Hi everyone, I'm Wing, the marketing team leader of Soulmask. I'm writing this letter to everyone with excitement and nervousness.
During the Steam Next fest in mid-February, we released a 40-hour demo version for players to try out. To our pleasant surprise, we gained over Hundreds of thousands of new friends and accumulated over 470,000 hours of gameplay!
With the enthusiastic support of our players, Soulmask quickly rose to the 8th position on the Trending Upcoming list during the festival and eventually reached the 3rd position. Additionally, our wishlist ranking has increased by over 400 places!
On YouTube and Twitch channels, we received more than 1000 pieces of contents from 532 creators and garnered 127 media news reports for "Soulmask". These contents not only provided reviews and answers for our players but also offered us a lot of inspiration.
We are very thankful for everyone's attention and love!
Among the reviews and feedback, the most prominent topic was the 40-hour gameplay experience we provided.
For a demo version game offered for free during the festival, a 40-hour trial is nearly unprecedented and is indeed a bold move for us.
Initially, we planned to set the trial duration at 16 hours. However, based on previous testing and feedback from our internal team, 16 hours might not even be enough to obtain the bronze equipment.
We are a slow-paced game, which means we might miss out on many lovely friends.
But we are confident in our game, as it gets more enjoyable and addictive the more you play. This confidence stems not only from our game's development and design but also from the feedback of our testing users and our community of over 5000+ friends on Discord.
So when our long-time community member Adam suggested extending the trial duration to allow more players to experience the true fun of Soulmask, "let them explore relics with different equipment, let them experience abundant wildlife and crops, and train the coolest tribe, as well as the taste of defeat in battle,"
After intense discussion, we ultimately decided to extend the trial time to 40 hours and open an unlimited single-player mode at the start of the festival.
This adjustment provided more opportunities for friends to get to know us, and it's these opportunities that led to the achievements mentioned above.
Here I must thank Adam for giving us the courage. ːsteamhappyː
I want to give a special thanks to Shizai for his valuable feedback, which was over 18,000 letters. As a seasoned survival game player, Shizai provided us with detailed feedback on various aspects of Soulmask, including the user interface, building and farming mechanics, and the mount system. Our development team carefully read and thoroughly considered the best optimization solutions.
However, what touched me the most was this passage:
【In a lot of games the world feels empty and sad, no matter how pretty the world looks (e.g. Icarus), and NPC tribes & tribe management could be THE feature to make the game more alive, interesting and deep】
This is exactly one of the original intentions behind our design of the tribal system!
The intelligent tribal system is a major feature of the game, aimed at freeing players from repetitive tasks and allowing them to focus more on exploration and combat. More importantly, we hope that the tribal system can provide players with a sense of family and belonging in the game.
Regardless of the size of the thatched hut or the small stone house, there will always be tribal members at home, tidying up everything and waiting for your return from the hunt.
We also appreciate Mr. Beans' thoughtful criticism. It allows us to maintain a clear perspective while celebrating small achievements. We indeed have many shortcomings and are still far from those great works. However, this is also one of the driving forces for us to continue our efforts!
In addition, a big thank you to Wak for your wonderful performance during the Steam Next Fest's official live stream, showcasing the tribesmen gameplay for our players
Next, our community manager Peter will address the most pressing questions and concerns from the trial event.
Q1: I experienced unstable servers and high latency while playing the game.
A1: Following the start of the trial event, the player enthusiasm exceeded our expectations, leading to a large influx of players and causing some servers to experience lag due to high player numbers or excessive constructions. Upon identifying the issue, we promptly decided to open more servers and optimize the game's performance. Additionally, our development team worked intensively to open an unlimited private mode for players at the beginning of the festival. Our optimization work has been proceeding according to plan, so we ask our players to trust in our efforts.
Furthermore, in response to the high-latency issue reported by European players on official servers, we have prepared local servers in Europe. During the subsequent testing and early access stages, European players will be able to enjoy a lower-latency gaming experience.
Q2: I don't know what to do in the game, and it feels like there's no guidance or tutorial, so I logged off after playing for a while.
A2: Players who participated in the early stages of development testing know that the game's content and mechanics are very rich and engaging. In this round of testing, many players have provided feedback that the game lacks clear guidance, and they feel lost in the initial stages. We have long been aware of the issue of incomplete tutorials, and the development team has been working according to the plan to create a more comprehensive guide to help players better immerse themselves in this world. In future versions, we will provide improved guidance and objectives, along with adding CG animations to stimulate players' desire to explore the world.
Q3: The house I built decayed, and I didn't know that lighting a campfire could prevent buildings from decaying.
A3: Regarding the "decay mechanism," we will enhance the guide on using campfires to protect buildings and significantly reduce the materials required to craft campfires. Additionally, after the early access phase, players will be able to adjust various parameters, including the speed of "decay," and even directly disable the "decay" system using a custom panel before starting in single-player/local network/private server mode. Moreover, in single-player mode, decay will not continue when the player is offline.
On official multiplayer servers, considering the gameplay experience of all players, the "decay" mechanism will be retained (otherwise, the world might be filled with abandoned bases from other players, making it difficult for new and old players to place their own base). Of course, we will also listen to player feedback in subsequent testing phases and may make detailed adjustments based on their opinions.
