Hi! It's about time to sum up the playtest - what we learned, what we've already done, and what we will do.
First of all, thanks for playing, thanks for the feedback, we're all so glad that you had fun. And you helped us a lot.
The data I'll share will come from our in-game survey, but also from our Discord, Steam, and from streams and videos on Youtube and their comments sections.
Let's start with: how did the playtest go?
Our survey had a question: if this was a demo, would you rate it positively or negatively? 78% said positively, 9% negatively, and 13% was unsure.
One of the most important aspects was truck handling and feel, and we're happy to say the overall feedback was positive. Combining information from all the driving related questions, about 65 percent said the driving was just right. Around 20 percent wanted small tweaks, and around 15 percent didn't like it.
In general, I'd say that was the sentiment towards every aspect of the game. Around 10 to 15 percent of players that reacted negatively, the rest was positive. As for performance, 35 percent said it was smooth all the time, for 55 percent it was mostly smooth with occasional stutters, 9 percent said the game was frequently choppy, and 1 percent said it was barely playable.
The game was pretty stable for most of the players. Only 6% of sessions ended with a crash - it's a very nice result, especially since it was an unfinished build. Our immediate goal is to get below 4% and then work toward eliminating all known reasons for crashes.
Fun fact, 75% of players prefers the first person view and when asked why, you most frequently say: immersion.
The game's objectives and mechanics were generally easy to understand, with the exception of the quest goals. Most players paid attention to the story and wanted to know what happens next.
The most criticized part of the game would be the minimap, which we will need to make more easy to read and probably also larger. There was also the bug with items in the truck's inventory not saving and disappearing when loading a game.
Now let's sum up the feedback regarding problems and suggestions. We identified 52 separate technical subjects and 40 content-related subjects, so 92 subjects in total. Those are both bugs and improvements that you suggested. We prioritized 23 of them, and the rest we want to implemented step by step through the course of the remaining development and post-release.
What we've already done and what we are working on
We already fixed at least one reason for the crashes you had, (possibly more, but this needs to be verified).
We added a flashlight.
Rewrote quest goals.
We have redesigned the Town management screen so you can easily check where to find the required upgrade materials.
We fixed the bug with items in the truck inventory not saving.
There's ongoing work with the AI of cars you meet on the road. They now react more quickly and are less twitchy, but this is still an ongoing work.
We created more collectibles - now in the form of new truck decorations which I think will be a nice reward for exploring our world.
Also, bushes you drive into won't clip into the truck.
We have been experimenting with driving physics. We added more flexibility to trailer suspension so it works in a more visible way, but we don't want to overdo it.
We're also trying to improve the handling, making the truck feel a bit heavier.
Finally, we're tweaking the engine sounds but we're not completely satisfied with them yet.
Beside all of that, we're finalizing the second, big map of the game.
To sum it up: that's a lot of progress for about four or five days, and it was made possible by you. What a wonderful playtest that was. Thank you very much. I'm rather certain we'll want to do another round, maybe to test another engine or something like that. I'll let you know.
Stay tuned by following our game on Steam or joining our Discord. See you next time!