Hello again!

It’s Riris again! Hope you’re not bored of me yet, hehehe... This time, I’ll be sharing why GameChanger Studio, which usually collaborates with publishers, chose to self-publish this time. And what lessons did we learn from that choice, both positive and negative?

The most honest answer is that I was inspired by my frequent chats with Mas Imron from Digital Happiness, the creators of the Dreadout game series. Everything he said really stuck in my head, and I had a strong intention to follow in his footsteps. The other reason, of course, is based on long thought and research that had to be poured into a strategic game development plan.

The main factor was the target market for 1998: The Toll Keeper Story (hereinafter referred to as 1998). With such a specific theme and premise, I had set and prioritized the Indonesian market/gamers from the very beginning. Unfortunately, I couldn't find valid data on the number of PC/Console gamers specifically in Indonesia. So, I could only rely on asking game developers here and there, whose data obviously isn't valid to be presented here.

After racking my brain, I finally tried digging into paid data on Gamalytic*, but unfortunately, only 3 games with local themes had data on the percentage of the Indonesian market, as shown in the table below:

*Estimated data taken from gamalytic in January 2025

This figure naturally became the sales target for creating promotion and marketing strategies in the local market. Regarding this, Dodick has already explained it in this link. The indicator that can be used to achieve that sales target is through wishlists. The image below shows the wishlist position until just before release.

After almost a month since release, below is the sales data for 1998 by country:

Now, here is the "meaty" part regarding what strategies GameChanger Studio undertook to achieve the percentage figures above?

1) MASS MEDIA!!!

No need to explain what mass media is... The point is, you have to be diligent in making Press Releases (let's just call them PR) and sending them to media friends. I understand very well that this is still rarely done by Indonesian game studios. First, the content of the PR must be clear regarding the 5W1H (What, Who, When, Where, Why, How). This link[drive.google.com] is an example of the first PR we sent to the media. This is the main weapon for publishers in promoting games, besides participating in online/offline events.

After that, we continued to send PRs whenever there was new information during game development until the game was released.

Regarding mass media, if possible, also conduct a MEDIA PREVIEW. This is a special event inviting a number of media outlets to play the beta version of the game and get criticism and suggestions to polish our game. The mandatory thing to prepare is a media kit containing exclusive merchandise and simple snacks. Not hard, right... :D

(2) SHOWCASE!!!Players are the main subject for our game. Seeing, observing, and noting them playing our game can only be done if we participate in showcases or B2C events! Follow various social media accounts, KOLs, and event organizers related to games to get information about this. Choose the one most suitable for our game's target players and try to budget according to our capabilities.

Prepare as much stamina as possible, an eye-catching table display, mini-game activities with prizes, and always take the time to chat with our game players. This part seems to be what will drain our energy and communication skills. But, believe me, this part will be very influential in increasing our game's wishlist!

3) FINISHED GAME!!!

For this part, of course, I will directly take the example of the game 1998. The word 'good' in this section means the game must continue to progress from features to assets. 1998 was developed in less than a year with a core team of 9 people, 6 interns, and 3 freelancers. The first demo version released in July 2025 only contained the first five days (out of a total of 15 days) in the game. Playable features were at 30%.

The second demo at Steam Next Fest in October still contained the first five days, playable features at 50% (although in development it was already 90% complete), more polished visual art, a much more immersive UI, and a more solid story. Well, finally on October 28, 2025, four months after the first demo version was released, the game 1998 was released on Steam and Playstore (as requested by Indonesian players)!

Timing is the 'big enemy' that developers must defeat to finish their game. The weapons we had were experience, knowledge, and connections to various parties to be able to keep working on the game and other things related to promotion/marketing, building a community, and still being able to enjoy holidays or weekends.

4) GAME DIRECTOR

Another important thing that friends also need to know is the role of the game director, who must be able to orchestrate all parties (inside/outside the studio), manage pipelines that have deadlines, listen carefully to various criticisms/suggestions (inside/outside the studio), and the most difficult part is setting aside ego to still be able to think logically in critical moments.

Various strategic decisions must be made in a short time that can have good or bad impacts. I experienced this when deciding not to take offers from several publishers. So far, we have only collaborated with CC_Games to publish 1998 in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The results can be seen in the sales image above.

The main weapon I possessed as a first-time game director/narrative designer/writer was humility... to keep trying. Trying to invite Pladidus Santoso, Faza Meonk, and Ruth Christina for collaboration. Trying to make a game with a sensitive theme. Trying organic promotion/marketing. Trying to make a proper press release. Trying to do all the things that publishers usually do.

