A letter from the solo developer of DeadPoly

[DeadPoly]

Hey everyone,

First and foremost, I would like to thank every single person who has helped DeadPoly get to where it is today; whether by playing the game, making videos about DeadPoly, hanging out in the Discord, and especially those who have gone out of their way to submit bug reports, feature requests, and taken part in voting for features and additions. It means more to me than I could ever convey.

As we head in to the Early Access stage on Steam, I'd like to be as transparent as possible with a couple of things. As many of you know, I am a solo developer with a full time job and a family. It just wouldn't be feasible for me to develop DeadPoly from scratch. I'm using Synty Studio models, and an Unreal Engine asset called SGK v2, which is a great starting point for any survival game. The term 'asset flip' gets thrown around A LOT these days, and we all know why. Personally, I get it, because I've tried those games where you know very quickly that essentially no love has gone in to a project beyond just making something people can buy as fast as possible. If that was idea behind DeadPoly, I've failed. Hard.

There is so, so much more I want to add to DeadPoly over the course of Early Access before I would consider it ready for full release. Multiple MUCH larger maps, questing, leveling, skill progressions, in depth gun customization, character profiling, all kinds of stuff!

DeadPoly is my passion project; it's the game I've been wanting to play for years and got tired of waiting for someone else to make it. I'm excited to take this next step in the journey of DeadPoly with all of you, and look forward to any and all feedback.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and if you decide to give DeadPoly a try, thanks for playing my game,
Kamron

[DeadPoly]

V1NALDO님이 먼저 게시:

What is your development experience? Is it only you working on this project? Will it really go past asset copy and paste stage, meaning do you really have the capabilites to implement questing and more? or will this project drop off after you can no longer put in plugins. just the deciding factor for purchasing

I’m just a hobby developer, this is my first released game and I’m currently solo. I am working on getting a studio started and hiring people to continue pushing the game forward beyond what I am currently capable of.

As far as the inference that the entire game is plugin based; that’s not true. There is a lot of custom code and functionality already in the game, and more and more are being added all the time.

[V1NALDO]

DeadPoly님이 먼저 게시:

V1NALDO님이 먼저 게시:

What is your development experience? Is it only you working on this project? Will it really go past asset copy and paste stage, meaning do you really have the capabilites to implement questing and more? or will this project drop off after you can no longer put in plugins. just the deciding factor for purchasing

I’m just a hobby developer, this is my first released game and I’m currently solo. I am working on getting a studio started and hiring people to continue pushing the game forward beyond what I am currently capable of.

As far as the inference that the entire game is plugin based; that’s not true. There is a lot of custom code and functionality already in the game, and more and more are being added all the time.

Thanks for the response and I apologize for my arrogance. I think I may end up checking out the game to support and see where it goes.

[Noxsa]

always nice to see people do what i wanted to do but never had the "ballz" to actually do. making a game that is. i made one attempt a long time ago, because i did not wanted to get addicted to a type of slots machien, i programed my own :) beond that i never really do anything. ehnuff story telling, i'v bought this game just to suport you as a single dev, i hope i did not trust the wrong person to keep working and actually finishing this project.

please make a character creator (its a suggestion, not a demand), i'm not so keen on random gen player ^^ (no rush, take your time to do it correct)
also i'v seen a other game popup on steam, that uses the same assets, uses the same idea, UI and, well they are using "raiders" instead of zombies, you may have unfair competition.
i'll edit this post if i find the name of that game again.

[DeadPoly]

Noxsa님이 먼저 게시:

always nice to see people do what i wanted to do but never had the "ballz" to actually do. making a game that is. i made one attempt a long time ago, because i did not wanted to get addicted to a type of slots machien, i programed my own :) beond that i never really do anything. ehnuff story telling, i'v bought this game just to suport you as a single dev, i hope i did not trust the wrong person to keep working and actually finishing this project.

please make a character creator (its a suggestion, not a demand), i'm not so keen on random gen player ^^ (no rush, take your time to do it correct)
also i'v seen a other game popup on steam, that uses the same assets, uses the same idea, UI and, well they are using "raiders" instead of zombies, you may have unfair competition.
i'll edit this post if i find the name of that game again.

Character customization is definitely on the way. For now, you can press O to change your character randomly. Not perfect but better than the same character on everyone / not being able to change anything haha.

I believe you’re referring to Stolen City.

[Noxsa]

yes stolen city, that's the one. correct name if you ask me in every aspect. makes me so mad that people stoop so low as to carbon copy someones work for 99%

[BigBad Wolf]

DeadPoly님이 먼저 게시:

Hey everyone,

First and foremost, I would like to thank every single person who has helped DeadPoly get to where it is today; whether by playing the game, making videos about DeadPoly, hanging out in the Discord, and especially those who have gone out of their way to submit bug reports, feature requests, and taken part in voting for features and additions. It means more to me than I could ever convey.

As we head in to the Early Access stage on Steam, I'd like to be as transparent as possible with a couple of things. As many of you know, I am a solo developer with a full time job and a family. It just wouldn't be feasible for me to develop DeadPoly from scratch. I'm using Synty Studio models, and an Unreal Engine asset called SGK v2, which is a great starting point for any survival game. The term 'asset flip' gets thrown around A LOT these days, and we all know why. Personally, I get it, because I've tried those games where you know very quickly that essentially no love has gone in to a project beyond just making something people can buy as fast as possible. If that was idea behind DeadPoly, I've failed. Hard.

There is so, so much more I want to add to DeadPoly over the course of Early Access before I would consider it ready for full release. Multiple MUCH larger maps, questing, leveling, skill progressions, in depth gun customization, character profiling, all kinds of stuff!

DeadPoly is my passion project; it's the game I've been wanting to play for years and got tired of waiting for someone else to make it. I'm excited to take this next step in the journey of DeadPoly with all of you, and look forward to any and all feedback.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and if you decide to give DeadPoly a try, thanks for playing my game,
Kamron

I'm in no rush take your time and continue creating your dream. Their will always be those who hate, criticize and live off of negativity.

[Noxsa]

BigBad Wolf님이 먼저 게시:

DeadPoly님이 먼저 게시:

Hey everyone,

First and foremost, I would like to thank every single person who has helped DeadPoly get to where it is today; whether by playing the game, making videos about DeadPoly, hanging out in the Discord, and especially those who have gone out of their way to submit bug reports, feature requests, and taken part in voting for features and additions. It means more to me than I could ever convey.

As we head in to the Early Access stage on Steam, I'd like to be as transparent as possible with a couple of things. As many of you know, I am a solo developer with a full time job and a family. It just wouldn't be feasible for me to develop DeadPoly from scratch. I'm using Synty Studio models, and an Unreal Engine asset called SGK v2, which is a great starting point for any survival game. The term 'asset flip' gets thrown around A LOT these days, and we all know why. Personally, I get it, because I've tried those games where you know very quickly that essentially no love has gone in to a project beyond just making something people can buy as fast as possible. If that was idea behind DeadPoly, I've failed. Hard.

There is so, so much more I want to add to DeadPoly over the course of Early Access before I would consider it ready for full release. Multiple MUCH larger maps, questing, leveling, skill progressions, in depth gun customization, character profiling, all kinds of stuff!

DeadPoly is my passion project; it's the game I've been wanting to play for years and got tired of waiting for someone else to make it. I'm excited to take this next step in the journey of DeadPoly with all of you, and look forward to any and all feedback.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and if you decide to give DeadPoly a try, thanks for playing my game,
Kamron

I'm in no rush take your time and continue creating your dream. Their will always be those who hate, criticize and live off of negativity.

yea same, i bought it to suport this dev, i played for a bit BUT i'm not going to keep playing, i'm waiting till its more finished and i'm in no rush, well kinda i'm old for a gamer standard =D i would like to see it completed before i die lol, but i'v got some ways to go "if god willing ofc who knows i may drop dead any second" ** looks around scared **

[Donoghu]

As another indie dev who works with Synty Studio's models, I can congrats you (DeadPoly) on even reaching an Early Access release point.

One of the biggest thing about the Synty Studio's POLYGON style sets that nobody who haven't worked with them will mostly never know is that the assets are NOT release-ready or, at least, lacks so much that they are barely a starting point.

They don't have sounds, animations, effects nor any codes. They are basically rigged characters (no animation or behavior or AI codes at all) + environments and even as 3D models assets, they are highly imperfect and, in some cases, even broken. Their environment are, for the most part, not even optimized, except for their single-texture color swatch style layout.

