Size Five Games

The Cost of Infinite Monkeys

It’s time to start thinking about how much to charge for Gun Monkeys.

I’ve always said I think I underpriced Time Gentlemen, Please! when I put it at £3 ($5). At the time, it seemed like a fair price for a non-talkie game in a dying/ dead genre. I quickly learned two things: a nicely-budgeted game comes across well in reviews (almost every review of TGP said it was a complete steal). The other thing is: you can always lower a price, you can’t put it up. So TGP has been £3 for the last 4 years, it can’t really go down from there.

I’ve got no interest in duping overcharging anyone, but money to help speed upThe Swindle’s development would be handy. So here’s some honest FACTS about the game:

- Gun Monkeys isn’t a huge game, but it’s infinite due to random generation, and you’ll get dozens upon dozens of hours of entertainment out of it honing your skills. Think QUAKE III or Team Fortress 2, it’s essentially replayable forever.

- There’s one game mode; the gameplay is 1-on-1 ‘Gibbage‘ deathmatch, where you need to top up your Power Core by harvesting Power Cubes. These cubes are in short supply, so you fight over them against someone else, online (local games are also supported). I’m not really interested in diluting that core experience with half-baked Capture the Flag variants just for the sake of padding it out. This is what the game is.

- Although the level structure itself is widely-randomised and infinite, there’s only so many planets, colours, times of day and weather patterns it’s ever going to be able to generate before arenas start to feel a bit ‘same-y’, even though that’s a HUGE number of ‘themes’. That’s something I’ll keep working on right up to release (and possibly beyond).

- All that said: I’m keen to get across the game is fucking good fun. I’m massively addicted to it. It’s a fraught, tense, sweaty affair that frequently has me screaming obscenities at the other player. It’s genuinely brilliant. It doesn’t need loads or fluff and filler to pad it out, it’s a honed, crafted, fat-trimmed game that supplies short, sharp jabs of frantic multiplayer mayhem.

I’ve got a price in mind. I’d be really interested in hearing what other people think. Do please comment below, or @ me on Twitter, or feel free to email me if your response is very long. Would love to hear your thoughts.

I know, this is arguably an impossible question until you’ve played it. Sorry. Here’s the trailer, to give you some idea:

(the trailer really really works best at 1080 resolution and fullscreen. please do, if you can)