heavy tanks, and cybernetic war machines called Ogres. 

Set in the near future, there’s one type of unit that inspires such fear in warfare that even allies want to keep a safe distance, the Ogre. They’re AI powered tanks that are so powerful they’re the equivalent of a battalion of tanks and infantry. 

You take command and fight for power on the irradiated battlefield of the future.

Mars Horizon: BLAST OFF

In Mars Horizon: BLAST OFF your aim is to be the first crewed mission to Mars by running your own space agency, making all the important decisions including which rockets to build, what missions to run, and where to spend your resources. 

Mars Horizon: BLAST OFF was Created with the support of the European Space Agency. Read our blog to learn how the game came about: Prototype to Kickstarter - The story of Mars Horizon: BLAST OFF! The card game shares some similarities with our recent video game Mars Horizon, but they are each their own game.

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How is development going?

Progress is coming along well with porting our titles to Gameboard. We’ve been working hard capturing the feel of playing Ogre and Mars Horizon: BLAST OFF! so it's just as fun digitally as physically. We’ve created rocket animations, card flipping, tanks driving, and all sorts.

We’re using Gameboard's unique features to create a completely original experience and way to play. We’ve been thinking hard about what makes physical games fun and ensuring those moments are translated to our board game / videogame hybrid experience.

We've also done a lot of work to make sure it's accessible for as many players as possible, with considerations made to colour blindness, fine tactile and eye sight limitations.

We can’t wait for you to get your hands on your very own Gameboard. Stay up to date with Gameboard by signing up here, and stay up to date with Auroch Digital by signing up to our monthly newsletter, or staying in touch with us on our Twitter or Discord.

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

Expanded Horizons is out NOW!

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The biggest ever FREE Mars Horizon update is OUT NOW! 

Expanded Horizons, our huge new free update for Mars Horizon is available now on all platforms! 

Bringing you a new mission, new payloads, a reusable vehicle, vehicle packs, Sandbox Mode, Iron Core Mode, and improvements to gameplay. 

Also keep an eye out for Mars Horizon appearing on the Epic Game Store from today - with Expanded Horizons included too!

BUY MARS HORIZON HERE:

To give you a taste of what you’ll be seeing, you’ll see the Perserverance Rover, the Ingenuity Helicopter, a reusable Wyvern Upper, Iron Core Mode which saves after EVERY turn whether you like it or not (soz save scummers), and did we mention SANDBOX MODE?!

This update also comes with the previous two updates, The Distant Observations Vehicle Pack and the Early Observations Vehicle Pack, so console players will have access to all those vehicles too.

Check out our announcement blog post for the full list of what’s included in the update:

Questions about Expanded Horizons or Mars Horizon?

Check out our FAQ here! If we still don’t answer your questions, please get in touch with us on Twitter or in our Discord!

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We’re also adding a free demo to the Nintendo Switch on June 28th - if you’ve had your eyes on Mars Horizon for a while but have been unsure, now’s your chance to take it for a test launch! From 28th June you can get the Mars Horizon Free Switch Demo.

Catch up with our livestream of the new update here, where you’ll see streamer eirawave, Principal Programmer, Stefan Richings, and Allie, our Community and Marketing Executive.

Eirawave worked on designing our new logo, and is an art and variety streamer. They’re a big space fan and have appeared on our channels in the past, so you might recognise them! Stefan worked on Mars Horizon since before the alpha, some of his biggest work was coding the tooltips system, the tutorial system, the research tree, and the narrative events. Catch up with the stream below!

Watch the Mars Horizon: Expanded Horizons Sneak Peek Livestream!

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.