Intro
The Steam Game Festival was the first time we showed Alekon to people who didn't personally know us and weren't biased to like it, so we weren't sure what reaction to expect. With nearly 4000 demo installs, and a lot of feedback on the Steam forums, on our Discord, and on Twitter, we were floored by how much people seemed to enjoy the game.
We were able to watch streamers and content creators play, and got to see the game through their eyes. Some even reached out to us with pages of detailed feedback! In this devlog we'll go over some concrete lessons this experience has taught us.
Performance
Releasing a demo was a bit of a last minute decision, so we hadn't prioritized optimizing the game at that point, and while our workstations had no trouble with it, some players certainly had to lower their graphics settings or suffer bad framerates.
Given that we have a thorough optimization plan on the roadmap, we aren't super worried about this for the full release, but we did underestimate the issue for the demo.
What's more, we also realized that resolutions above 1080p are no longer a tiny niche, and they aren't always coupled with graphics cards that can run games effectively at that native resolution. We'll be looking into better supporting high resolutions in terms of performance, UI scaling, and letting the player know that they may be better off running at lower resolutions when they are experiencing performance issues.
The Forgotten Donut
One of the main tools that the player gets to play with in the demo is the donut, a versatile projectile that can be used as a treat or to get a fiction's attention. However, we introduce it on Dream's Doorstep, the hub area of the game, where donut throwing is limited to a minigame.
This lead players to completely forget about the donut by the time they went on their next photography trip, preventing them from progressing path unlocks or getting new poses.
To solve this, we're allowing unlimited donut use on Dream's Doorstep, so it becomes a universal tool, and adding a hint for players about it on their next photography trip to the beach.
How to Get Back to the Level
The first photo scoring ceremony takes place in the beach wing of Dream's Doorstep. We placed it there intentionally, so players are encouraged to interact with the fictions they unlock before going back on more photo trips. This worked well, as unlike our early alpha tests, almost every player we've seen tried a few of the minigames before going back.
However, we overcorrected on this, and people had trouble figuring out how to return to the photography sections, as you have to leave the beach wing to do that. To solve this we've made Japley, the player's guide, offer to teleport the player to the level selection area.
In a similar vein, a lot of players chose to start the tutorial path again immediately after returning from it, instead of choosing the newly unlocked one that allows them to progress the game. To address this, we've made newly unlocked path signs more prominent, and will have Japley warn the player that they may be wasting time if they choose the tutorial path.
Minigame Clarity
Probably the most frequently reported issue with the demo was that the music games were too hard. Difficulty in particular is one area where it's hard for us to detach from our biases, since we've played the game for so long, so it was great to get fresh impressions.
In response, we've tweaked timing to be more accurate in the rhythm games (Grumbo, Waltok), and made the visuals a lot easier to see in the aurora minigame (Celestios). We also fixed an audio bug that could result in the melody not playing during the latter, and added restart prompts to most minigames so players can retry immediately, without having to talk to the fictions again.
Personality Matters
Until 2020, the fictions in Alekon behaved more like animals, never speaking or showing personality beyond their animations. Although this had its own charm, seeing the players' reaction confirmed that we took the right decision in making the fictions into characters. Grumbo's one liners alone have made him lovable and relatable to most players.
Speaking of which, we had a lot of fun hearing people do voices for the fictions during their streams! We wouldn't have had that opportunity had fictions remained speechless.
Players Take Their Time
A concern we had while developing was that the game would be too short. As developers, we have instinctive knowledge of every nook and cranny, so it is natural for us to speedrun through it.
However, seeing players go through the game at a natural pace showed us that even players who aren't going for a 100% completionist run have plenty of content to engage with. Our demo is rather large, amounting to almost a quarter of the game, but we still didn't expect players to spend more than an hour on it, yet many have passed the two hour mark without running out of content.
The Festival Was Worth It
One definite conclusion we reached was that participating in the Steam Game Festival was a worthwhile investment. We reached a huge amount of players, accumulated thousands of wishlists, and got great feedback that we could incorporate into the game. We would definitely recommend such events to other developers!
Still Seeking Feedback
With all that said, we are still ever-hungry for feedback. If you've played the demo (free forever on Steam), did you experience issues we haven't mentioned here? Did you have fun? Do you have suggestions? Let us know on Discord, or on Twitter, where you can also follow us for fresh showcases of game features and progress every day!