Qorena has went through a lot of trial and error in the span of 4 years (+1 year of post-game support). From its original debut in 2018, to it's final release in 2022, and post-release support this year in 2023. Now, I finally announce my post-mortem for this game.
Progress Timeline
2018
- Maze Qore Arena released commercially into early access on Itch - to an audience of crickets.
- The game has later switched to a non-commercial early access model.
2019
- The multi-player build begins development.
- Single player build is updated and improved.
2020
- The game releases in early access on Steam, for free - to an audience of crickets.
- Multi-player build is completed and released via the Version 0.5 update.
- Single player build is further improved.
2021
- Multi-player build is further improved.
- Plans for a game overhaul were announced.
www.youtube.com/embed/3CgrizvYLu8?si=cHxosE_eMqJCObUF
www.youtube.com/embed/M_vWAczdtKQ?si=YGQ72vAK2RC1krMh
www.youtube.com/embed/ZG0wLwhmmSc?si=y1Pzu81zOi-BApZ_
2022
- Name change: Maze Qore Arena has now became Qorena.
- Single player version has been abandoned and archived for historical reasons.
- Competitive multi-player version has been abandoned and scrapped entirely.
- Competitive multi-player model has transformed into a cooperative multi-player model.
- Qorena Foresight has been introduced for playtests and feedback - to no avail.
- Weekly playtests were hosted - few players participated, but at least feedback somewhat materialized.
- Qorena finally left early access, releasing in full - to (you guess it) an audience of crickets.
- Bots (AKA player AI substitutes).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1xCPgocIkU
2023
- Cooperative player build has been improved drastically.
- Campaign mode was introduced via the Version 0.9.2 Update.
- We (at the time, WAS we, now it's just me that is left.) began to lose all hope.
- The Major Campaign Update (AKA Version 0.9.3) has released, considerably marking the end of our post-release support. (No point wasting anymore time for an audience of crickets.)
What have we learned?
- Never waste time working on a multi-player game unless you have a confirmed audience that gives a damn.
- Bots barely help matters.
- Try to garner an audience before the game is developed beyond the serious phase. Prototype first.
- Focus on single player games most often instead (if not exclusively).
Marketplace Developers Beware
If you make a marketplace template, ensure it does not share the same style and prototype scheme as the true game. Either make the game extremely different from the template, or just avoid making either that or the game entirely and let one of them sell on its own instead. I got a few complains some have mistook it for an asset flip. I wanted to kill two birds with one stone by using the template I created myself to speed development time and focus on expanding further the gameplay and improving the art, rather than do all of that from scratch. Little did I suspect many would accuse one's own creation of being an asset flip from the marketplace template they created themselves. I still made nearly this entire game by myself, with almost no outside aid, and it was all for naught. Developers use to fear using the marketplace under the pressure that gamers would accuse their game of being an asset flip. Suffice to say, I think this is partially true.
If you use marketplace assets such as art or environ packs, it may not be too much of a problem so long as you make a large effort to originate your game or at least turn it into a signature game.
Once you make a marketplace template however AND it is selling even decently, you may was well forfeit any plans to make a game out of it. Your task to originate because extraordinarily difficult.
In a way, the 2D Top Down Shooter Template unwittingly further sealed any chances of Qorena getting anywhere. Ironically I have created this template to raise funds to help me develop this very game. It helped to some degree at first, then little more beyond a year.
Ironically, this game was also developed as a means to develop funding for another project that is still in comatose to this day. That has also ultimately failed...
Any lingering plans left for Qorena?
We planned user-mod support using Modularity's Mod.io, but that ultimately fell through for two reasons:
- No audience means no point in wasting time. I already made that mistake thrice.
- Mod community went to utter shit since 2021, causing me to lose faith and interest in modding. I will not explain why here. I will instead make a video on my personal YouTube channel about the decline of the modding community at a later time.
- I am honestly tired of working on Qorena.
Mobile Port
I considered making use of the competitive MP build and transforming it into an Android port of the game. I underestimated the difficulty and feasibility of mobile builds in Unreal Engine as well as trying to get it signed for Google Play, and ultimately gave up. I might consider a much simpler, yet fun version of the game for Android using Godot in the future, focusing solely on survival and infinite waves, however no promises that will ever happen.
Game Over?
Yes. I am done with this game. The 2nd developer that helped me with this game has given up on the project and left. The non-dev members of the team have also left the gaming industry for greener pastures. I am all that is left now, and much like a previous project I worked on, I have lost all motivation to work on this game anymore as well.
At this point, I am convinced that this project is cursed. It was cursed from the beginning. It is still cursed to the end.
If you want to see any other projects I am working on, you can check out this one instead. Hopefully it will fair better.