Update 006 Topic
Nexus Musings
Making a Demo
Nexus
Fairly early in the game you likely will want to build a Nexus. The Nexus can be considered the brain of your train – and one of the ways to improve your overall survival capacity. We’ve been experimenting with what train abilities you gain by building mechanical machines, and what train abilities are unlocked in your Nexus. I can see this change over time – especially when you all start providing feedback during Early Access. As of now your Nexus helps expand:
Incline ability - this is handy in a world of tracks rising up mountains.
Engines – more engines means more speed and base size (of course not all engines you build are equal...)
Platforms - an absolute must to expand your production and collection of biomes.
Bonus Oxygen – breathing a little longer is fun!
So you better start collecting those Nexus Cores. 😊
Making a demo
This past month we were back focusing on our demo, and today we’re sending it out to a few family and friends! Demos are an excellent way to share the core loop of your game to folks for the first time – the amount of feedback from simply observation is staggering. On the other hand, making a demo can also be a heavy distraction from the main development of a game. Jeez, larger teams could easily have a few folks who exclusively worked on polishing a demo. Well – we don’t have that luxury as a micro studio.
Our strategy will be similar to Parkasaurus (our first game). We’ll treat the beginning of Railborn as both an encapsulated demo AND the start of main game. This makes things a bit tricky: we both want to really give the vibe of the game to emerge quickly for the demo, while simultaneously pacing the game mechanics/story so it makes sense as part of the full game.
As I speak some friends & family are trying out the private demo. It is a surreal situation eliciting emotions such as terror and wonder. Imagine making a car, and you think it is a decent car. You ask your friend to take the car for a test drive, and they come back informing you there are no wheels or steering wheel. I’m never not amazed by the things you just don’t see making your own game.
And as a reminder, please shoot out our game link to some friends for a Wishlist or two 😊 Or even better, chat about us.
Smashlore & Taky
Disclaimer: Any features we write about might change before and during Early Access.