Clawed Demo. Where we are now, a big thank you, what's next, and Co-op.

Hi Prehistorians!

Tim here again. It's been a few weeks since our last post, so we thought we would touch base with you all and let you know where we are at in terms of development, the co-op update for the demo and so on.
So, let's get to it!

Community Growth, Clawed demo feedback, and a huge thank you for all that this community has done.

For us, this game has been a rollercoaster - it is not a big budget production nor are we a big budget studio, yet - thanks to all of you - Clawed has a rapidly growing community, is now in the top 500 most Wishlisted games on steam, has a growing presence on Twitch, and every single day we are seeing more and more content creators stream the demo on YouTube and share it.
Thing about this is, this is not our success as a team (we really mean this) - but all of you that chose to support our dino game.
This community has been unexpected but in the best way possible - You are actively helping shape the game into a better experience through constructive feedback and fair critique, you took the time to play it when there are so many other games out there to try, and many of you reached out to us directly to share your experience.
We are sitting on your shoulders, and we want everyone to know that we really appreciate the level of support and (sometimes tough) love you have sent our way.
We are under no illusion that we did this - it was all of you.

And we can't thank you enough.



So, now that the soppy stuff is over - what does this mean for the game?

Well, the demo has acted as a guidepost for what is working well, what needs to be improved and what isn't working well.
Thanks to the popularity of the game so far, we are able to invest in the game a bit more, which means we can take more feedback, improve more systems and so on. Basically, it allows us to reinvest in the game so that when this game launches it is do so in a great place

- We are working on improving some of our dinosaur models, (the Meg recently had a big facelift and looks more terrifying than ever) Our Rexes have been updated too and several more are getting a glow up.

- Our Dino AI has had a complete from the ground up overhaul. You can expect more unique behaviors, new ways to deal with them, and tweaks based on player feedback. We are planning to go bit deeper into this in the next community post when we break down the Co-op demo update.

-New weapons, tools, and items. Again, not going to give this away yet, but I think you guys will be happy with some changes and new features.

- New task system to help manage and track current goals. We are working on the balance of this as we still want the game to be about exploring and solving puzzles on your own. No doubt the community will have plenty of feedback on this when it rolls out as part of the co-op update.

That sort of covers the basics. There are other parts of the game that are benefiting too such as Tourist Mode and Envara Expedition. We will have more on those after to Co-op update rolls out.



Speaking of the Co-Op update, when is that happening?

To not bury to lead, in roughly two weeks. Possibly sooner but I'll say two to be safe as we don't want to disappoint you guys.
So, many of the mentioned things above will be rolled out into the demo along with the Co-op option being enabled.
Our original plans were to just turn on Co-op for the current version of the demo and be done with it.
However, the benefits of community feedback have been so useful, we thought we'd make a bigger effort and use it to gather feedback on the improved systems as well.
There will be a couple of new spaces to explore, new items, goals, and new dino AI.
Our next post will be a breakdown of the coming update, so stay tuned for that :)

A Quick Q&A - some of the questions we are seeing out in the community.

The demo is quite large, how big is the full game? Is this a 5 hour game?
The easiest way to answer this is - it's much bigger. The Demo allows you to explore South Main Street, an area of the park that was closed 20 years prior to the main story.
There is still the entire main park to explore.
Basically, you have barely seen the park yet, and if you finished the demo and experienced the final tram ride, you can see the park extends far into the distance. That doesn't include the areas you can't see, such as the many tunnels, caves, underwater areas and so on.

Then there is Tourist Mode - Explore Prehistoria during its operation as a tourist. You can even buy yourself hotdogs and toys :)

Envara Expedition - Not going to share too much on this yet. But I will say it provides a completely different kind of experience and takes place on Envara island, where the dinos in our story were discovered.

All modes can be played with up to 4 players :)

Will the game be expensive?
As I said when we started, this is not a triple A game, and we won't be charging AAA prices obviously. We honestly don't know the exact price yet, but it will be fair and respectful to the gamer.
If you have bought an Indy title, then you probably know the ballpark where it will be.

Our goal is ultimately that you feel the game provides a lot of value for your money. So, we're leading with that

Is the game still coming out this year? If so, when?
Yes! We have no intention of pushing it back. We have a window in mind.
While we are still refining things like AI, animations, environments and some systems, the bulk of the work is well near completion. Our Park is getting final touches and testing, and the other modes have been in the oven for a while.

We will not be dragging out a prolonged release date. Once we think it's good to go, you'll know, and we will announce the date.


So, I think this is a good place to leave it.
Again, thank you all for the support. We appreciate it more than you know.

If you have questions, please leave them in the comments. We try to get back quickly - sometimes we can't - but we read everything and will do our best to reply.

Have a great day everyone :)

Flatrock Team