IT'S FINISHED!
At last, the game is out.
It’s taken a while, but it was my first time going through the process after all.
First I’ll go over the basic stuff you may want to know right away, then after that I’ll go into more detail about the game, development, how I feel about it, and all that additional stuff that only a few people actually care about.
Here’s the important stuff:
How long is the game?
Playtime so far has been 1.5 -2.5 hours, some players taking quite a bit longer.
Bugs?
I’ve fixed every bug I’ve found, but when you let a game out into the world people always find more. If you do, use the bug-report button inside the game to let me know. You can also post on the game’s steam discussion page.
Performance?
Future patches may offer performance improvements, but the game does appear to run on a wide range of machines, especially if you turn off Lumen. If you aren’t sure how it’ll run for you, try the free demo first!
Sequel?
The short answer is: Maybe, but not soon. Other different horror games first.
Localisation?
Not likely. I’d love future games I make to support more languages, but this one probably won’t. It’s a lot of work to implement, translators are expensive, and this -being my first big game- is not set up in an ideal way to add support later. Future games will be.
Ports?
Similar deal to localisation, not in the cards at the moment. Maybe future games.
Now, me rambling for a while:
THE GAMEDEV EXPERIENCE
I’ve worked on games before this, and done a few little game-jam entries too, but this is my first solo commercial release. It’s not a super long game, but it sure took a hell of a lot longer to make than anything else I’d done. Most of that was just learning the process. Figuring out a pipeline that worked for me, and trying to resist the urge to go back and re-do things every time I found a better way.
The plan was to start small, get the experience under my belt, quickly move onto another project and repeat until I feel ready to tackle something bigger. That’s mostly still the plan, but in retrospect I should’ve started even smaller before Abject Abyss. I thought the game-jam entries counted. They did not.
Any new indie developers out there, whatever you think is a small game, go smaller. Waaaaay smaller.
In fairness to myself, I probably could make Abject Abyss in 6-9 months now. I just didn’t have the experience when I started.
HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS ONE
Overall I’m happy with it. Stoked to actually have it done, and even if it ended up pretty short it’s still a game I’d enjoy if I found it on steam myself.
There’s a lot of stuff I’d have loved to include that I couldn’t. Even with the limitations, I’d do it differently if I started again. I think that’s a good sign for future projects.
I still reckon it’s a solid little horror experience for the price. Hopefully people feel the same!
SO LIKE, LORE WISE…
I’m not gonna explain anything here, that’d be boring.
I know exactly what’s going on and how I’d expand on it in another game, and I think there’s enough there that someone who cared could make fairly accurate guesses about a lot of it. Hard to gauge that sort of thing.
Either way, with horror I always prefer to err on the side of too vague rather than too explicit.
WHAT NEXT?
Something different. Still horror, but not Sci-Fi this time, and ideally with some more mechanical depth.
I’ve got a few concepts I want to explore, and I intend to do a few small prototypes before I decide on what to focus in on. I should be more accurate with scope and estimating workload this time now that I’ve gone through it once, so you can expect a faster turnaround than this one was.
As for Abject Abyss, I’ll keep patching bugs and making tweaks.
I have a lot of ideas for a follow up to the game, and there’s a good chance I eventually do one. No promises though. Need to get some distance from it first.
MADE IT!
Man. Even setting the deadlines myself, the last few months before release really took me back to exams. Sometimes you need pressure to actually get things done.
But we got there, and it’s a load off my mind. Obviously there’s still work to be done, but the sense of relief I got from actually meeting my own release deadline was immense.
Thanks to everyone who’s had any involvement with the game, the playtesters, and everyone who wishlisted or discussed it.
And a huge thanks to everyone who plays it!