What happened to the demo?

[Sambony]

A friend of mine asked me about the game, so I went looking to try to direct him to the demo, but was unable to access the store page for it, and the main Talos Principle store page doesn't have a demo link either... any ideas?

[VShadow]

Yeah it does seem to be missing, on first glance. I'm sure one of the Devs will pop in here soon and answer your question.

[Tome[CT]]

You noticed right, we discontinued support of the demo.

Demo was initially released one month before release of the main game. It was called The Talos Principle Public Test and it had two main purposes. One was to test our code and fix as many as possible bugs and compatibility issues for a smooth release of the main game. Other was to introduce our new game to the wider audience. And it served the purpose very well!

With time we turned this Public Test into real Demo for the game. With each new update of the main game, which you know are quite regular like a recent Vulkan API support, demo was also receiveing update and needed testing. So it become burden for us to continue supporting.

But by now more than a year passed from the full game release, we ironed most of the issues in the game. On the other hand, in the meantime countless user and media reviews, as well as Let's play videos become available so that everybody interested in the game can make proper decision.

Just a notice that all those who already downloaded Demo will still have it in their library, no worries about it. But their Demo won't receive new updates like the main game.

Hope you understand our decision, we can now focus more of our time on new game titles which we hope you will like as much as Talos.

[Sambony]

Alright, that's understandable. Thanks for the reply, and here's hoping you decide to go for another puzzle game in the near future!

[blackout24]

Thanks for the update! I hope that you will bring out demos for new games, even if you discontinue them at some point. Let's plays are OK, but they don't give you a chance to see how well the game runs on your PC. Technically we could use the Steam Refund option to demo the game but that doesn't feel right. At least for me.

[Anen]

I just dowloaded the demo using the Install button on steamdb.
https://steamdb.info/app/330710/

Just remember:

Początkowo opublikowane przez TomeCT:

Just a notice that all those who already downloaded Demo will still have it in their library, no worries about it. But their Demo won't receive new updates like the main game.

[Sambony]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Anen:

I just dowloaded the demo using the Install button on steamdb.
https://steamdb.info/app/330710/

Just remember:

Początkowo opublikowane przez TomeCT:

Just a notice that all those who already downloaded Demo will still have it in their library, no worries about it. But their Demo won't receive new updates like the main game.

I didn't know about that feature of SteamDB. Thanks

[Higgins]

I think this was really foolish. I would not have ever bought this game without playing a demo version. The marketing and videos make it look really esoteric; I think a demo is really necessary for something like this.

[5H00T4]

Początkowo opublikowane przez BlindMute:

I think this was really foolish. I would not have ever bought this game without playing a demo version. The marketing and videos make it look really esoteric; I think a demo is really necessary for something like this.

I agree, I also bought it because of the demo.
It's fine if you don't want to support the demo anymore, but at least leave the old version accessible, which was working perfectly fine.

[tarasis]

I understand the decision but I'm another who probably wouldn't have bought it had to not been able to play the demo first.

[Cunin]

The problem is that if you have a bad experience with the demo, because it doesn't work right in your system, something that might have been fixed in the full game, you might consider to not purchase the game. Afterall, demos should always reflect the full game's experience, despite developers always pointing out that they don't in some opening screen when launching them, otherwise what's the meaning of them?

I like demos too but whatever your problem is, you should know by now that the developers will always do whatever they can to solve it, and you can find a lot of information in this forum about how it runs on various systems.
It's not the same, sure, but it's better than what happens with other games, at least, and refund is the perfect way to properly test it so don't feel bad about using it, it's not like you opened the game's box and you are returning it in a condition that would only allow steam to sell it as a second-hand copy, but see it as the proper way to handle this new kind of games distribution, that finally can let you try before buy, giving customers the proper consideration that has been missing for so long.

[🐱𝕊☤♏฿Ѧ🦁]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Cunin:

refund is the perfect way to properly test it so don't feel bad about using it, it's not like you opened the game's box and you are returning it in a condition that would only allow steam to sell it as a second-hand copy, but see it as the proper way to handle this new kind of games distribution, that finally can let you try before buy, giving customers the proper consideration that has been missing for so long.

How can you be sure refund is possible after you've already played the game? Does it say that anywhere?

[Harry Poster]

Początkowo opublikowane przez DobbyCat:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Cunin:

refund is the perfect way to properly test it so don't feel bad about using it, it's not like you opened the game's box and you are returning it in a condition that would only allow steam to sell it as a second-hand copy, but see it as the proper way to handle this new kind of games distribution, that finally can let you try before buy, giving customers the proper consideration that has been missing for so long.

How can you be sure refund is possible after you've already played the game? Does it say that anywhere?

https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/?l=english&snr=1_44_44_