This poor game belongs on the Switch

[asuraicHermit the Second]

I love this game, warts and all. It has a special place in my heart, next to Undertale, Night in the Woods, and Doki Doki Literature Club with all those semi-experimental, cute little story-focused indie games.

That sadi, it's sad to see that the game has been declared a commercial flop by the creator, and I can't help but blame Steam for that. I think the game wouldve done much better on a platform less cluttered with fecal matter like Steam. Say the Switch?

Dear dev: PLEASE try again on the Switch. Most indie devs today say the Switch is the go-to place for indie games, and the slow pacing of your game is perfect for a portable, on the go experience. You can take in a couple of stories on the bus.

And Valve, its time to take out the trash. I blame Steam for this game's failure as it drowned in a sea of terrible scam games. Start dumping games that have overwhelmingly negavtive reviews, or maybe allow people to report "fake games", and have someone quickly check if the game is even half decent. It would only take maybe 15 minutes at most per game, a 5 man team could easily do this curating for minimum wage or less, you could even pay the community in trading cards to do it for you if you trust them half as much as you do your stupid algorithms. And let the community have some more say in finding and picking out the indie gems and bringing them to the surface.

*sigh* rant over. ♥♥♥♥ Steam Direct, all indie devs who actually want to try and succeed, begin your mass exodus for the Switch before the asset flippers do. This is your boarding call.

[Johnnemann]

Hey, thanks! We definitely are looking at consoles, they have been part of our plan from the beginning.

For what it's worth, I don't believe the game is a flop - it underperformed, sales-wise, and that worries me. But it's won a ton of awards and gotten a bunch of critical attention, and that means it's done SOMETHING right!

But I do agree with you about Steam.

[IFIYGD]

I have to agree about Steam being flooded with crap games, and the number of them being delivered to me in my Discovery Queue really keeping me from finding the hidden gems, and quality Indie games I love.

Honestly, if I did not Folly Raphael from Hinterland on Twitter, and did not see his Tweet about your game, I would likely never have found it at all. And others who, like me, are not attached at the hip to social media and gaming e-zines, or streamers, and who only see what Steam gives us in activity feeds and store queues... lots of older, less "game-aholoic" folks who may enjoy the game, but who have never seen any ads for positive PR for it.

I really think Indies need to work together, networking, as friends, to promite each other's games, and create a strong, solid IndieDev Coimmunity. Seriously, find ome other good Indie Devs, talk, form an allaince of sorts, promote each other, and get the word out to the gaming public that Indie = GOOD. Instead of the current Indie = Asset Flipping Crap.

[Gandy Whiskers The Wise]

The main problem what i understand is that you guys sort of got missed by everyone, So might i come with a sugestion?
This is just an idea but.. What about youtubers? What if you guys emailed some of the bigger gaming youtubers out there with a free code to the game, explane a bit of your situation, and ask if they could do a video promoting the game a bit? This feels like a game people like Markiplier, Jacksepticeye etc would love to play! (I don't watch to many famous youtubers but i know that atleast jack prob would have no problem playing this if you reach out to him)
I hate to see this game being swiped under the rug sort of, this is a wonderfull game and it def deserv more people playing it!

[asuraicHermit the Second]

I read the top story on the news page, with a developer calling the game a commercial failure. Which is really too bad, because bugs aside this game's beautiful. Just maybe not for the general gaming populace. I only discovered this game because of Jim Sterling. Games like this really do deserve more PR and advertising, not the dreck that Steam and major open-source game engines are becoming associated with by bad press. We need some sort of better, human-run system of finding the good games buried in Steam under the games that are anywhere from terrible to barely passable. I'd be willing to help that kind of system in my free time if Valve would support it instead of just letting anyone with 100 dollars put an Unreal tech demo up for purchase to clog up the storefront.

[IFIYGD]

Read the comments in the PC Gamer article (here on Steam). Look at the SJW comment, and the other toxic comments afterward.

Right there is the problem.

Being "edgy", toxic, cruel, and destructive is "cool" and accepted, expected even, in the gaming community at large. The culture has shifted, dramatically. And NOT for the better. The anonymity of the Internet and social media platforms (which Steam does fall into), has led all of us into being more callous, and not considering what type of effect our typed words can have on actual people's lives.

Sheeples. Toxic, "edgy" sheeples. Because hate and toxicity seem to be cool, eh, Mr. President?

[StrykerL]

Originally posted by Johnnemann:

Hey, thanks! We definitely are looking at consoles, they have been part of our plan from the beginning.

For what it's worth, I don't believe the game is a flop - it underperformed, sales-wise, and that worries me. But it's won a ton of awards and gotten a bunch of critical attention, and that means it's done SOMETHING right!

But I do agree with you about Steam.

Hey, I've been playing games for a long while, and I'm particularly a fan of narrative/choice intensive games. I bought your game the day it released because I was genuinely intereested in the premise - of walking around a world where stories are told (disclosure: I'm a small indie game maker, and one of my initial concepts was literally of a storyteller where the stories adapt to the world) so the moment I heard you'd done something on those lines I was hooked enough to dig in.

This game in its current state did not deliver on that fantasy, it was more of a game where if you tell a story enough times it levels up in a predictable way every time (and far too often into ghost stories). Behind the layers, it was a punch-clock - get story, upgrade story for the sake of completion, pay out story to recurring character and get little story tokens from them in turn. Unfortunately, the method of getting those coupons - the travel - itself is highly unfun, as is chasing every last story.

The character interaction chapters were at times annoyingly either too easy or too hard (based on how many stories you had, how well you'd predicted their character, and how many remaining stories of their type you had), movement was slow, and outside of nice pictures and genuinely good voice acting, I didn't take much away from this experience. Furthermore, since you have NO way to figuring out which type of story (ghost / thriller / other) a story is at times due to how vague the text is, and particularly so if you haven't played in a while, this game also makes coming back to it extremely uncomfortable.

Now, beyond the tough love above, I adore the artwork and the soundtrack (well, before it gets repetitive atleast, since I wander so much looking for a missing story or another) . I won't deny some of the writing also amused or impressed, but not as consistently as I'd have enjoyed..

I've played a multitude of story intensive games from text based games (I highly recommend chooseyourstory.com) in html or twine, to linear adventures, to telltale, to dontnod's work, to Annapurna Interactive's interesting works, to planescape torment and both kotors, the witchers, and a LOT in between. Your game does have its own niche due to the central concept of stories leveling up, and wandering around a familiar map on the way,, but that's about it. I regrettably did not enjoy your game and would not recommend it in its current state to other gamers who share my genre of preferred games. To me, THAT is where WTWTLW fails, it fails to be worthy.

Does your considerable effort deserve attention and appreciation for doing something new? Why yes, surely. However do I consider it a worthy game in this space of story intensive games that I'd happily recommend to others? Unfortunately not.

I genuinely wish you well, indie is hard as hell after all and we all wish everyone else the best, and if you've read this I thank you for your time,

Cheers and bon courage.