Good news! Half a year ago I said I'd be expanding Cogmind for at least another six months, and here I am to say it again :)
Remember that as of last year's move to Beta, the world and storyline are complete, and all that's left are some finishing touches and possible optional content and meta features. Everything on the public roadmap (and technically more) are guaranteed to happen, but I have a ton more concepts for great optional stuff that I'd like to work in if possible. Some of this stuff is rather major, which together with the many other little features I'd like to add reaches the kind of level one might expect to see the the form of "DLC." But I don't like DLC, nor do I think it's appropriate for Cogmind, which benefits significantly from its many mechanics, systems, and plot all being tightly intertwined at numerous points.
This presents a bit of a conundrum because I still need to be able to pay for them with revenue, which will get more difficult as we near the tail end of Cogmind development. Devs of widely popular games can afford to keep adding features and content nearly indefinitely, even without selling it as DLC, while Cogmind is pretty niche and if I did that I wouldn't be left with enough savings to fund the next project, so I've come up with a pretty simple alternative!
The Goal
It so happens that having an "Overwhelmingly Positive" review rating on Steam really helps with sales, and we obviously have an attractive ratio already with so many people enjoying the game, just not enough total reviews to reach that threshold. We need 500 reviews before that can happen. But at the current rate (we've gone an entire month without a single review before xD) I don't think it's likely we'll hit that threshold before the 1.0 release, at which point I'll likely be starting to shift resource to my next project and therefore less able to take on major new features for Cogmind.
I realize that the current rate of reviews is probably lower than it would be if Cogmind were 1.0, mainly because some people prefer to wait until it's "done" to dive in, but hopefully with the variety of achievements soon to be added we'll see more players getting into it now, especially seeing as the content is essentially full release material.
So there it is, the goal being to get more players leaving reviews in the hopes that we can hit that target.
But wait, there's more!
The Incentive
I could leave this as a vague promise since any of you following my progress over the years know my reputation for adding good content (and as we often discuss on Discord there's so much potential to work with in Cogmind's world!), but rather than leave it an unknown, I'll let you in on what I've been planning out for a long while as a suitable incentive: A NEW FACTION.
And of course a new faction has many implications, requiring...
- at least one new map (probably more than one)
- new NPCs
- new robots
- new tech and parts
- new mechanics and systems
- and of course more lore
What is this faction, you might ask? The working name I have peppered throughout my design doc is the Merchant's Guild :D
A Medium-Term Goal
Anyway, this threshold is obviously not going to be hit any time soon, but is more of a medium-term goal with potential long-term upside! And if we can hit it it means 1) potentially more sales to fund features and 2) enough love for Cogmind that I don't care whether there are enough continued sales I'll fund this expansion myself anyway :P
Again there are still a fair number of guaranteed features prior to 1.0, including a much expanded robot hacking system, yet more UI/QoL stuff, and ambient audio, so don't worry all that's all going to happen. I'm just thinking further into the future here...
Many thanks to all of you who've over the years helped Cogmind become what it is today--couldn't have done it without your support!
TL;DR: There are still guaranteed features to go, but if we hit 500 reviews and get that "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating on Steam before 1.0 I'll further expand the world with a new faction and a bunch of related content.