Hello everyone,
I hope you had a great holidays and everything is going fine during this beginning of the year. I am glad to share today some news about Comet Force. Let's get into it!
First, let's recall that the Demo of Comet Force launched on December 9th, 2024. I would like to thank all the players for giving this demo a try and sharing your feedback. Thanks also to content creators for putting great videos out there. I encourage you for instance to check out this recent one from ReformistTM, it is very enjoyable!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAUsKTj41e4
So, a month later, it's time to reflect. Am I happy with how the demo release went? Unfortunately, the answer is: not really actually... Let's dive into the why.
Comet Force has a median playtime of 21 minutes, which is similar to my previous game Destroy The Monoliths. This is rather good. Coverage on Youtube has however been more sparse and less impactful. The Destroy The Monoliths Demo was featured by Retromation and Wanderbots, and this had a significant impact. Comet Force has not had this chance yet, and this makes a huge difference until now. Overall, I did reached out to dozens of content creators and was hoping for a bit more more replies and featuring.
The bottom line is that the wishlist count of Comet Force remains dramatically low compared to Destroy The Monoliths. And I don't really know why. I am personally very happy with the current state of Comet Force. I feel I really increased the level of polish in this project, especially in the UI. I also think Comet Force has cool mechanics and brings its own twist to the action shooter roguelike genre.
Still, it is difficult to nurture motivation when struggling to spark interest. I am 100% determined to finish and release Comet Force, but I need to make adjustments to the project. I decided to cut down the scale of the game a little in order to release it sooner, which you may find a good or bad news, I don't know. In any case, I hope you will understand this decision, and that's why I'm trying to be honest about what I'm doing. However, I do want to reassure people: I am not rushing the end of the development. The game will still have plenty of content at the release, just a bit less than what I was ideally envisioning. Besides, I would be happy to work on post-launch content updates if the release actually goes better than expected! I just think it's time to finish this game (prototyping started in October 2023, it's been 16 month already!) and think about a new fresh project after that (I have a few ideas already... but more on that in future posts!).
So, I am announcing Comet Force will release in Q2 this year!
It will also be part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest at the end of February, and I am hoping for some good visibility during this event.
If you like this game, please spread the word to whoever you know may enjoy it. Being a solo indie developer is not an easy task, and any help to increase the visibility of the project really does mean a lot.
To end this post, I want to share a few screenshots of new content I have been working on!
First, let's see every class currently in the game! The first 6 are already familiar to you if you played the Demo. But can you guess what the last 6 do? By the way, two of these classes will be added to the Demo during the Steam Next Fest so you will be able to play them soon!
Second, here is a bunch of new arena turrets! Some are even upgrades of other turrets, so all of these will play a really greater role in the full game.
One of these turret is a protective turret, with a blue circle force field that can absorb enemy bullets, as you can see below. Also, it seems the enemy with a golden overlay is behaving weirdly in this scene, shooting its peer... Did it get corrupted or something?!
That's it for this post and this content teasing. As always, thanks a lot for your support, and see you next time!
-Radiant Sloth