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: This devlog discusses the narrative structure, mechanics, and potential plot outcomes of the game. If you wish to experience the story without knowing these details, please read at your own discretion.

Hello Everyone!

I’m Riris. For the first time ever, I fully handled the narrative design and wrote the story/dialogue for 1998: The Toll Keeper Story (hereinafter referred to as 1998), alongside Plad, of course. 1998 is a narrative-based simulation game, meaning the story concocted within the game directly influences the gameplay. 

In designing the story or narrative of 1998, we used a linear narrative structure where the sequence of dispersed events will branch into different endings, yet still remain within one main story thread.

MAIN CHARACTER

To support the narrative structure mentioned above, I had to strongly define the personalization of each character. From demographics, traits, costumes, and facial expressions, to the type of job each recurring character has in this game. Everything has a meaning related to the narrative and the gameplay.

The main character, Dewi, is defined as a woman in late pregnancy. A pregnant woman has different daily needs compared to a non-pregnant woman. From food, vitamin intake, and milk, to an environment that supports her psychological condition. Everything needs to be of higher quality and sufficient quantity.

Dewi's job as a toll keeper requires concentration, precision, communication, and the ability to understand the diverse ‘conditions’ of every driver passing through amidst a chaotic national situation. I attempted to design a narrative structure linked to the main character's persona in great detail across various aspects of the gameplay

Besides matters related to mechanics or game progression, I also had to design a narrative that influences player emotions. Some of the things I implemented are:

1. Events conditioned to provide dilemmatic choices. For example, the player must choose whether or not to let a driver suspected of human trafficking pass. The choice taken by the player won't impact their money status, but it will affect the ‘Newspaper Headlines’. This makes the player feel as if they ‘have’ the power to change the world situation and feel satisfaction (or disappointment) in their choice.

2. Covering a driver's shortage WITHOUT getting money back, but receiving items instead, like lunch, rice, milk, etc. This choice is narratively expected to provide player satisfaction (or again, disappointment) that isn't measured solely by money.

I think that’s all I want to share regarding the narrative design of 1998 for now. Next time, I will share more about how we concocted the narratives for several recurring characters in this game. Thank you for taking the time to read my devlog entry, and ciao!!

Hello Everyone! 

I’m Anas, the main programmer for 1998 : The Toll Keeper Story. I want to share a bit the journey of development on the tech side.

We define some principles, rules and fundamentals that must be followed, on development of the game for the clearer the tech implementation workflow. The main principles for every implementation tech in 1998 are “Easy to Change”, “Everyone can be set it up” and “Mix & Match”. 

The reason for that principle is the time constraint and rapid implementation in the early stages of development. Also because this project mainly only has 1 main programmer and 2 other programmers until the middle of development. With those principles, it helps a lot to reduce workload on the programmers side and accelerate the development process. Even if the tradeoff is a bit hard when checking bugs and the project contains so many setting assets.

The “Easy to Change” principle means implementation should be easy to adapt with the design that can be changed. If possible when changes happened, the programmer didn’t change the code, just change the setup on the engine. 

But sometimes when changes are too big, we as programmers need to change the code in the minimal way to handle those changes. 

With these principles, we can easily change the implementation of the cashier window in the game with the minimal effort and time.

The “Everyone can be set it up” principle means implementation can be edited and set up by other developer roles. This principle allows other developer roles to directly edit and set up the content on the game as long as the system of the implementation has been built.

Sometimes we need to create editor tools to help other roles when adding content on the project. Adding dialog, Setting up driver on day, Creating conditional game events (e.g football player newspaper, hospital mom) and Setting environment progression (including rain effect) are the examples how these principles help us on the development. 

The last principle, “Mix & Match”, means the implementation should be easy to mix and match or combine with other implementations. These principles force us to think about creating implementation that can be reused on the other implementation if needed. The core point of this principle is the system should be easy when adding / removing in the other implementations.

Moving cash between panels is the best example of this principle.

Beside the principles, we created some interesting features. UV Flash Light & Hologram effects is the most interesting feature. We need to create a custom shader to handle that. It was so challenging but the result is so satisfying. If you are interested in the process of creating that, you can see it on our social media.

Implementation of the cat on the toll booth is the most loveable process. Because whenever I need to test that feature, I pet the cat and the sound of the cat makes me feel good. The implementation is easy, but the process is so lovely.

