You run an electronics shop in mid-'00s Tokyo, and it's your job to meet with all kinds of oddball anime characters and repair off-brand PS1s and Polaroid cameras for them. That's the pitch for ReStory, and if that pitch has you rushing to check out this new indie game on Steam, you're not alone.
ReStory launched on August 6, and within 12 hours it had already made its budget back. That's according to Alex Nichiporchik, CEO of publisher tinyBuild, who shared some detailed stats about the game's release on Twitter.
By the day after launch, the game had grossed over $1 million, selling nearly 80,000 units. As of today, August 10, Nichiporchik says the game has reached $3 million in sales. Clearly, there's something here beyond the nostalgic pitch, as the reviews on Steam are firmly in "overwhelmingly positive" territory, with 96% of players leaving a positive rating.
ReStory is maybe my ideal cozy game, since it's all about what I try to spend most of my evenings doing: touching various old electronics. There are proper, licensed Atari consoles in here, as well as other electronics with the actual branding sanded off. You'll be fixing "Nony PlayMachines," "PMP" handhelds, "Pokia" phones, and even a few "Mapple Mypods."
Notably, ahead of the game's release, some players were looking at trailers and making accusations about AI art. "One glance at the trailer and you can see the key imagery has poorly-generated keyboards and a sticky note with scribbles on it," as one poster on the Steam forums put it.
"There are no AI-generated assets in ReStory, and there never will be any AI-generated assets in ReStory," the devs responded. "Everything in the game is created by our team of extremely talented and skilled artists who have been doing it for many years, and who simply don't need any AI to create amazing visuals."
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