The launch went without too many issues! I did patch a few things in the first few days, but other than that I feel like I spent more time worrying about the demo's release than having to fix any major bugs. Which is good!
Funnily enough, the most major bug some players seemed to have encountered came much more recently. Players that had AMD Graphics Card faced issues with a recent software update which caused the sand blocks to not renderer at all. The latest patch from AMD should be fixing this issue. Hopefully.
As for the demo's expected playtime, I had aimed for it to be about a 15 minute demo. The average time and median time for Steam players is 25 and 15 minutes respectively! So I was glad to see I had properly estimated the time for it. Though I am even happier to see that there is a not insignificant amount of players who picked up the demo and ended up playing it over an hour!
This one was a big one. This event resulted in Elfie: A Sand Plan getting most of the wishlist it has now! It was kind of crazy to see the impression numbers it got and overall having the demo release alongside the event probably helped a lot!
However, I do feel like I hindered just how much attention the demo could have gotten by not commissioning my friend Shiromi earlier for the recent updated version of the key art for Steam. Though I love the art I had made for the game, it was likely not the best fit to get the attention of a wider audience. I don't think it changes much who would in fact enjoy the game, but Shiromi has done a great job in making something more eye-catching while keeping the composition idea for it.
Elfie: A Sand Plan was also showcased at GDoC Expo 2025! I attended some of the online talks and online networking events and it made me miss my experience at TGS last year. I'm hoping I'll get to participate in some of those in-person kinds of expo in 2026! (And apply for a spot with the released version of Elfie: A Sand Plan? I would like to!)
Wait... this is in 2 weeks! This postmortem is also meant to cover the upcoming changes to the demo I have planned for the upcoming Steam Next Fest.
The have been several QoL improvement that have been made for block placements. A lot came with improving a feature that isn't in the demo: The double blocks. I'm hoping that it will make any friction that some people may have felt be greatly reduced!
Graphically, I've changed the settings for the CRT filter to be at an even lower level when first starting. And some changes to how the blocks initially renderer should also solve some stuttering that some players have encountered when first grabbing a block. (I highly recommend this post for anyone using Godot. As you are always working on your project, you might not face the stuttering described in this post. But your players might.)
But most importantly... new languages!! Currently, the next demo update is certain to have translations for Latin American Spanish and European Spanish! I'm also collaborating with a Brazilian Portuguese translator for it, but it might not release at the exact same time. But we'll try to!
There is a lot I could say here but I'll try to keep it brief.
First, here are some things you'll find in the release but not in the demo:
Second, for changes, these are things that we're initially planned but we're added post demo release:
It's all very exciting, it's all a bit stressful. Things are going well, but how well will they keep going? I think the biggest relief I have is that as far as I've seen, playing A Sand Plan and meeting Elfie has definitely been a positive experience for the majority of the players who tried the demo. It's great to know that trying it means loving it.
So I guess my final thoughts on all this is that if you haven't given it a try yet, what are you waiting for? Go try out the demo!
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