Ok, so it's been a little while since I wrote a post, and a lot of things and decisions have been happening in the meanwhile so I wanted to update you guys. (Whoever is reading this, you, person who reads and never comments, I still like you, despite your lack of comments, I would like you even more if you commented, made questions, suggestions or something, but it's ok, I get it :o)
Alright, so in november I was hard at work in Rocket Fist again and loving it, I decided I should just polish the game and add everything it was lacking for an early access release, a minimum viable product. I set myself the deadline of December 15th to have something worth of releasing in early access, and as you have seen on the devlog, I worked pretty damn hard at it.
This week was it, the week of december 15. This date wasn't completely arbitrary, this week there were a couple of opportunities to playtest Rocket Fist, and it would be the perfect test for my "Is this ready for an early access?" question. My ex-game-design teacher had some time to playtest with me and give me feedback; My friend Kramer had a house-party filled with game devs which I could playtest with; And last but not least, the vancouver Full Indie Meetup was happening.
The self-imposed deadline came, I had put everything I wanted to put into the game, all of the minimum viable product features I wanted were there, the game had even more levels than I had originally planned for the minimum viable product and people were loving it. The new dynamic levels were a great hit, people loved to stop and point things on the replays, they were comparing kills on the game over, they would change levels between matches and play around with settings, it was everything I was expecting! A lot of the people I was talking to thought I had already released the game, they told me it felt complete and they believed it was ready.
Of course, I found some bugs that need fixing, had new ideas of things I should add, things I should fix, things I should remove (Like this on the gif above, this is one thing I should remove XD even though it looks cool, it plays terribly)… However, the game is ready, it could be out there, it could make an early access release. Then the question came, should it though?
Had a meeting this week with my friends over at Amnia Interactive (They're helping to publish the game :D) and we were pondering whether or not to do Early Access, the pros and cons.
Lots of people don't view early access under a good light anymore, and a lot of the media won't cover early access games. I don't know if I would even get any coverage with Rocket Fist even as a full release, but I know that if I try with it as early access my chances are even slimmer, would be better to make a great first impression with a even more complete game. :/ Releasing in early access would also create a lot of new tasks, like community management, customer support, social media, etc. Those will take away part of my development time, if I don't do early access I would still have those new tasks but it would be at a moment that all the other game tasks would be mostly done, with only bugfixes and minor updates remaining.
I'm fortunate enough to have lots of access to playtesters here. I can get a lot of feedback and testing done without the need for early access, it would be nice to see a community start forming around the game (hopefully that will happen once the game is out XD), but that can also wait, so… I have decided to wait and keep working on the game towards a full release. I have set the date of April 25 as a release date for Rocket Fist, and planned accordingly. I believe I can achieve everything I wanted to achieve with the game by March 15, and use the rest of the time for certification and marketing.
So, what is next for Rocket Fist? If the game feels so close to completion according to playtests, what are you going to be doing from now until March 15/April 25? Well… I was going to write about that now too, but this post is so long I'll leave it for another post :)