Hello, guys! It is exactly one month after the Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom release and we want to share the first results with the community. As you may know we are always as transparent as possible about work and results.
The Strategic Mind games quality grows
We monitor all of your feedback and we can see that although there is still huge room for improvement the overall feedback becomes more favourable with every title. Still, we better look at some tangible criteria for more precise and unbiased results.
Median time played
Median does not mean average, it means that 50% of the players played longer than this number. Note that the average play times for later releases are likely to still grow:
Panzer Strategy
Median time played: 2 hours 16 minutes. Average time played: 23 hours 50 minutes.
Strategic Mind: The Pacific
Median time played: 2 hours 23 minutes. Average time played: 23 hours 58 minutes.
Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg
Median time played: 4 hours 49 minutes. Average time played: 49 hours 55 minutes.
Strategic Mind: Spectre of Communism
Median time played: 6 hours 6 minutes. Average time played: 37 hours 53 minutes.
Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom
Median time played: 8 hours 10 minutes - and keeps growing. Average time played: 24 hours 44 minutes.
As you can see, there is a steady growth in the median time played which is a good indication that more players now enjoy the game for a longer period of time.
Steam reviews
We should, of course, account for the smaller sample size for the more recent projects. However, if we just look at the overall numbers we will see the following picture:
Panzer Strategy
417 reviews, 65% positive*.
Strategic Mind: The Pacific
429 reviews, 76% positive*.
Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg
271 reviews, 87% positive*.
Strategic Mind: Spectre of Communism
92 reviews, 92% positive*.
Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom
37 reviews, 94% positive*.
*Only Steam purchasers’ reviews are counted. It would be even higher otherwise.
So, we can see that the Steam customers rate the games progressively better.
The Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom - not so good release
The most successful release so far was Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg. Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom got even better results in the first 12 hours - so we are grateful to our loyal community who supported us and got the game on release.
However, this time we did not get nearly as much traffic from Steam. It is decided by very complex Steam algorithms that we do not know (to exclude any bias). Here is the number of visits from the two main sources of new visitors on Steam:
Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom got 4 times less exposure on Steam despite a more successful day 1 sales.
We did what we could to promote Fight for Freedom, and the community supported us on day 1. Afterwards, we got less exposure on Steam and consequently much lower overall sales.
What the future holds
Despite this unfortunate setback, we are already working hard on the Strategic Mind: Spirit of Liberty that might become the last Strategic Mind title. We will keep you updated on our production progress, but the first maps are already playable and go through the testing process. The Spirit of Liberty will most likely be released in Q1 2022. We will keep polishing all the Strategic Mind titles and keeping them up to date.
Support our efforts by adding Strategic Mind: Spirit of Liberty to your wishlist:
Hello General! The weather is getting hotter as are the screenshots from players! Just look at all these beautiful shots from the Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom. Make sure to rate up this post to thank all of the authors for their works 👍.
To share great moments from your own playthrough with the community - add them to our community hubs or send them to our Twitter or Discord server. We will post regular news reports with the best ones.
[previewyoutube="ig9aNobQJgI;full"] Hello guys! Today, we will explain the HQ skills mechanic in general and have a look at the list of HQ skills available in Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom. We hope this video will have you to better understand how this system works, as it provides an immense advantage on the battlefield. Please, let us know what you think of the system in general and about the particular HQ skills you prefer.
About the Weekly feature series
The Strategic Mind series has a quite sophisticated set of core mechanics, some of which are a novelty for the genre, for example, the supply system. The upside is that the game has lots to explore even for seasoned wargame veterans and offers everyone a new experience. The downside is that oftentimes the players lack the time to master all the core mechanics, especially after a hard working week, when you want to spend more time with your family during the weekend.
We have decided to start a new series of short tutorial videos called Weekly feature. In this series, we will have a closer look at one core mechanic at a time. We hope that it will help the new players to grasp the game faster, and the veteran players to learn a couple of new tricks. For example, we will explain in more detail the Surrender mechanic or the damage calculation rules. It should be especially helpful to the players who are new to the wargame genre.
Watch the previous episodes of the Weekly Feature:
If the video was helpful for you - let us know in the comments here or on YouTube and leave a "like". You could also subscribe to our YouTube channel to make sure you do not miss the next episodes. Also, if you want to ask us some additional questions about the mechanics - you are most welcome!
One Day Left! Save -85% on Panzer Strategy 🎁
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General! Our ever-vigilant intelligence service has prepared a news update, for your eyes only! Here are all of our spy’s key findings.
