Premature Reveal

[The Incredible World of Dic]

Attention to all games: What has been shown is a vertical slice of a pre-alpha indie game made by 2 devs. Vertical slice means what they showed in terms of polish is FAR above the rest of the game's progress. It's at best a tech demo years away from a playable state.

Don't ask too many questions. This game is too early in development to have legitimate answers, so the only type of answers you will get is loose plans. And since gamers misinterpret early-development plans as promises, everything the devs say now will arbitrarily raise expectations making the inevitable launch more of a controversy.

I think the devs can salvage this premature reveal, what they need to do is pivot their hype to get patient professional investors. And most importantly, they need to STOP interacting with the community, I mean it. The biggest mistake an indie developer in this situation can make is to announce a bunch of future plans, they already said some ridiculous things like they hope to bring to consoles with crossplay, they hope to have pvp, and they hope to have a deep story. You should only reveal your plans once the plan is actually well in-progress. It doesn't matter how talented you are or how pure your intentions are, no game developer can deliver on all their hopes. Don't take ANY interviews with game journalists.

I really hope this game makes the right choices, because I want the game and it's devs to succeed, but I see huge red flags.

[Snow]

My take-away from the initial reveal is how scripted the entire thing looked. It looked like a tech-demo cutscene rather than a proper gameplay. Which is to be expected from an early showing, but in my opinion, this highlights a problem with modern game industry - customers having absolutely NO idea what goes on behind the scenes, what words like alpha and beta actually mean and the developers taking advantage of that. That sets up impossible to meet expectations.

I hope I'll be proven wrong because the concept is dope, but so far it screams to me "game that'll release with a plethora of bugs and we'll abandon it in a month".

[Mr. No_Effs_Given]

Can't wait to play this in 2030.

[The Incredible World of Dic]

Originally posted by Snow:

My take-away from the initial reveal is how scripted the entire thing looked. It looked like a tech-demo cutscene rather than a proper gameplay. Which is to be expected from an early showing, but in my opinion, this highlights a problem with modern game industry - customers having absolutely NO idea what goes on behind the scenes, what words like alpha and beta actually mean and the developers taking advantage of that. That sets up impossible to meet expectations.

I hope I'll be proven wrong because the concept is dope, but so far it screams to me "game that'll release with a plethora of bugs and we'll abandon it in a month".

I try to give the benefit of the doubt and not make assumptions. So I wouldn't go as far to say that the trailer was a cutscene, I believe the trailer is gameplay. However, my suspicion is that the gameplay in the trailer is almost all of the content the game has to offer currently.

I've done more research into development of this game. Another thing I discovered is that assets like the ruined medieval houses seem to be a free asset from the quixel megascans library, they aren't trying to hide it though, they hashtag quixel megascans on their twitter. So this seems to paint the picture that these devs are honest but overambitious and inexperienced. I'm pretty sure some of their assets are original, and the original assets are well made as they blend seamlessly with the third-party assets.

Their twitter shows pretty accurately where they are at. They said just a couple months ago that they are looking for a lead programmer, you can see that just months ago they were still posting gameplay videos in empty unreal engine 5 template levels. They are as early in game development as you can be, any earlier and you will just have ideas and concept art.

The industry has for sure warped development terms. Some games release fully but keep the beta tag to excuse bugs, Paladins: Champions of the Realm is a game that years after release still considered itself a beta.

[Krokar]

warhammer vermintide is free right now and honestly looks better than this

[Haenir Studio]

Originally posted by Mondo Megabit:

Attention to all games: What has been shown is a vertical slice of a pre-alpha indie game made by 2 devs. Vertical slice means what they showed in terms of polish is FAR above the rest of the game's progress. It's at best a tech demo years away from a playable state.

Don't ask too many questions. This game is too early in development to have legitimate answers, so the only type of answers you will get is loose plans. And since gamers misinterpret early-development plans as promises, everything the devs say now will arbitrarily raise expectations making the inevitable launch more of a controversy.

I think the devs can salvage this premature reveal, what they need to do is pivot their hype to get patient professional investors. And most importantly, they need to STOP interacting with the community, I mean it. The biggest mistake an indie developer in this situation can make is to announce a bunch of future plans, they already said some ridiculous things like they hope to bring to consoles with crossplay, they hope to have pvp, and they hope to have a deep story. You should only reveal your plans once the plan is actually well in-progress. It doesn't matter how talented you are or how pure your intentions are, no game developer can deliver on all their hopes. Don't take ANY interviews with game journalists.

I really hope this game makes the right choices, because I want the game and it's devs to succeed, but I see huge red flags.

I appreciate your comment, and am going to ahead and assume your slightly negative tone is because you actually genuinly care. First things first, let me just clarify a few things that you have misintrepretted.

- We hope to bring the game to consoles. Hope being the key word. It is not something we can promise, but we'll do our best to make this happen. If not a release, then further down the road.

- We do NOT want PvP in the game at this stage, and are solely focusing on PvE.

- We want a great backstory, but this is by no means a narratively driven game.

The game is in very early development, and the pre-alpha gameplay is meant to attact talent and investors/publishers. We've not tried to keep that from our community, but obviously the virality of the reveal has some negative rammifications in terms of expectations. Unfortunately that is just something we'll have to deal with. With great power comes great responsibility .. or something along those lines.

While I can understand you think it would be better not to say anything, and not engage with our community; I personally disagree - partially. I think it's important that we're here now, showing that we care, and have genuine intentions, and clarifying some of the misconceptions that are floating around, even if that means squashing some hope and dreams.

With that said, I do agree with us having to step back, as soon as funding has been secured and enter the trenches, working on the game.

/Mads

[Krokar]

Originally posted by Haenir Studio:

While I can understand you think it would be better not to say anything, and not engage with our community; I personally disagree - partially. I think it's important that we're here now, showing that we care, and have genuine intentions, and clarifying some of the misconceptions that are floating around, even if that means squashing some hope and dreams.
With that said, I do agree with us having to step back, as soon as funding has been secured and enter the trenches, working on the game.

/Mads

i believe his post is more of a head of warning against the playerbase of haters that lurks around every early game in developement and feeling entitled to own and dictate what goes and what doesn't even if you said "hope" in their heads it's already promised and that's the dangerous part.

[durundallives]

Originally posted by Haenir Studio:

I appreciate your comment, and am going to ahead and assume your slightly negative tone is because you actually genuinly care. First things first, let me just clarify a few things that you have misintrepretted.

- We hope to bring the game to consoles. Hope being the key word. It is not something we can promise, but we'll do our best to make this happen. If not a release, then further down the road.

- We do NOT want PvP in the game at this stage, and are solely focusing on PvE.

- We want a great backstory, but this is by no means a narratively driven game.

The game is in very early development, and the pre-alpha gameplay is meant to attact talent and investors/publishers. We've not tried to keep that from our community, but obviously the virality of the reveal has some negative rammifications in terms of expectations. Unfortunately that is just something we'll have to deal with. With great power comes great responsibility .. or something along those lines.

While I can understand you think it would be better not to say anything, and not engage with our community; I personally disagree - partially. I think it's important that we're here now, showing that we care, and have genuine intentions, and clarifying some of the misconceptions that are floating around, even if that means squashing some hope and dreams.

With that said, I do agree with us having to step back, as soon as funding has been secured and enter the trenches, working on the game.

/Mads

I appreciate the mature response to this. I have high hopes for you guys on this one. Im enthralled with the concept, but mostly left puzzled and trying to figure out what the gameplay loop is that would keep me going.

Looking forward to you guys making progress on this and hearing about it down the line

[The Incredible World of Dic]

Originally posted by Haenir Studio:

Originally posted by Mondo Megabit:

Attention to all games: What has been shown is a vertical slice of a pre-alpha indie game made by 2 devs. Vertical slice means what they showed in terms of polish is FAR above the rest of the game's progress. It's at best a tech demo years away from a playable state.

Don't ask too many questions. This game is too early in development to have legitimate answers, so the only type of answers you will get is loose plans. And since gamers misinterpret early-development plans as promises, everything the devs say now will arbitrarily raise expectations making the inevitable launch more of a controversy.

I think the devs can salvage this premature reveal, what they need to do is pivot their hype to get patient professional investors. And most importantly, they need to STOP interacting with the community, I mean it. The biggest mistake an indie developer in this situation can make is to announce a bunch of future plans, they already said some ridiculous things like they hope to bring to consoles with crossplay, they hope to have pvp, and they hope to have a deep story. You should only reveal your plans once the plan is actually well in-progress. It doesn't matter how talented you are or how pure your intentions are, no game developer can deliver on all their hopes. Don't take ANY interviews with game journalists.

I really hope this game makes the right choices, because I want the game and it's devs to succeed, but I see huge red flags.

I appreciate your comment, and am going to ahead and assume your slightly negative tone is because you actually genuinly care. First things first, let me just clarify a few things that you have misintrepretted.

- We hope to bring the game to consoles. Hope being the key word. It is not something we can promise, but we'll do our best to make this happen. If not a release, then further down the road.

- We do NOT want PvP in the game at this stage, and are solely focusing on PvE.

- We want a great backstory, but this is by no means a narratively driven game.

The game is in very early development, and the pre-alpha gameplay is meant to attact talent and investors/publishers. We've not tried to keep that from our community, but obviously the virality of the reveal has some negative rammifications in terms of expectations. Unfortunately that is just something we'll have to deal with. With great power comes great responsibility .. or something along those lines.

While I can understand you think it would be better not to say anything, and not engage with our community; I personally disagree - partially. I think it's important that we're here now, showing that we care, and have genuine intentions, and clarifying some of the misconceptions that are floating around, even if that means squashing some hope and dreams.

With that said, I do agree with us having to step back, as soon as funding has been secured and enter the trenches, working on the game.

/Mads

I appreciate the response. One thing I hope you come to learn soon before it's too late, is that the gaming audience will always interpret hopes as promises. Look at how people respond to you when you say in other threads "We hope to bring it to consoles". The response you get from the community isn't "Good luck" it's "wow I'm so excited to play it on consoles." If you don't wisen up and hire some good PR, you will be digging yourself a huge hole. Especially because console ports in particular are a lot harder than many indie developers assume.

When asked about PvP in another thread, you expressed that you are "exploring" the idea of invasion like PvP. Again, community forums is NOT the place to be brainstorming ideas. No matter how clear your make it that it's just a small possibility, you need to understand with the little people know about the game, the random ideas you bring up as a small possibility will be just as remembered as your game itself.

"Unfortunately that is just something we'll have to deal with. "

But you aren't dealing with it very well. Tempering expectations is something you have to actively do, but brainstorming about your hopes in forums is the exact opposite of tempering expectations. Again, I wish you success, but you should be taking PR more seriously.