Hi Folks !
We would like to first of all thank everyone who gave their opinions and reviews on the steam hub when the demo was released in October, it was really great and we took all the comments into account, some of them were very detailed and it was really great they did this. We want to thank the influencers and journalists who talked about the game, it was really cool too, so thanks to them.
Thus, after a long period of studying the comments and demo reviews, we are going to make quite a few changes for the future
Originally, The Explorator was planned as a doom like parody, with action frenzy and plenty of jokes, but eventually we noticed in our feedback, many wanted to see more depth in the visuals, the narration and the story. As for us, we wanted to create a more realistic experience, sometimes contemplative. We had made the mistake of designing levels that were too big, but people really enjoyed exploring these large areas and would like that not to change. We said to ourselves that it could become a main component of the game, and give more meaning to our title : The Explorator
This is why in the future, the game will be more of a walking sim, we will have to travel large areas, and we will have to scavenge around for equipment. Exploration will be rewarded with the discovery of sanctuaries or caves which will provide us with special objects, such as relics or unique items. We really want the player to feel lost in this environment, where he will have to use a simple map and clues to find his way through the elements of the background, he can also use objects to guide himself and there may be side quests given by the explorators scattered all over the island.
There will be a profound overhaul of the AI which was initially supposed to be basic to allow the display of as many opponents as possible in very doom-like levels. In the future, soldiers will be evolved enough to hide, to bypass us. the same goes for creatures who can make surprise attacks by circling around us. Obviously, a more advanced AI will be more demanding, especially as the levels grow bigger, there will be fewer enemies but they will be much more dangerous, it will be essential to prepare well before setting off to explore a new area, We hope that in this regard things will work out because optimization is the main challenge of game development, the graphics style uses up a lot of resources and We will certainly have to make sacrifices to balance all that.
The story will become an important component of the game in the future, initially the script was a simple parody without real depth, but now We want to give real meaning to the search for the city of 'Atlantis. In the course of the adventure we will get to know more about the story behind this city and the characters, places, always with a good sense of humor and beautiful art direction.
We were happy about the soundtracks because people really liked the ones in the demo, We bought licenses from two music sites, audionetwork and epidemic, this allows us to quickly install music that can match perfectly. We found some great ones that can provide a unique immersive adventure experience, as well as ambient and fx sounds to make the places more believable
In the gameplay of the demo, we were not satisfied with the way some of the animations had been done. Given that the game is a shooter, the animations of the characters/creatures are often distant, and in the end we can't really take full advantage of the 2D animations, either because there is too much detail or because they are too small, so, there will be larger creatures to encounter, depending on the depth of the level.
We plan to release the game in early access by the end of the year, and the game will be divided into 3 chapters, this will allow us to improve the game and correct it gradually, thanks to feedback, and to fund the next chapters. Nonetheless We are going to release a kickstarter in the summer because We need funds to allow us to make the new changes and purchase new soundtracks, We will perhaps take advantage of next summer’s steam fest to release a new demo which will present this new vision of the game and also improve our prospects to raise money.
here is a summary of the important points. We hope that these changes will please you. We also hope that we won’t have any problems because these modifications and additions are quite ambitious and require additional time and patience which will be necessary to meet our quality standards but We think it is the best thing to do to improve the game
Thank you very much for watching this devlog. We will keep you informed on Twitter, Steam and Youtube, do not hesitate to register on the discord, and if you are excited about the game, you can register now on the pre launch kickstarter page,
bye !
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/remnantgamestudio/the-explorator
https://twitter.com/RavazSydney
https://www.instagram.com/sydnuse_83/