Asterogue Hits Steam
Solo dev's sci-fi coffeebreak roguelike reaches Steam after 4-year journey
A solo developer has finally released their sci-fi coffeebreak roguelike, Asterogue, on Steam after a four-year journey that included launches on multiple platforms and learning from costly mistakes.
The game, built using Vanilla JS, HTML, CSS, and the ROT.js library, was initially released on Itch in 2020 and later ported to Android, where it received positive reviews and steady sales.
The developer then experimented with a web-based release, offering the first few levels for free and a one-time payment to unlock the rest, which proved to be a successful model with hundreds of thousands of visitors and thousands of monthly players.
However, the developer encountered two significant setbacks: a show-stopping crash bug that affected 23,000 players on Hacker News, and giving away free Steam keys, which don't count towards reviews, hindering the game's visibility on the platform.
Despite these challenges, the game is now available on Steam with full Steam Deck support, and the developer is optimistic about its future.