The implementation of game 1998 : The Toll Keeper Story is a collaborative team effort. Without that collaborative team effort, I don’t think we can finish the implementation with all principles and struggles. 

Thank you for reading the journey~

Hello everyone!

You can now customize your Steam Profile with 1998: The Toll Keeper Story!

Our full set of Steam Community Items is officially available. Here’s how it works:

1. Play the Game: Get Steam Trading Cards (featuring characters from 1998) as random drops while you play.

2. Collect the Set: Trade with friends or use the Steam Community Market to find all the cards in the set.

3. Craft a Badge: Crafting a badge from your full set will reward you with:

   • A craftable Badge to show off on your profile.

   • A random Profile Background.

   • A random Emote.

What are you waiting for? Collect them all!

Hey everyone!

We're pushing a small QoL update today regarding item interactables and save files.

Here's the list of changes that we hope will improve your experience:

• Make the bills on the cash register & UV lights immediately draggable.

• Add another auto-save point in the game: Adding to the daily save (every morning), the auto-save is now also triggered when Dewi's shift is over (every evening).

• Add more save slots (up to 30).

We saw that some players' initial reaction when interacting with the UV lights and the cash register is to drag them immediately, only to fail to do so in the previous version. Bills on the cash register & the UV lights are now immediately draggable.

Previously, the auto-save only triggered on each new day (in the morning). We saw that some players were taking a break after finishing the diary (before the auto-save is triggered), which caused them to lose their progress. We add another save point to prevent this from happening again. We also add more save slots (ex, the behavior is closer to checkpoints) to accommodate the double save point and also for you to be able to load further save points.

Bug Fixes

• Fix some localization

• Fix a bug that causes the music volume to be unbalanced

We're continuing to monitor all feedback and bug reports. Thank you for playing 1998: The Toll Keeper Story!

In this Devlog, Roderick (Game Designer) and Ruth (Composer) are going to talk about the audio development in 1998: The Toll Keeper Story

Hello!

I’m Roderick, and I want to share a bit of the process behind the making of the Sound and Music in 1998: The Toll Keeper Story.

The ideas in designing the audio of this game start with the job of a toll-keeper itself, which looks mundane and monotonous. So, only have a sideroad ambience as the main background is what we decided. This idea goes along quite well with our SFX and UI concept to give unique vintage sounds to each interaction in the game.

Then we have the idea to add a radio in the game. At first, this radio will be the main world-building media for the game as we planned to add several breaking news to be played on the radio. Unfortunately, in our test sessions, we found it was very easy for testers to miss out the contents of the news, and it also felt too disruptive to the gameplay. With this, we go back to newspapers to be the main media for world-building in this game.

So for now, the radio only serves as a music player to accompany Dewi as she goes through her day in the booth. Although nearing the final phase of the game development, there was an idea to make this radio feel more alive, but sadly, there was not enough time for us to implement it. But I hope we can add this idea in one of the future updates.

As for making the music, I was working with multiple incredible artists and composers who successfully brought the uniqueness of Indonesia’s late 90s music to this game, both on the radio music and also the VN-style BGM for the night session. It was very fun making the music for this game, since the main references are music I grew up with: Indonesian 90s hits.

To share more about the music in this game, Ruth will share her story of composing the amazing cinematic scene.

Hi everyone!

I’m Ruth, one of the music composers for 1998: The Toll Keeper Story.

I was entrusted with writing the music for Cinematic Day 15 and the cinematic ending of the game. At first, I was very honored, but also totally freaking out since I had to depict and embody the historical tragedy of 1998 through my music. On top of that, it was a challenging task because the music had to help conclude the game and hopefully deliver its message to the players.

During the writing process, I spent about 50% of my time watching documentaries and reading articles about the 1998 incident. Since I wasn’t born yet when it happened, I wanted to make sure I had an accurate understanding of what took place. That research enabled me to write music that could effectively convey the story and the inspiration behind this game.

For the cinematic happy ending, I think that was the hardest one to write compared to the others. I needed to show how the character has moved on from the past, while also capturing the fact that the memories and pain don’t just fade away easily. The pain might linger or gradually recede with time, but I personally believe that through Dewi’s eyes, there’s a better future ahead.

To portray such humanity and loss, I decided to use organic elements, such as breathing sounds and vocals incorporated in the music. From those core elements, I expanded the idea by incorporating orchestral instruments mixed with electronic/synth elements to create a deeper ambience for the audience to step into Dewi’s world.

