Star and Serpent Solitaire Post Mortem

Star and Serpent Solitaire has sold about 43 copies so far by the end of April of 2026.

That is not a large number. Financially, it is not a success in the usual sense. But in my own books, the game was still a success.

I expected the game to sell about 33 copies. It sold more than that. Nice. I spent roughly 1.5 years taking a game from nothing to a full Steam release: design, programming, art, store setup, marketing, release management, patches, and customer support. I did all of that on my own.

That has value, even if the spreadsheet does not look flattering.

The Money

The base price of the game is 12.79 € on Steam, though the actual amount varies by region, exchange rates, local taxes, discounts, and country-specific rules.

After estimating Steam’s 30% cut, around 20% tax effects, I end up with roughly 5.36 € per copy sold from a game priced at 12.79 € on Steam.

And then there are other expenses and YEL.

For a small Finnish solo developer, the mandatory Finnish YEL pension payments is one of the stranger parts of the equation. Even at the minimum level, I am billed about 150 € per month even if I’m not making any money at all. The current system is based on an estimated entrepreneur’s income rather than simply what the business actually earned. There is a reform planned for 2028, where entrepreneurs should be able to choose a model based more directly on taxable earned income, though the current estimate-based model still exists for now. The Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health states that from 2028 entrepreneurs could choose either taxable earned income or the current calculated YEL income as the basis for pension payments; after the transition period, YEL income would still need to be at least 50% of taxable earned income.

For a small game that sells a few dozen copies, that fixed monthly cost matters a lot. It means the game can “sell” and still lose money. And as long as the company is in business that money drain is going to keep on leaching money even if there’s no active income. And developing new games can take a long long time… yikes.

The Development

Star and Serpent Solitaire was supposed to be a quick two-month project.

It became an eighteen-month project.

The biggest lesson was technical planning. I should have spent much more time thinking through the under-the-hood architecture before building the game out. Small projects are still software projects, and “quick” can become expensive when the foundations are not planned carefully enough.

AI use was minimal. When I started, AI tools were not good enough for most of what I needed, and the game is probably around 95% hand-made. That includes the implementation work, design decisions, content, presentation, and the many small details that only become visible when you try to ship something for real.

Steam Was Better Than Expected

I was initially hesitant about releasing on Steam.

In practice, Steam was much more pleasant than I expected. Some technical parts of Steamworks feel dated, and some of the reporting tools are awkward, but the overall release experience was solid. I learned a lot about how Steam works, how the store behaves, what the backend gives you, and what kind of data you can actually get after launch.

I still do not love the 30% cut, but I understand it more now. It is almost worth it.

The Hardest Part Was Reaching People

The hardest part was not finishing the game. It was reaching players.

The game reached roughly 250,000 impressions from Youtube, Twitch, Steam etc, around 50,000 store visits, more than 2,000 demo library adds, around 400 actual installs, and about 600 wishlists. But that still translated into only 43 sales in the first couple of months.

That gap is the real lesson.

People saw the game. Some people wishlisted it. Many added the demo. Far fewer installed it. Fewer still bought it. There’s pretty much no way to have an impact on any of this. It feels mostly random.

In retrospect what the game’s store page and videos look like feels, unfortunately, more important than whether the game is actually good.

Pretty much everyone who actually played the game liked it. The feedback has been very positive. But solitaire is a difficult genre. It does not create a lot of outside conversion. It is not naturally viral. It is not something people urgently tell their friends to buy, even if they enjoy it.

I tried a shareware-style release: the demo is essentially the full game, with no gameplay limitations, only a nag message on startup. I expected more people to try it because of that.

They did not.

In hindsight, a very low launch price might have created more traction than relying on a generous demo. A lot of people do not seem to notice that they can play the game for free, even when the Steam page says so clearly. I might still do it again for my next game, though.

I also learned that people really don’t read.

That applies to the game itself too. Star and Serpent Solitaire has quick help and detailed instructions, but many players would rather ask a person for help or even give up rather than read instructions when something is not immediately obvious. A playable tutorial might have helped. But with only around 400 installs and 44 sales, it probably would not have justified the extra time and cost.

The play times were good for the demo for the people who actually launched it and played it kept playing. It wasn’t a deal where they launched the game and stopped playing. It’s obvious the game has appeal and the problem was just getting people to play it in the first place.

Was It Worth It?

Financially, no. I lost a lot of money and I keep losing a lot of money every month.

Personally and professionally, yes, it was worth it.

I released a complete game on Steam. I marketed it. I dealt with the platform, the reporting, the store page, the demo, the launch, the patches, and the post-release reality. I learned more from shipping this than I would have learned from another unfinished prototype.

Would I do it again?

Yes. I probably would.

But next time I would plan the technical architecture much more carefully, scope the project more honestly, and think harder about whether the genre can actually convert attention into sales.

Star and Serpent Solitaire did not make money but it shipped. It found players. Some of them liked it a lot. And as a solitaire game it will likely keep selling low amounts for a very long time.

For a first full solo commercial release, that still counts as a success.