Sin Spire - One Week Later...

Hello everyone! I hope you’ve all had an interesting week. I know I have.

Sin Spire released a little over a week ago, and the reception has been… good. Surprisingly good. I expected more pushback around difficulty, and while that feedback definitely showed up in reviews and discussions, the game also seems to have clicked with a much larger audience than anticipated.

Before getting into anything else, I want to share one important announcement:

Sin Spire has sold over 40,000 copies on Steam!

I won’t share revenue numbers, but just to clarify: due to refunds and regional pricing differences, it might not be as high as you’d expect. That said, it’s not low either.

To say the game broke containment would be an understatement. I was fully prepared to open this post with “We did it, 1,000 sales!” but despite fierce competition (which I wasn’t fully aware of at the time) and the game’s obtuse nature, it found an audience.

Whatever games I make next probably won’t be as difficult as Sin Spire. Despite some speculation, the difficulty here was a deliberate decision, though it looks like some people bounced off quite early. The one choice I genuinely regret, though, is setting the orb count to 4 for most dungeons. I’ll address that shortly, but first, let’s get the obvious out of the way.

Sin Spire Updates

I think it’s fair to call the game successful, relatively speaking. So, what does that mean going forward? Honestly, I’m not entirely sure yet.

I've already started planning for future projects and I had hoped that after release, Sin Spire wouldn’t demand too much attention. But I did say that if the game did well, I’d continue supporting it. 30,000 players later, here we are.

In the short term, updates will mostly focus on bug fixes and minor improvements, like yesterday’s patch. After that, I still plan to put the game to rest and shift focus to something new. I need both a general and creative break from Sin Spire, and the best way I've found to mentally reset is by working on something completely different.

That said, because of the overwhelming support, I do plan to add something more substantial in the future. So, to make a long story short, Sin Spire’s content update status has gone from “no” to “eventually.”

As a side note, one topic that keeps coming up is the orb count. As mentioned earlier, I actually agree that it’s too high and I don’t think there’s much reason to keep the requirement at 4 beyond not wanting to devalue existing playthroughs. Reducing it to 2 would still allow optional runs for players who want to get stronger, and make sure that players who don't want to deal with all that can move on at their own pace.

I’d genuinely like to hear what you think about this. It’d be a fairly big change and it's something I’ve been debating since the game’s alpha. In practice, it wouldn’t drastically alter the game beyond allowing some players to reach certain encounters a bit under-levelled.

Non-Steam Versions and Steam Keys

This has come up several times since release, so I want to address it clearly.

First, an important clarification: The Supporter tier has always provided early development builds. It has never included Steam keys for the final release. I understand that this may be disappointing to some, but that was never promised.

The original plan was simple:

• Release the game on Steam

• Offer a non-Steam version via Itch.io

However, in mid-2025, Itch.io de-indexed paid adult games. Free adult games were later re-indexed, but paid releases were not. On top of that, Itch’s payout system has reportedly been inconsistent, which I’m currently testing to see if it’s reliable again.

If payouts do in fact work, I plan to use Itch.io as the non-Steam option for Sin Spire. It likely won’t be discoverable through the site's search, but I can directly link it via Patreon, Discord, and other channels for people who can’t purchase the game on Steam.

That said, I strongly prefer Steam due to its automated updates. A non-Steam version requires manual updates, which makes releasing things like hotfixes difficult. Because of that, I plan to wait until Sin Spire is mostly stable and past major updates before releasing an Itch version.

I’ve also seen suggestions like “just hand out keys” or “give keys to anyone who paid more than the game costs.” Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple:

• Patreon support was not a purchase of the final game

• Steam key requests are reviewed by Valve

• Large external key distribution can affect future key requests

If I hand out keys to a few people, many more would understandably ask. From Valve’s perspective, widespread key distribution can look like bypassing the storefront entirely, and I don’t want to risk complications there. I’d rather explore a proper non-Steam option for people who are region-locked.

For now, I’ll continue testing Itch.io’s payout system. If it ends up working, I’ll prepare a build as soon as possible. Apologies for the delay. In the future, I’ll try to plan better for situations like this ahead of time.

A Week Concluded

This week wasn’t the rest I hoped it would be. Instead of Sin Spire slowly exiting my life, it’s consumed it. Reading reviews, watching videos, responding on Discord, handling partnerships, and dealing with endless key requests. Balancing friendly and firm responses is exhausting. My brain is fried.

I can’t promise a regular posting or update schedule for a bit. You’ll probably see less of me once I finally take a break. I still have a lot of non-game-dev admin to deal with before I can get back to doing what I actually love.

Thank you all, genuinely. This has been life-changing in ways that are both good and complicated.

See you later.