That’s all I have to share about my process of composing the music for the cinematics. Hopefully, this gives you a glimpse into the thought process behind it. Most of all, I hope the players can feel the range of emotions I aimed to convey through the collaboration of storytelling, gameplay, animation, and music.

Thanks!.

Hello everyone!

I'm Dodick Zulaimi Sudirman, COO of GameChanger Studio. In 1998: The Toll Keeper Story, I mainly supported Riris on marketing the game.

This time, I want to share the story behind how we approached the marketing for a game as sensitive and personal as 1998: The Toll Keeper Story. Marketing this game wasn't just about showing off features. It was about building a community and carefully communicating a difficult theme.

Long before our main launch push, we had to find the right voice for the game. Our social media plan for April and May was built on a two-pronged strategy. First, we focused on community engagement, asking our followers direct questions like, "What's the scariest moment you've faced during a crisis?". Second, we started building the world of Janapa, piece by piece.

On April 30th, I sent out the first press release to our media list. The response was immediate and overwhelming. By May 2nd, the posts were live, and coverage began to flood in from local media like The Lazy Media, GGWP.ID, Diorama.id, KotakGame, and Duniaku. Soon after, Tempo (local and English), Detik, and even international outlets from China, Russia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Brazil picked up the story.

The results were explosive.

• One of our Instagram reels hit 1.3 million views.

• Our Instagram followers shot past 5,000.

• Most importantly, our Steam Wishlists skyrocketed. Riris had set a target for the end of May, and we hit 3,832 wishlists by May 19th—almost double our goal.

This initial data was crucial. We saw that our posts performed best on weekends, so I immediately adjusted our social media schedule to post three times a week: Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday.

After that initial boom, we knew we had to scale up. In early June, Kamila joined to focus on marketing. Our first major beat together was our studio's 12th anniversary later that month. We knew we had to make it special. 

Riris along with the team, decided to structure the announcement around two key pillars which are a major collaboration reveal where Si Juki would be a recurring cameo driver in the game and fans appreciation by hosting a giveaway with Steam Keys to thank our "Changer Fans" for their long-time support.

We needed a central hub for our players. Our goal, as Riris set it, was to grow our new public GameChanger Studio Discord server to 300 members before the Steam Next Fest demo in October.

To do this, we started planning weekly events and digital activities. We decided to stream our games on the Discord server, including the latest 1998 demo. We also launched competitions, such as a propaganda flyer design contest and a "Letters for Dewi" event.

Beyond digital events, we also planned in-person activities. Yosi, our UI artist, came up with a great idea for our booth at Indonesia Game Week (IGW): a "Lomba Dekorasi Diary Dewi" (Dewi's Diary Decoration Contest), where visitors could design a diary page and win prizes.

Riris planned our posts in weekly themes, focusing on the why behind the game. We didn't just want to show gameplay; we wanted to build the world of Janapa. For example:

• We posted the in-game headlines to explain why the students were protesting.

• We shared assets of in-game propaganda flyers, explaining that in 1998, these were the "social media" for both sides.

• We posted the "Demokrasi Mati" (Democracy is Dead) graffiti, showing how the city itself was reacting to the crisis.

As we got closer to our October 28th launch, our strategy shifted to press outreach and final preparations.

• Press Keys: We decided to send the full-game Steam Keys to local and SEA media around October 10th-13th. This was before the public demo, giving them plenty of time to play and write their reviews under embargo. 

• International Outreach: We got support reaching audiences outside of Indonesia and Southeast Asia from our PR partner. We also had a regional publishing collaboration with CC Games for China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao.

Launch day, October 28th, arrived. The first reviews hit, like Screen Hype and Kakuchopurei. Both reviews became a huge morale boost. One by one, more reviewers posted their reviews on their sites.

During the week of the game's launch, we were glued to our screens watching YouTubers and VTubers pick up the game. It began with channels like Wendika and Christopher Devin. Then Droomp posted his video, getting frustrated trying to find all the endings. 

Then, the big one came, Windah Basudara. The whole team was watching. This was followed by Eno Bening and PokoPow. The community engagement was massive, with players like Snake9 and Christopher Devin actively hunting for the "Best Ending."

The results on Steam were immediate. We hit 50 reviews and a "Very Positive" rating by October 30th, and just two days later, we passed 100 reviews. Our mobile launch was also a huge success, hitting the Top 5 in the "Top Paid (New)" chart.

