Planning A Demo...Pre-Alpha?
The year is 20XX (2025) and game development is a bit different these days than in decades past. If you had told me when I first entered the industry 18 years ago that I'd ever be planning out a demo for a game that is just barely crawling out of the prototype phase of development, I'd have thought I was being pranked.
But a lot has changed in the last couple of years. The bar for for raising development funds is higher than ever. The insistence on complete secrecy and market validation coming from Publishers well into development has now become an insistence on maximized visibility and market validation provided by the developer before a publisher will even consider joining and providing development funds.
While that role reversal has had some pretty devastating effects on the indie and AA scene, there's no arguing out of the fact that it's our current reality. So, what is a small team to do with a prototype but no marketing budget?
Demo, Demo, Demo, Demo
Teaser trailers and even gameplay videos are well and good, but nothing speaks to players more clearly and directly than something they can actually play. The question is, how do you make a demo that is early enough into development to be made without financial support, but far enough along to give players a fair look at what the finished product will be?
For our team of 3, we have settled on the following:
1 Complete level, playable from start to finish, ending in a boss fight
Core gameplay systems, along with basic enemies, music, and challenge represented at a "minimum viable product" level
Art that is representative of the final style, even if not complete or fully polished
The potential to round out additional, smaller experiences, in short level "previews" or vignettes
The level we chose for this will be the Wastelands level (featured in the Ambient Machinewaves video below!), as it has a nice balance of interior and exterior spaces, room for horizontal and vertical scrolling segments, and a boss with an already-roughed-in 3d mesh.
As part of the selection process, we also started mapping out all of the other levels on an idea board to have a better feeling of where we will have a vertical vs horizontal movement focus, what color themes are being used in each level, interior versus exterior environment focus, and general theming with things like time of day and weather or other important related elements.
Ambient Machinewaves 04
And last but not least, a new Ambient Machinewaves is up! This time featuring a small glimpse into the afore mentioned Wastelands level, along with a new work-in-progress music track!
-AtomDan