Starship Rubicon

Released on July 13, 2015 by Wickworks

Developed by Wickworks

Starship Rubicon is a modern take on the classic space shooter genre. It's a smart and challenging rogue-lite that features a unique control scheme, pixel art remixed with NASA photographs, and an existential crisis about who is REALLY the monster.

http://i.imgur.com/VyK6b2A.jpg
(Note: Valve has asked us to not share our exact sales numbers. I feel like that takes a bit of the teeth out of a postmortem, but there are still plenty of lessons to be shared)

STEAM POSTMORTEM

I was going to write a standard postmortem -- explain what we tried, show some stats, and pull out some lessons. I'll do some of that later, but I think I'm starting to realize that any specific tips I can share is less important than something else I learned.

Steam traffic is a gigantic morass -- having my game on the front page that first morning felt like timidly standing in the empty floor of the stock exchange moments before it opens. Suddenly, before I can take a breath,... Read All


I sat down with the people involved with the creation of Starship Rubicon, Wick and Beatscribe for a fun roundtable discussion. Cheerful Ghost published Starship Rubicon so it seemed like a good fit for us to talk about the game together.

Interview Notes:


Following in the vapor trails of our early 2015 release Starship Rubicon is now on Steam! It’s pretty exciting to be part of a game that is now available for people to play on Steam. Tick one off that bucket list!

This update is pretty massive in that it features an all new gravity gun, ship and level editor, mod tools and freshly baked Linux port. So you know, this seems like a great time to buy the game and everything so… why don’t you head over to Steam and get it?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/372030

If you bought Starship Rubicon through Cheerful Ghost/the Humble Widget, Itch.io or Desura we have already dropped a key on that site and it should be available very... Read All


http://i.imgur.com/h9bbjxm.png
So! Starship Rubicon just got Greenlit. A couple people asked for a postmortem. WELL I WAS GOING TO DO ONE ANYWAY AND HERE IT IS.

WARNING : MASSIVE STATISTICAL GRAPH FLEET APPROACHING

Wick:
I think our traffic graph (at the top of the post) speaks for itself. We had a huge initial surge (I assume from being on the front page of Greenlight for being “recently submitted”) which QUICKLY dropped off over the week as we moved further and further away from the front page. The later minor spikes came from exposure through Let’s Players and Twitch streamers.*

Then came what is only known as the Dark Times, where we weren’t actively promoting it and were more-or-less sitting... Read All


When I got the email from Steam that Starship Rubicon was Greenlit on Steam I immediately called Wick and left him a message. A few minutes later we were gleefully talking about it and basking in the glow of joining the games accepted to Steam club. As the Greenlight campaign was still a significant way from the top 100 (though we had an awesome approval percentage!) it appears Valve works in mysterious ways!

Wick has been hard at work on a big Rubicon update that will feature a Linux port, a raft of bug fixes and some really awesome new features that we will talk about as we march closer to a Steam launch. We wanted to personally thank everyone that picked up the game... Read All


Here is part 2 of the Starship Rubicon Let's Play & Twitch roundup.

The video linked above is a very recent video by Sundarworld where he takes the Lamjet all the way to the Dodongo boss. This is his part 4 in his Starship Rubicon series. I'll keep you posted on how far he goes with this playthrough.

Streamfriends had an awesome Twitch stream video that is massively entertaining. After a few tries Mog beats the game so if you want to see someone beat Rubicon, this video will show you how. Along the way they bump into a few bugs but fear not, like everything, they will be fixed in an upcoming patch.

http://www.twitch.tv/streamfriends/v/3617686

In ShieldGuys video he... Read All


Starship Rubicon was released last month and it's good to see people enjoy it. We are going to wrap up all the interesting Rubicon Let's Plays and Streams into two posts so strap yourself in for part one!

The video above is Maris of the Twitch GamerQuest fame. She held a two hour game stream/developer Q&A with Wick. I want to feature this video because it not only shows off the game but because Maris has a really interesting discussion with Wick about developing the game. The 2 hour session is broken up in a YouTube playlist, so hopefully that translates well to the embed above.

http://www.twitch.tv/gamerquest

Celerius TheDerp takes a stab at a few Starship Rubicon... Read All


Starship Rubicon is a great Roguelike with challenging gameplay great retro 2D art. That said, Rubicon also features some killer music by a fantastic Indie musician. The OST for Starship Rubicon was composed by Beatscribe featuring 6 in game tracks and 2 remixes.

Head over to Bandcamp and check it out!

https://beatscribe.bandcamp.com/album/starship-rubicon-ost

You can check out some of his thoughts on the revamped OST as well.

https://beatscribe.wordpress.com/2014/12/15/cheerful-ghost-and-wick-release-starship-rubicon-with-beatscribe-ost/
https://beatscribe.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/wick-studios-and-cheerful-ghost-to-release-starship-rubicon-with-beatscribe-ost/


Today is the release of Starship Rubicon and I couldn’t be happier. When I talked to Wick about publishing the game I didn’t expect that it would evolve to what it is today. Releasing a game is new to us both and we are both excited about what comes next. Getting the game in the hands of gamers and giving it the widest exposure possible is our goal and it all starts with you. If you haven’t already, I urge you to pick up the game play it and let us know what you think. If you like it, share it with your friends.

We are happy to be selling Starship Rubicon on our website, itch.io and Desura. We will be working with other game stores to sell the game and if there are any... Read All


Hey Everyone,

I know everyone has been anticipating the launch of Starship Rubicon, I know I have. With that, the launch is so soon it might even be.... tomorrow? Incredible.

With that I wanted to deliver a bit of a bitter pill. Starship Rubicon will be coming out on PC and Mac as advertised but the Linux port is going to slip a bit. As someone that has been using Linux for 10+ years I am bummed. Wick and I wanted to launch with all three ports but due to technical stuff that is somewhat out of our control, we are going to launch with the Linux port next year. Again, as an avid Linux gamer that doesn't like to hear this kind of thing I really didn't want to have to do... Read All