SM: Fight for Freedom release. First results
The Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom was released 10 days ago. While it is too early to judge, we can already see the first sales results, and they are quite discouraging. We will give you a more detailed report in the next Dev Diaries issue, but so far the release was underwhelming despite our best efforts to promote the game. It seems that this time we got much less traffic from Steam, despite decent day 1 sales compared to previous titles. The game was not featured in the “New and trending” tab (unlike all the previous titles). Technically it was, but only very briefly. So, we will gather all the data and explain all of it in Dev Diaries.
At the same time, we are happy that despite the low number of players - those of you who did find the game, left mostly positive feedback. So, we are happy that most players enjoy the game and find it of good quality. It is very important for us to know your opinion. There are not many reviews for now, which makes sense looking at the sales numbers, but most of them are positive, and we hope to keep that trend, by addressing all existing issues in a timely manner.
Issues with cinematics (already fixed)
Many of you could have noticed that during the first week there were some issues with cinematics video and sound. The truth is that we could not finish and polish them properly before the planned release date, and we did not want to reschedule it, so we were trying to finish them in time for the release. Unfortunately, some of them were added last minute and there was literally no time to correct the sound for them. By next Friday we sorted out all these shortcomings.
We are sorry for these issues, and will make sure to have better planning next time and have everything ready well in advance. There were some force majeure factors at play this time, like one of our 3D artists breaking right hand and being out of commission for about 2 months and other problems. We will tell you about it in more detail in Dev Diaries, so stay tuned. Nonetheless, we totally understand that the players should always receive the final and polished product, and no force majeure factors should affect that. That is why we will take a more measured approach next time, which will probably delay the release, but ensure that everything is in order.
New Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom videos on YouTube
We keep an eye on all new videos on YouTube that feature Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom. We can recommend these two channels as they seem to have done quite a good overview of the game. We will keep you informed of the new high-quality YouTube coverage of the game.
First look by thehistoricalgamer (UK campaign): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FudpyspTpM Normandy landings by Bruchminati (US campaign): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuAFT6xmLD8
Last week recap
D-Day is Upon Us! Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom OUT NOW!
Hello General! How was your week? For us, it was very hectic. We will tell you about the Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom launch in more detail in one of the next Developers' Dairies.
Today to celebrate one week after the release, we share with you the first Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom community screenshots uploaded to the community hub by the players.
Make sure to rate up this post to thank all of the authors for their works 👍.
To share great moments from your own playthrough with the community - add them to our community hubs or send them to our Twitter or Discord server. We will post regular news reports with the best ones.
🔴 Watch the Developer's Gameplay #11: | Market Garden | Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom
[previewyoutube="QvI9qqrHcUk;full"] Hello, guys! This is the 11th episode of the Developer's gameplay series by our team and it features the Market Garden scenario from the recently released Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom game. In this episode, we will try to reach our paratroopers on time, while they still manage to hold the strategic bridges. If you are struggling with this scenario, it could be a good idea to see this playthrough and learn a couple of new tricks for your forces.
Additionally, over the next few days, we will be broadcasting the playthrough of both second operations - the US and the UK one - on Steam. So, if you want to watch us playing through the Norwegian campaign and Operation Market Garden - you can jump in on our stream broadcasted directly to the Steam Store page here:
This is a Developer’s gameplay series by Starni Games. In these episodes the Lead game designer of the Strategic Mind series Oleksandr plays our games with the commentary, explaining the game mechanics and telling you more about the game development process.
🔴 Watch the Developer's Gameplay #10: | Norwegian Campaign | Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom
[previewyoutube="OawT4f65geQ;full"] Hello, guys! This is the tenth episode of the Developer's gameplay series by our team and it features the Norwegian Campaign scenario from the recently released Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom game. In this episode, we will explain all the mechanics necessary for a successful landing operation. We highly recommend watching this playthrough if you are struggling with the Norwegian campaign scenario.
About the Developer’s gameplay series
This is a Developer’s gameplay series by Starni Games. In these episodes the Lead game designer of the Strategic Mind series Oleksandr plays our games with the commentary, explaining the game mechanics and telling you more about the game development process.
D-Day is Upon Us! Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom OUT NOW!
Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom is finally released! 🎉
Here is our new cinematic trailer for you to enjoy:
[previewyoutube="Z0vMUmGDHio;full"] Our dev team is both happy and exhausted as we were working really hard to deliver you the best game we could. We hope that you can share this great day with our team and jump in to our Discord channel to share your thoughts and first impressions.
You can also get the Strategic Mind Complete Collection bundle to save 20% on all our titles. So, if you are missing only the Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom in your collection you can get a nice flat 20% off here:
We consider this bundle to be a form of loyalty discount - the veteran players get a 20% off bonus right at the release. Note, that it might take Steam 10-15 minutes after release to add the Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom into the bundle. If you do not see the game there - just check back on it in 10 minutes.
If you require any help or advice you can always reach out to us via a variety of ways:
