Posted September 06, 2024 by Kurenai
Note: There are spoilers in this dev log. In the very unlikely case scenario that you haven't played my game as yet, stop reading this and give it a go before proceeding.
I can't believe it's been one week already since I've shown this game to the public...
Anyway, hello there, this is Kurenai.
東方雷秘儀 ~ Strike in the Holy Apex has been getting way more attention than I anticipated when it was released last week, so much that it's been able to accumulate over 250 downloads so far, which is an insane amount (and I thank you deeply for it)!
I've been experienced with GameMaker for 14 years, but I never actually bothered to show publicly any of the stuff I've created with it, not just out of insecurity but mostly because they could barely count as "games" due of gameplay unbalances and what not. I mean, I was literally a teenager when I made those games, so I barely had any grasp about the concept of quality. Years have passed, and I've finally got to develop a larger project (this game) with the intent of showing it publicly. Now that I've done so, after I've been refraining to do it for a very long while... all the reception I've got from my game's demo has been quite overwhelming to me. So much that I actually had to look away from my PC and walk outside for a couple of hours because it genuinely was too much for me to handle. Regardless, most of it has been quite useful to gather information on what needs to be polished.
With that said, I'm going to first provide a list of the most common things that were criticized from my game, which in turn also serves as a list of what should be fixed by the time the full version is out:
Those are the most common observations I've seen. Here are also some minor suggestions that were brought out, which may seem trivial, but are also worth considering once I resume development:
And that's pretty much it in terms of the criticism I've got so far. Despite all these flaws, I'm very pleased that the thematic centered around Greek mythology, and the overall audiovisual presentation of the game has been receiving plenty of praise from the players.
So yeah. I wanna thank each and every person who decided to give my game a go and vocalize the stuff that they liked/disliked. I really want this to be enjoyed by as many people as possible, so I'll do everything in my power to make the full release an unforgettable experience.
As I said in the game's OMAKE file, I'll be in the need of playtesters once I resume development so I can balance the gameplay accordingly, because I definitely won't be able to please a wide player demographic if I test everything on my own. I still don't have a clear date when I'm gonna resume working on my game, but I'll write a post on that when it happens.
That's all I have to say, have an unused angry Gidapiria.
I've drawn this face as part of my workflow, but it ended up being unused in my game's demo, haha. Maybe it'll be put in use during the full game, who knows.
See ya later!