Marketing 1998 has been a journey of its own. It was a massive team effort, from Riris's high-level strategy to the entire team's active participation.

This devlog series itself is part of that effort. As we were navigating the launch, the rest of the team was already busy writing the devlogs on different aspects of the development. Thank you for reading and for following our journey.

Hello everyone!

I’m Yosi, the UI Artist for 1998 : The Toll Keeper Story. After highlighting the visual art on the aspect of characters, environments and animations,we'd like to show you how we design the user interfaces,  which players will interact the most while playing the game.

The keywords for designing the UI in 1998 are "Vintage" and "Analog," meaning that the UI needed to have the old aesthetic of a 90s office desk. This is reflected in the color palettes being mostly brown and in the analog sound effects, like the sound of an old mechanical keyboard or the sound of a receipt printer

Even though brown was the dominant color palette, we make use of more contrasting colors to highlight important elements inside the UI, like the color red for inspecting, reporting, rejecting drivers, The colorful variations of money and green to let the cars through.

Immersion was also a major factor when designing the UI. We want players to feel as if they’re working inside the toll booth, even while role-playing as Dewi. 

To simulate Dewi’s daily work of handling multiple tasks at once, we made the multiple rules and guide papers floating windows that the player needs to organize on one screen, immersing them in the hectic work-life of a toll keeper. This was a risky move because it could overwhelm the player with information. To handle this, some windows close automatically. For example, the rule page closes itself after an inspection (we assume the player won’t check the rules again after inspecting a vehicle). This mechanic greatly reduces the clutter on the screen.

Another way we increased immersion was by changing the UV light. In earlier iterations, pressing a button would reveal all fake bills instantly. This made counterfeit bill checking too easy and had little impact on the player. With that in mind, we overhauled the UV light, making it a cursor with a smaller light radius that the player must physically pick up and shine on each bill individually. This increases player satisfaction when they discover a counterfeit bill and, in turn, increases immersion.

The UI also serves as a way to tell the story and build the world through the newspaper. We designed it by referencing old 90s Indonesian newspapers, adopting their color palette, fixed-column layouts (to fit old printers), and how pictures and illustrations were styled. We wanted the newspaper to feel as authentic as possible but still quickly deliver information to players.
To streamline the information, we only highlight the headlines, using scribble-square fonts as a placeholder for the detailed news articles.

In some cases, we also needed to consider the player's quality of life, sacrificing some immersion so that the player could enjoy the game long-term.

A simple case is how we denominated the money values to single and double digits (5 and 10) to make in-game counting easier, even though our reference, Indonesian bills, is in the thousands.
For bigger changes one example is the gate opening button , it previously was a slider. A slider should have the effect of direct player movement affecting the game world; however, in testing, the slider was a hassle to play with because of its small size and it became tedious after 10 in-game days of sliding the same lever. Finally, we decided to make the gate opening button a "hold" action instead, and it's also upgradeable later in the game to make it open faster and with a hotkey.

One revamp we also did was the cash register window. Previously, it was a full-screen view that visualized Dewi’s office desk and the cash register in detail. After testing, we found that some players also wanted to view the conversation with the passing drivers. To fix this, we changed the cash register view to a 1/3-screen view that slides up from the bottom. This solution solved the problem while maintaining the immersion and flow of gameplay.

All this big revamps was only a small glimpse of change we made, there’s also a lot of back and forth for simpler elements because how rapidly we test the game and iterate it. All buttons have gone through color, shape and position changes because of this. Some buttons just felt too far apart or could cause misclicks because of its position, that's why we have to change them several times. but it is for the sake of a better quality product. 

With that, we conclude the Devlog behind User Interface and visual arts of 1998 The Toll Keeper Story. Achieving the quality that we put in the game was no small feat, compromises have to be made so that we may deliver a visually great game that tells a very personal story while immersing the player into the world of Janapa.

Hey everyone!

We're pushing out another hotfix today to address some major issues you've reported. Thank you for your patience and your bug reports; they really helped us track these down!

Hotfix V1.0.6 - 6 November 2025

• Prevent toll income from having a negative value

• Fix a bug that causes a penalty when giving the right amount of change

• Fix a bug where some events are not triggered if the dialog is skipped

• Fix a bug that causes newer save files to fail to overwrite older save files.

• Handle render texture fallback on some devices.

• Fix some localization

• Fix a bug that sometimes causes the game to break when rejecting/reporting a driver.

We're continuing to monitor all feedback and bug reports. Thank you for playing 1998: The Toll Keeper Story!