Not everyone is happy about Solace Crafting coming out of early access in a less than could be state. In this video I talk a bit about how the other options open to me were much more dangerous for the game, how sales have been doing well these first 3 days of launch, and what I hope to do be able to do with those sales in the coming months.
To recap a bit using text, I had completely run out of money, and the slow draining of my bank account down to literally zero was a psychologically and emotionally demoralizing experience. The options before me were either to get a full-time job and likely end up abandoning Solace Crafting some years down the road due to a of lack of time to develop it and through that an inability to keep people interested in it, or try to make the best of what I have. It was a bit of a gamble, and some people are upset with me, but the majority is enjoying what I've accomplished thus far, and looking forward to improvements.
As sales are doing quite decent, I have completely regained my morale, and more importantly once the sales actually make it to my business account, I should have enough to hire on freelancers to help improve the game where it needs it most, and in ways that I would never have been able to do properly on my own.
To me it feels like the first big step on the larger journey towards what Solace Crafting can really become. There is so much that I've had to put down and cross off my lists, simply because there's only so much one person without any funding can do. With this initial burst of funds I hope to take Solace Crafting to the next stage to attract even more players with an ever better product, and then to the next stage, and so on, just as so many of my favorite games have done over the years.
From what it seems like to me, most of the negative reviews I'm receiving come from 1 of 3 things:
1. The graphics aren't good enough.
To me, graphics are, and always will be, less important than gameplay and content. That doesn't mean that, of course, Solace Crafting has a lot of room for improvement in the graphics department, but I don't think this is the proper stage to be worrying too much about improving the graphics. It's certainly not something I could do on my own, with any sort of efficiency at least. I do certainly understand that at some point along the way, the graphics will need to be improved, but I don't think that is top priority.
2. The controls are too clunky.
This I very much understand. The controls honestly bother me very little, it's just not the way my brain works, but I do very much understand what people are talking about when they bring this up. Animation blending, combat distancing and movement, jumping and swimming transitions, etc. This is one of the first things I hope to put funding towards as soon as I am able to. Again, it's not something that I can bring to a high quality level by myself, and would be better left to someone that has a lot of experience working specifically on this subject.
3. The user interface is bad.
This, I also very much understand. The current UI is largely grey and sometimes you need to click 4-5 buttons to get to a specific window. There is a lot of room for improvement here, and like with the controls, if sales keep up at all in the volume that they are currently going I will be very interested in hiring on someone specifically to redesign the in-game UI completely. I will make a list of all the needs and end-goals of the UI for now and the near future, and work with a specialist to improve it.
The plain truth is though that I never would have been able to address these problems properly on my own. I know some people are worried that I've made a bad move, but I think this is just the beginning, and I am ready to get the ball rolling faster and faster as we improve, expand, and realize Solace Crafting to its full potential.
So thank you to everyone that has stuck with me through Early Access, to everyone that has joined us these past few days, and especially to all the positive reviewers that recognize that this is not the end of the road!
Best wishes and happy gaming!
Kyle Postlewait
Big Kitty Games