Welcome back Knights-To-Be,
Can you believe it? Our early access journey is coming to a close in just two days! TWO DAYS! It has been a ride filled with peaks and valleys, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. We have learned so much and faced challenges that have tempered our souls. And we relive those harsh lessons as we dive further into early access.
Floaty in Early Access
Given that Sands of Aura is the first title we have released as an early access title, there were a lot of lessons to learn for our studio.
The first was that unfiltered feedback and critiques are a valuable source of inspiration, reflection, and motivation. We received a small number of reviews during the first few months of early access, and we analyzed each one.
The type of reviews we received ranged from heartwarming to confusion. We had some who commented on the beauty of what we were trying to create and would appreciate Sands of Aura for its potential. We also had some that were brutally honest but provided excellent feedback for us to work with. We had other reviews that questioned our passion for games or as people. And then we had comments that simply didn’t agree with the lack of oddly specific and niche features.
This picture represents the mental images that we had when seeing the reviews for Sands of Aura.
It certainly impacted our views on reviews and the effect it would have on us and Sands of Aura.
Many of these reviews served to help us identify issues that were vague, such as combat. Often, we would read similar reviews regarding a particular mechanic, and a buzzword appeared frequently. That word would be ‘floaty,’ used to describe combat. This word has eluded us in its meaning for the entirety of development! The problem was that this word seemed to represent a feeling, and subjective feelings can be hard to decipher. Even within the team, the definition of a ‘floaty’ combat varied from person to person.
We attempted to solve this in many ways, such as implementing more visual and audio feedback, adjusting the speed of combat, adjusting shadows, making things larger or smaller, and many others. None of this moved away from getting more reviews of ‘floaty combat.’
However, we did notice that we were receiving them less over time, and every change did improve the perception of combat. At the very least, we were moving in the correct direction. We just haven’t found land yet. We knew we needed to keep working on it.
Parallel Access
The second lesson learned early on was that we needed to develop new content and work on released content in parallel. It meant we needed to evolve our development structure to accommodate this change.
The simple view, our naive view, was that the content we had already released was perfect as is and did not require any major rework or updates. Minor adjustments here and there were all that we needed. All we needed to do was follow the roadmap and complete the content required along this path, and the game would reach 1.0 according to plan. Or so we thought.
Unfortunately, this was not the case. We wanted to release Sands of Aura as an Early Access title to improve the game through feedback from our players.
We aren’t perfect developers. Our inexperience in foresight or design choices would lead to unintended situations or gameplay flow. We needed to be able to adapt and grow with our players throughout early access. To do this effectively, we needed to level up our abilities to organize our development to release new content and be flexible enough to meet our goals and timeline.
It took quite some time to get there, and like everything else we have learned along the way, we were getting better each time.
A New Aura
Before developing the Twins Thorn update, we needed a new writer to bring Sands of Aura to new heights. Unfortunately, our first writer, Henry K., had to part ways with our team as circumstances required. We wish him the best and are eternally grateful for building the world in Sands of Aura with us. A lasting impression remained with us, and the same quality of work and dedication will be required. The bar was high.
After a long process reviewing our possible candidates, we finally found Zach F. Zach met our standards, spiritually aligned with our Creative Director, Mike, and this was the person we wanted to take the helm as our writer.
Zach’s first task was to write the story for the upcoming Twin Thorn update. After his first draft, we knew we made the right decision. His ideas and creativity took the story to greater heights. And thus, the story in Sands of Aura has evolved once again! From the initial concepts created by Mike to the enhancements made by Henry, Zach would bring it all together as we aim for the finish together.
The save wipes
With the next patch in development, we continued improving the existing systems, made new ones, and updated the released story content. Everything was developing in a good direction, and the feedback from our players helped us make better decisions each time. Unfortunately, improvements came at a cost as well. This cost was save-wipes.
Save-wipes were something we had not anticipated as a team. As we continued development, we realized we had no options but to do so. Had we not conducted save-wipes, more resources and time would have been required to develop new content for Early Access. We knew this was not something our players would like, and we wish we could have avoided it at all possible costs. Unfortunately, the reality is that Early Access feedback also required us to make changes and improvements on a wide scale. The changes meant that older save files would become broken and unplayable. Accommodating and anticipating all of the possible issues would expend a considerable amount of time for our small team of programmers.
It was a harsh lesson and a reminder of our inability to foresee the outcomes of our design decisions and that we were always learning. However, with every iteration, there are improvements in our game and ourselves. We aimed to do better and to improve the experience for our players at every turn.
Releasing new content
By the end of April 2022, we released our next major update, Twin Thorn. It was an important milestone for our team. We were able to reflect on the development of this first major update. We would find flaws in our development structure and inefficiencies that required attention. It also provided us with another lesson in receiving feedback from our players.
A major content update came with major changes or improvements. How the players responded to those changes helped us discover areas of weakness and strength. Some players might hate or love it, and our task was to gauge whether or not we were making the right decisions. We often focus on the bigger picture and lose sight of the details. The feedback from these content updates helped us refocus and develop Sands of Aura into something special.
We took the lessons we learned from the release of the Twin Thorn update and began making changes in our development process for the next update. It was an iterative process that became our mindset for the rest of our Early Access journey.
Year One
After having released the Twin Thorn update and planning for the next major update, Citadel of Steel, we were ready to begin making more ambitious changes to the game design. Throughout Early Access, there were numerous suggestions and feedback on various aspects of the game. One system we believed was worthy of a rework was the blessings system.
At the launch of early access, our character progression and builds could be unique based on the blessings you opted for. In a sense, it acted like a ‘talent or skill tree’ system you can find in many other games. Our version of this system was simple, but it was also quite clunky for progression.
Recognizing this, we scrapped the blessing system and developed a new system called Talismans. It was ambitious for us as we did not know how players would react to a sudden change like this. We were skeptical, but this was a necessary step in the positive direction. Our community responded in kind, and we received the validation that we were doing things right.
With a new character progression system, the progression of our story in the Citadel of Steel, and minor but critical updates on other systems throughout the game, we released the Citadel of Steel update in late August 2022. It marked the last content update for the year.
Year One was a testament to our resilience to overcome the hurdles of negative feedback, an adaptation to the challenges of an Early Access title, and the will to create an experience that our players would enjoy. It was the end of the first year of our Early Access journey, and as turbulent as it was, it gave us the necessary tools to create a better Sands of Aura. We became more confident with every update, and Chashu Entertainment was ready to face Year Two of Early Access!
With the end of Year One, we begin Year Two next time as we look to the planning for the full release of Sands of Aura!
Thank you for reading!
- Chashu Entertainment