Q4: Some surfaces in the game cannot be climbed, resulting in a poor climbing experience.
A4: We will optimize the climbing experience and strive to make all-terrain surfaces climbable, enhancing the player's exploration experience in the world.
Q5: The night time in the game is too long, and it's difficult to see anything at night.
A5: Many players have provided feedback that the night time in the game is too long. We will significantly reduce the duration of night time in the game to prevent players from feeling lost during the long night. Additionally, after the early access phase, players will be able to adjust various parameters using a custom panel before starting in single-player/LAN/private server mode.
Q6: The game's font is too small, and the taskbar background is transparent, making it difficult to read.
A6: We will add a non-transparent background to the game's text to make it easier for everyone to read. As for other details such as font size, we will consider each one individually and optimize the player's experience as much as possible.
Q7: The early game difficulty is too high, and I often get killed by monsters. It's also complex to craft and gather materials in the early game.
A7: In response to these issues, we have made the following adjustments:
- Adjusted the difficulty of the barbarians and added sound effects for wild animals to provide warnings to some extent.
- Significantly reduced the number of early-game workbenches, so players will no longer spend a lot of time collecting resources to build workbenches.
- Reduced the materials required to craft certain items and weapons. For example, bone weapons can now be crafted with just thick rope and animal bones, eliminating the need for leather rope.
Q8: The UI/UX (game interface) looks uncomfortable and the operation feels cumbersome.
A8：Interactivity has always been a part we value highly, and this trial has had a lot of player feedback on operational issues, such as long-pressing the left mouse button to learn skills, long-pressing the E key to view information, and having to remove and place high-level equipment into the workbench before repairing. We will make adjustments to these issues, and some problems will need further discussion before deciding on how to modify them, aiming to make the player's operation experience as convenient as possible.
We welcome players proposing specific issues and will continue to optimize!
In addition to addressing the player feedback mentioned above, we will also share with you our upcoming game optimization efforts.
1, About game guide and interaction:
In order to help players quickly understand what kind of game "Soul Mask" is, we will focus on the following aspects to enhance player perception:
Operation: Strengthen the guide for gathering, building, and combat, helping players quickly become familiar with the basic operations of "Soulmask."
Worldview: Create more CG animations to introduce the game's worldview, gradually uncovering the secrets behind the mask, and guiding players to explore the world.
System: We will create a detailed in-game tutorial page separately to allow players to easily access game tutorials at any time.
2，About the unique gameplay experiences in the early game:
We have prepared various gameplay features such as intelligent tribe management, possession control, and mask collection. However, in this testing phase, many players did not experience these aspects and missed out on the fun of the game. Therefore, in future versions, we will bring forward the introduction of control gameplay. Players will be able to easily unlock the control feature and utilize the abilities of the masks to possess other tribesmen, experiencing the core gameplay of the game. The unlock conditions for other masks will also be lowered, and the acquisition of related materials will be made easier. When players place their first campfire, a wanderer will join their tribe voluntarily, becoming their tribesmen and providing the best opportunity to experience the control gameplay.
3, About optimizing the tribe management system
Many players have expressed that while the AI of the tribesmen is intelligent enough, setting tasks for them is cumbersome and increases the learning curve. This can lead to situations where the tribespeople have nothing to do, resulting in a decrease in their satisfaction and their eventual departure from the tribe.
In regard to tribesmen, we have optimized their intelligence, and now players only need to issue simple commands to direct them to gather the corresponding resources, eliminating the need for cumbersome preliminary operations. Players can also assign professions to tribespeople, and once tasks are assigned at the corresponding workbench, tribesmen meeting the professional requirements will automatically start working.
4, Enhancing Immersion in the Game
During this trial, the sound effects presented were only for testing, and many sound effects were not implemented. In subsequent versions, we will incorporate more sound effect updates, including ambient sounds of the natural environment, sounds of wildlife attacks and movements, and sounds of characters swimming. The existing sound effects will also undergo optimization to enhance a more immersive and realistic experience. For example, the rustling sound in the rainforest may represent danger, and we want players to feel as if they are personally hunting in the rainforest.
In terms of the ecosystem, we have introduced more wildlife such as mice, brown bears, spiders, and grey wolves, among others, to strengthen the overall ecosystem.
There are still many areas in the game that have not been unlocked. As players continue to explore, the secrets hidden behind the masks will gradually be revealed, and there are many more discoveries awaiting players in the game.
5, Game Language Support and Localization Accuracy
In the upcoming versions, we will add support for languages such as German, French, and Portuguese. In this trial, many players provided feedback on the accuracy of the game's text. This is because in the testing version, many texts have not gone through final proofreading, and these issues will be addressed in the EA version. We have also recruited volunteers from among the players to collaborate with them in providing better game text. We would like to express our gratitude to these enthusiastic players.
6, Gamepad and Peripheral Support
Many players have mentioned gamepad support and Steam Deck support, both of which will be added in future versions.
Finally, we want to express our gratitude to all the players who have been eagerly anticipating our game, whether they have had a taste of it at a gaming event and are left wanting more, or have watched numerous content creators' videos and are eagerly waiting. We appreciate those who have played the early access version and provided valuable feedback for us to improve.
Our EA version won't keep you waiting too long; perhaps it will be available in just three months ːsteamhappyː.