2023 Reflections

A busy year it's been.

Infinite Level game discussed: The Future Project

It's December, which means it's time to do the obligatory trip through memory lane as I talk about what all happened over the past year and how I'm generally feeling about it all. In other words, this is the recap episode. And 2023 has been quite the year to recap. Thinking about it, almost all of 2023 has felt like an ongoing sprint as I tried to spread the word about The Future Project, release it, and then continue to support and update it after the fact. And that's just the game development side of my life. “Real” life has had its own share of events, with easily the most significant being the birth of my first kid. Thinking back, I'm realizing now that every quarter of the year has had some major event to coincide with it, which would likely mean a ton of preparation leading up to said event. And I couldn't exactly rest after that event was done because then I'd be getting ready for the next big thing. Christmas break is going to feel good this year, I can tell you that.

Why don't we start with the very beginning? 2023 practically opened with a bang, as I had immediately gotten to work on preparing for Steam Next Fest in February. This would mean making a playable demo of the game, constructing a new trailer, and putting materials together in order to entice would-be players to check out The Future Project. One of these days, I really ought to put a dev blog together discussing how much work goes into making a demo. Most people, myself included, would think it's just a matter of sectioning off a playable portion of the game and putting that up. That might be true for some games, but after my experience I've come to realize that the vast majority of games have quite a bit of work to do to make that demo happen. In my game's case, the demo covers up to the game's first boss, which frankly isn't a whole lot of game to begin with. One of The Future Project's primary selling points, the elemental powers, isn't even present during this session. Or rather, it's not present normally. The demo grants players access to the fire power after defeating the first boss, and then encourages players to run around and try out the elemental power on enemies and other areas. And that's just one thing I had to do to make the demo give a more complete impression of The Future Project as a whole.

During Next Fest, I experienced a lot of firsts. The Future Project had its trailer reuploaded by IGN, a fact that I still think is pretty neat, and I even streamed for the first time as part of Next Fest livestreams. But of course, from a developer's perspective, Next Fest is all about those wishlists and demo downloads. Regarding wishlists, I think I managed to gather a pretty good amount given the fact I'm a solo developer and have a minuscule budget to work with. Of course, it was nice to see people playing the demo as well, and I got some pretty helpful feedback which did make its way into the final game. All in all, I'd call Next Fest a success and would do it again with the right game. It's stressful, sure. Putting a demo out is a bit like a less stressful version of putting out the full game, which means a ton of playtesting and praying things didn't break the second you make it live. Partaking in Next Fest was a bit like a practice round for the eventual release of the game! But things came together pretty well, and by the end of it I was having a pretty decent feeling about how the final release would go.

The next few months are probably the closest to quiet months I had for much of the year, and I mean that both literally and figuratively. It was all polishing and bug fixing from the end of Next Fest to The Future Project's final release in July. The last of the game's 1.0 content was implemented in late February, and the bug list was getting quite large. But, as they say, we'll eat this elephant one bite at a time, and eat it I did. In between all this I was getting mentally prepared for my kiddo to arrive, which meant prepping the house and taking classes all about babies. Fun fact...did you know babies typically sleep in 2-3 hour increments? Well, my baby apparently missed that memo. There's probably a reason that, despite The Future Project releasing within the next couple months at the time, development hit a bit of a slowdown both in the lead-up to my kid's birth and even after they were born. Let's just say it's a good thing I finished this game when I did, because otherwise I have no idea how I would have managed this project with an infant.

At this point, we now come to the actual release of The Future Project. This has been my third commercial release, but it's still exciting and stressful to finalize the game and send it off to the world. Even more so in this game's case, as it's the biggest project I've ever done, commercially or otherwise. Early on the morning of July 27th, I pushed the release button, and then...well, that was kind of it for a while. I don't generally talk about sales, because quite frankly the only person who cares about that is me. And it would be so easy to get into either an ego filled celebration or a pity party depending on which way the sales go, so I generally opt to avoid it altogether. In the case of The Future Project, sales weren't great. My expectations were already pretty low considering my past experiences plus the general advice given to all indie devs, especially solo devs, to not expect too much in such a competitive environment. I certainly had no grand ambitions, but I also can't deny that in terms of sales, The Future Project still didn't land where I was hoping it would. And again, sales expectations were quite low to begin with. Now, critical reception on the other hand was good. The people that did pick up and play The Future Project ended up enjoying it, and people enjoying your game is always the ultimate goal. I'm glad I can say that I've continued the streak of games that people like to play. Here's hoping it won't be too long before we see if that streak continues.

Ordinarily, this is the part where things would quiet down considerably and I'd probably start wrapping this dev blog up. But, there's still more to talk about with 2023, and all you need to do is look at the previous dev blog to know what's next. Partially fueled by the desire to get the game in front of more eyes, and partially because I had wanted to do this anyway, I started work on a free content update for The Future Project which we now know as the All's Eye update. The premise is simple – new boss fight and new difficulty mode, given to players free of charge, with the All's Eye boss fight being the main event. The last two dev blogs talk about the update in detail already, so I won't spend too much time recapping what has already been stated very recently. In brief, I wanted to give players an extra thing to do in the game, and figured a boss fight asking for 100% completion before taking it on seemed appropriate. As noted in The All's Eye Update blog post, the idea was that so many metroidvania games don't have something to really use all that equipment on. In this genre, 100% completion basically translates to an easier final boss. So, what if we create a boss fight that pretty much demands everything from the player? That's the philosophy of the battle with All's Eye.

Over the next few months, this content update would be what I primarily worked on. There was the odd patch here and there to address major and minor issues alike, but otherwise the bulk of my effort went towards All's Eye and everything surrounding it. If Next Fest was a practice round, and then releasing the game was the true “round one”, then I'd call this something of a round two. Despite the significantly smaller scope, it was still a lot of effort putting together the new boss fight and difficulty, balancing each, and playing through them over and over. Oh, and did I mention I had a kid earlier this year yet? There was still a little one to take care of too. Like I said, it's a good thing I released The Future Project when I did. Babies are hard work! I also had a firm goal of releasing this before holidays started rolling around. The Future Project may have been released and “done”, but I still had a lot to do in just a few months. But, it came together nicely and in early November, the update was made available to everyone who owned The Future Project. I also released the game's soundtrack at the same time, because I guess I thought I didn't have enough to do. As a result of this update I did push the sales count closer to what the original goal was, which was a nice bonus. Plus, we now have an even more complete game! I reckon completionists in particular have/will have fun with this one.

With the All's Eye update released, that's everything that has happened this year. We'll save what's coming next for the next dev blog where I talk 2024 plans, which means I better figure out what it is I'm actually doing (I'll have something to show, I promise). That aside, it's safe to say that 2023 has been a rather hectic year, quite possibly the busiest and most fast paced year of my life. Whatever happens after this, I'm honestly hoping that it will be a bit slower next year. Hard to imagine 2024 having quite the same amount of activity as this year, but who can tell? I don't have clairvoyance. For now though, I do want to say thanks to everyone who has played The Future Project already. Making games is better when you have someone to share it with, and it's nice to be able to share my own creations with the whole world. I hope you're still having fun with The Future Project, whether you're still getting through the main content, trying your hand at the All's Eye battle, or replaying the game. And I hope you'll be curious to see what I do next. Now that The Future Project is done I can start focusing my attention on something new, whatever form that takes. And there's few things more exciting for a creative than new horizons.

Until next time!

-Lance T.