Except for their fantasy heroes set (which cost a couple of hundreds of dollars at full price), all of their characters set lacks proper customization setup which explains why not many people are release any game in their style with advanced visual changes on the character (except color as... those are easy to do). I'm not even pointing out how their models are, sometimes, not even modeled properly. 98% of the UVS of their models are simply not done as they are just unstiched into bundle thrown onto the previously mentioned color swatches on the texture.

Those who shout about asset flips with the Synty Studio's assets pack ignore not only the work required to make it even work, but also the fact that those assets aren't free either. Obviously, they don't cost the same as if you were to pay a bunch of 3D artists into making them yourself (that's the point of assets stores), but most of their sets comes in the hundreds of dollars per set with nothing in them except models.

So, yeah, whenever I see a project that uses Synty Studio's assets, I'm just happy that someone made something out of that static mess. ;)

[DeadPoly]

Donoghu님이 먼저 게시:

As another indie dev who works with Synty Studio's models, I can congrats you (DeadPoly) on even reaching an Early Access release point.

One of the biggest thing about the Synty Studio's POLYGON style sets that nobody who haven't worked with them will mostly never know is that the assets are NOT release-ready or, at least, lacks so much that they are barely a starting point.

They don't have sounds, animations, effects nor any codes. They are basically rigged characters (no animation or behavior or AI codes at all) + environments and even as 3D models assets, they are highly imperfect and, in some cases, even broken. Their environment are, for the most part, not even optimized, except for their single-texture color swatch style layout.

Except for their fantasy heroes set (which cost a couple of hundreds of dollars at full price), all of their characters set lacks proper customization setup which explains why not many people are release any game in their style with advanced visual changes on the character (except color as... those are easy to do). I'm not even pointing out how their models are, sometimes, not even modeled properly. 98% of the UVS of their models are simply not done as they are just unstiched into bundle thrown onto the previously mentioned color swatches on the texture.

Those who shout about asset flips with the Synty Studio's assets pack ignore not only the work required to make it even work, but also the fact that those assets aren't free either. Obviously, they don't cost the same as if you were to pay a bunch of 3D artists into making them yourself (that's the point of assets stores), but most of their sets comes in the hundreds of dollars per set with nothing in them except models.

So, yeah, whenever I see a project that uses Synty Studio's assets, I'm just happy that someone made something out of that static mess. ;)

I appreciate the kind words! At this post I’ve mostly just let those who want to complain about it being an asset flip say their piece and move on. If they don’t want to play the game, that’s fine haha.

They’re wonderful assets, and the game definitely wouldn’t have been possible without them. I have very little talent for 3D modeling.

[Lylaort]

So happy for you, you finally make this game out! I really enjoy it a lot!!! Hope soon you can do more updates.

[Psyckosama]

Hmn. Open with it. That's good. I have no problem with people using canned assets.

Only time and reviews will tell if this is a decent game or just a flip.

This isn't a slam. I've been toying with using the very same family of assets myself for some projects/ideas.

I just take a trust but verify stance to most thing.

[Noxsa]

there is nothing wrong with using assets, they are made to be used are they not. i don't even care if they use them and not even change them, as long as they are used in a way where you can see, ok this is the correct way of using them. a true asset flip in my eye's are asset used in a way they look like they do not belong. "i hope you understand what i mean with that".

ok, i'll give an example: a futuristic character acting like a roman soldier.

asset flips usually are used with many assest of differend styles... ah you know what i mean.

this game in my eye's not a flip, has potential of being a cool and great game "ofc that's in the hands of the dev, i'v seen many give up and fail so there is that"

[TOAD-01]

Great job! Keep it up

[Captain Goodness]

As a Day-1 player, this latest version is excellent. I think you're on to something. Still very much sand-boxy and experimental, but a definite atmosphere is developing. Well done.

One glitch...I got stuck between a military truck bumper and a fountain. Is there a way to teleport you a few feet away to get unstuck? I saved and reloaded and that worked.

Great job. Looking forward to the next dump.

[DrewThaNinja™]

Doin' great buddy! Also, patch notes for today's 1.3G patch?