Hi!
Around May 2023, the very first version of Burder's demo was released. It was an important milestone for me, because at the time, I had already spent 3 years working on this project during my free time (being a web dev to pay the bills). So I was very relieved to finally "let it go" and move on the next areas of the game.
I went to a few gamedev events where I live, near Paris, France, to meet other gamedevs and share about our experiences. I did receive some feedback back then, which helped me a lot to understand where my game was lacking, what aspects were more frustrating than what "normal game design" should allow!
Burder being a (narrative, but also) puzzle game, I saw that some of my puzzles were kinda confusing in the way they presented themselves. I even noticed that a specific puzzle was solved by several players in a way that was totally unexpected for me, and was really a bug.
I learnt that, in puzzles, the more you "confine" the player in indicative restrictions, the clearer the path to the solution will be. My puzzle presentation was probably too vague.
Anyway, enough about 2023. After receiving such feedback, I spent a part of 2023, and the entirety of 2024 improving the demo:
- First on "fixing" what I considered to be relevant feedback, genuine game design issues with my game.
- Then I improved some visual aspects of the game, parts I wasn't a fan of, like dialogues' faces. I also added more animated stuff in the backgrounds, particles, etc, to make the world feel more alive. I also added some lore parts, especially the "opening visual novel sequence" (for those that aren't into VN at all, I promise the VN parts will remain short and rare in Burder)
- Finally, my biggest task for this new demo: making the game's music! I had no background regarding music theory or any practice of an instrument. I still can't use a piano or a guitar even if I own some in my apartment, but I spent the first half of 2024 learning music theory, sound design, and the use of a DAW. So all of the music you hear in this new demo is from me. It sure sounds less professional than the license-free music I had in place, but for this first game I'm making, I really wanted to be a "jack of all trades" in order to learn all aspects that surround the act of making a game, and have a better understanding of the whole process. After that, even though I took a real interest in drawing illustrations or composing music, I can more clearly see that for my next projects, I would ideally be accompanied by an audio artist, a graphic designer, and maybe a fellow developer. And focus myself more on what I estimate are my own fields : programming and writing (I still need to keep practicing that one)
So this is it, Demo Version 2 of Burder should now be live on Steam for Windows, Mac and Linux. I hope you enjoy it if you give it a try, and feel free to contact me on Twitter, Blusky or my Discord server (more deserted than the Sahara for now) if you have any feedback to give!