Overview

Welcome back! I've really neglected updating this website, but trust me, I've been doing a lot of important work behind the scenes.

In today's post, you'll know exactly what I've been up to, and I believe you'll be excited to hear it!

Detective Butler 10th Anniversary

Detective Butler: Maiden Voyage Murder was completed and released to the public for the very first time on August 10th, 2013. It's hard to believe that 10 years have already passed (and that the sequel still isn't finished yet). I feel just as young and ambitious as I did then, but I know I don't have all the time in the world. So I try to make every second count.

I recently replayed the game for the first time in years, and realized many themes and ideas are just as important to me now as they were back then. While I do think I've become much better at writing, I also believe that the story of Detective Butler: Maiden Voyage Murder continues to hold up well over time.

It's incredible to know there are thousands of people who've enjoyed this game. I was young and inexperienced when I created it, but so many people still love it, and there are always new fans every day. And even though it's a free game, I feel like I've been paid back in ways that money can't provide.

We've received a lot of fan-art over the years, so out of respect for those artists who took the time and effort to make them, I thought I'd put together a collage to celebrate ten years of Detective Butler! Thank you all so much!

Visual Novel Fest

From August 7th to August 14th, both Detective Butler games will be featured in the Visual Novel Fest! Whether a Valve employee is a fan of Detective Butler, or it's just a coincidence, or some divine act of God, I don't know. But yes, Detective Butler's 10th anniversary falls right in the middle of the very first Visual Novel Fest!

At the time of writing, our wishlists for DB2 are already up 50%, which confirms to me that our struggles are mostly just a visibility problem. In other words, we received the same number of wishlists in 4 days that would've normally taken us 2 months. If we continued to get these numbers every day, I would be fairly confident the game would perform well on launch.

I was discussing this visibility problem with a mystery dev friend of mine who said he was having similar issues. He then told me that a dev friend of his was having the same problem. So naturally I just wondered if we should try to tackle this problem together, and the idea for a community of mystery game developers formed. Almost immediately, each friend invited a few more friends who were having the same problems. And when we got to 10 members in a single day, I realized this could have a lot of potential.

The most common piece of marketing advice I received was to go where my target audience hangs out. But that only led me to two types of places: visual novel communities, and communities dedicated to specific mystery games. The problem with targeting VN communities is that most are focused on romance and aren't interested in mystery. The problem with game-specific communities is that they want content around that specific game, not your unknown indie knock-off. There truly wasn't a community specifically dedicated to promoting and discovering new indie mystery games.

So, I made one!

Mystery Gamedev Community

I've given this community a simple and self-explanatory name: Mystery Gamedev!

We're just getting started, but we already have 15+ developers of popular mystery games, with hundreds of positive reviews and thousands of players each.

We'd like to invite all who enjoy mystery games -- fans, developers, and content creators -- to join!

Mystery games span many genres, and include highly popular games such as Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, Zero Escape, and many more!

If you'd like to discover new and upcoming mystery games from indie devs, or learn how to create your own, then come and join our Discord server!

Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/GUe3KYWufA

Learn More: https://mysterygamedev.com

Conclusion

As always, thank you for your support! I truly hope that I can give back by creating this community and helping others make friends, grow alongside each other, and achieve success!

-- Kinjo Goldbar (Goldbar Games)