We wish to thank all the players who shared their feedback about the exclusive demo of A Guidebook of Babel that we put online for Steam Next Fest.
Before the event is officially over, we have selected the most recurring questions to give you what we hope are satisfying answers. If, after reading this Q&A, you still have questions, please contact us either on the Steam page directly or on Twitter or Discord. We'll promise to give you an answer as fast as possible!
- Will the puzzles of the final version of the game be more challenging than the demo's? Of course! After playing the exclusive demo, players should have used the butterfly effect twice to solve puzzles, which only require one rewrite to do so. In the final game, we will experiment more about the unpredictable outcomes that result from using the butterfly effect, and players may have to rewrite several elements in order to unlock their path.
- How many main characters are there in the game? The final game will tell the stories of the four main characters of the game, whereas the demo allows to play two of them. The third main character can be seen at the very end of the demo, and you will have to play the game to understand what relationship he has with the others! As for the fourth main characters, it is still somewhat of a secret, but we will introduce more about them in the coming months, so stay tuned!
- When will the game be released? Will it release as a complete title or will it come out in "episodes"? PC version of the game will be released either at the end of this year or at the beginning of the next one, depending on the completion rate of the plot at the time. Mobile versions (Android and iOS) are scheduled for release during Q2 2022. We will post announcements once we know more about that.
- After the end of Steam Next Fest, will the demo still be available on some other platforms? Our China-based players can meet us during this year's edition of BiliBili World in Shanghai, from July 7 to 11. We are contemplating opening a kickstarter this Autumn (if you like the game, please help support it), for which the demo will serve as a showcase. And we are also toying with the idea of getting testers for a closed beta who would help us improve the flow of the game and find any weird bug (we have found one already, we expect it's not the only one). You are all cordially invited to follow us on our different social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, Discord, etc. in order to stay up-to-date with the latest news!
- The game does not feel like it is finalized, for instance the tutorial is not polished, there is no menu, no way to quit the game, it is not optimized, etc. Will you fix those issues in the future? The tutorial is a work in progress and we're exploring different ways to enhance the onboarding process of players and make everything more user-friendly. And don't worry, we will add an exit button and a "real" menu in the future. As mentioned, the demo is a work in progress, and we have much work to do! Performances of the game are already undergoing optimization, but we won't stop here. Our goal is to make our game available to most, so we will keep optimizing the game so that it runs flawlessly on as many systems as possible.
- After launching the game, I experienced some slow-down of the game, has it been fixed? In the first two days of the Steam Next Fest, several players have reported witnessing an extreme slow-down of the game upon launching the introduction cutscene. After a little investigation, we have been able to determine that the issue affected players whose system settings were set to specific regions (mainly France, Italy, Germany, Spain, etc.), but we have been able to fix this issue and you are now able to play the game as intended! If you haven't tried it before, please launch the game on Steam again to update the build!
Lastly, please note that Steam Next Fest will be offline in 36 hours, so there is not much time left for you to play the demo if you haven't tried it already!