Inside Conscript, Australia’s latest shot at solo developer success story
It’s nominated for six awards and is critically acclaimed, but creator Jordan Mochi is left wondering why his game isn’t flying off the shelf.
Jordan Mochi is perplexed. The history student turned solo game developer ticked all the boxes.
His survival horror war game Conscript had a healthy wish list of over 165,000 users on Steam — meaning that many gamers intended to buy the title on release. A successful Kickstarter, dozens of global press reviews — all largely positive. That's been mirrored by hundreds of positive user reviews on Steam. The game is also up for six separate awards at the Australian Game Developer Awards next week, competing against much larger studios.
Yet, since its launch in July, its sales have fallen slightly short of expectations. Critically, Conscript is a success by all measures. Commercially, however, a couple of months out from launch and there's room for improvement. "It's difficult to comprehend," Mochi says.
Conscript is one of the Australian game industry's latest bets at staking its own claim in the solo d…
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