Game Oracle v3.4 is Live: Introducing Concept Compass & Bundle Builder

Today, we're shipping Game Oracle v3.4, and it’s a big one for us. This update introduces two new tools that we’ve been working on for a while: Concept Compass and Bundle Builder. With their release, we’ve officially built out the original vision we had for the platform when we first started this journey.

From the beginning, our goal has been to build the tools we wish we had as developers. This release is a huge step toward that, tackling two of the hardest problems we've faced: figuring out if a new game idea has legs and finding ways to get an existing game in front of more players.

Here’s a look at what we’ve built.

Sorting Through Ideas with Concept Compass

Every developer has a folder of half-baked ideas and "what if?" concepts. The hardest part is knowing which one to commit to. We built Concept Compass to help with that exact problem — it's a tool designed to bring some clarity to the chaotic process of choosing your next project.

We wanted to create a space where you could quickly dump a game idea. With just a few paragraphs about the gameplay, narrative, and general vibe you get some immediate, objective feedback. Here's how it works:

• Finding Your Neighbours: First, we scan our map of Steam to find games that are similar to your concept. It’s not just about tags; we look at the whole picture to find your closest competitors and potential inspirations.

• Grounding Expectations: Based on those similar games, we pull together some performance data. This isn't a magic eight-ball, but it gives you a realistic baseline for things like wishlists, sales, and pricing. It's about setting reasonable goals from the start.

• Scoping Out the Work: We also highlight potential technical hurdles and resource needs. For example, if you're planning a networked multiplayer game, we'll flag the complexities involved. The tool also suggests keywords for finding tutorials or assets to help you get started.

• Kickstarting the Pitch: Finally, we generate a draft of a Steam short description and suggest relevant tags. It's a small thing, but having a starting point for your store page can be a big help.

We've been using this internally to test our own crazy ideas, and it's been invaluable for quickly sorting the promising concepts from the non-starters. We hope it helps you do the same.

Building Bridges with Bundle Builder

Once you've launched a game, the work isn't over. One of the best ways we’ve found to keep a game’s momentum going is by collaborating with other developers on Steam bundles. But finding the right partners can be a pain. Endless scrolling through Steam, trying to find contact info, and sending cold emails into the void, all of this can be a barrier to just getting the ball rolling.

Bundle Builder is our attempt to make that process a lot less painful:

• Finding Your People: You start by picking your game, and the tool finds other titles on Steam that are a good fit. It looks for similarities in gameplay, theme, and audience.

• Focusing on Action: We then filter that list to only show games from developers who have public contact info, like a social media profile or website. This way, you're not wasting time on developers who are hard to reach. You can also filter by a developer's estimated revenue to find studios of a similar size, or by SteamDB score to ensure you're partnering with quality titles.
• Making Outreach Easy: Once you've selected a few potential partners, you can download a spreadsheet with their contact details. It’s a simple feature, but it makes organizing your outreach much easier.

We believe that indie developers are stronger together. Bundle Builder is our small contribution to helping foster those collaborations and turning potential competitors into valuable partners.

A Few Fixes and Polishes

This release also includes a few bug fixes that have been on our list:

• We fixed a rendering bug on Saturation Maps where old search results would sometimes stick around after being cleared.

• We squashed a nasty bug in Data Explorer that was causing the game description search to fail. We’ve added more tests to our pipeline to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

• The release date filter was behaving unexpectedly across a few tools, and that should now be working as intended.

What's next

With v3.4, the core feature set we originally dreamed of for Game Oracle is now in place. We're going to take a moment to breathe, but we're far from finished. Our focus now will be on refining these tools, improving our data, and listening to your feedback.

Thanks for coming on this journey with us. We can't wait to see what you build.