Well, it’s been a while. Admittedly, I wasn’t sure what I was getting into when I made my first game. I think coming from an animation background I thought it would be like releasing a short video or something (ie: “Put it out there and see what happens”.)
This isn’t the case for games though. Games are kinda like restaurants I feel, it’s almost a service industry. You’ve got people playing it and ultimately they want to experience something so good they’ll come back for more. They want to like your game, but it also takes only the smallest things for them to dislike it. Also, considering there is an upfront price for entry they will have discerning thoughts about a number of factors you never thought of before purchasing (let alone playing, leaving a review, etc).
It’s an uphill battle *after* the release, not just getting to release.
So, “putting it out there” is not an optimal mindset for a game. There’s a whole second reserve tank you need for after the game - and it took me about a year to find that reserve. These changes could have all been done earlier, but I didn’t have the energy or will at that point. I had a ‘one and done’ strategy at the time.
But, surprisingly, I just opened it up one day and started coding again. I realized all the mistakes I had made along the way and some glaring problems with difficulty/accessibility and wanted to address them with this patch.
I’m not sure how many more of these I have in me, patch-wise. I have a *great* idea for a new game I’m still fleshing out and definitely should just move onto it. But I thought I’d give Boyce a few more lines of love before I do.
PATCH NOTES 1.25
- Note: Unfortunately any past save file will be deleted with this patch.
- Removed two arbitrary difficulty levels to reduce upfront decision fatigue.
- Redesigned Story/Normal difficulty levels based off player feedback.
- Added checkpoints on Story/Normal to make levels easier.
- Added Tutorial on first play to give players an understanding of how the hitboxes and scoring works.
- Added Stage Select after first completion of the game, a much requested feature.
- Removed ‘fast reload’. It made sense with longer play lengths, but with the checkpoints added it seemed to add more confusion and accidental presses.
- Reedited and shortened cutscene 1 as it was too long for most players, it was skipped and a decent amount of story setup was ignored.
- Added intro cutscene. A few scenes from old cutscene 1 are moved to a new intro
- Controller Recommended’ added to splash screen as I really wanted to reiterate to players that it was built for a controller.