Why am I moving my demo to Next Fest 2027?
Hey everyone. I've deliberated with myself for a while now about the viability of including my demo for Next Fest October. I have come to the conclusion that it's just not viable. I do not want to rush a demo just for the sake of releasing it in time for Next Fest.
The short reason is - I don't feel ready yet. The long reason is:
Steam only allows a game to participate in one Next Fest, meaning if the demo is not in the best shape it can be, I'll essentially be wasting our one opportunity to participate.
I want to give you a game that is worth your time and that actually feels good to play and I'm working really hard to deliver on this:
Animations
I'm currently busy planning out animations that need to be shot (with mocap) and then I need to arrange a day for me and some friends to record them somewhere. I'm thinking of making a YouTube video about the process and including some behind-the-scenes footage.
Marketing
I'm trying to be better at 'marketing'. We are currently sitting at 47 wishlists, which is apparently not fantastic, but it means a lot to me that 47 people who I mostly do not know is willing to show support to my game.
Thank you to everyone who has wishlisted so far, your support really keeps me motivated <3.
Optimisation
I ran an optimisation pass on the game as I was not getting good FPS stability at all. Pre-pass I was sitting at around 50fps indoors and 40fps outdoors. Now I am sitting at around 120fps indoors and around 80fps outdoors (looking out over the entire map) on max quality settings.
Menu & final pass
I still need to actually create a menu screen and then do a final pass on all the systems I created to make sure everything is 100% functional.
Beta testing
All of the above needs to be done and then I obviously do not just want to ship a demo to Next Fest untested, which is why I also want to run at least one beta testing cycle. I am going to arrange a live test so I can actually be there (in-person and virtual) with the testers to see what they might be struggling with, etc.
Please join the discord to apply for beta-testing. I can not give you an exact date for when it starts at this time.
The good news
I'm not going to keep the demo unreleased while waiting for Next Fest 2027. Once the beta testing has been concluded and I fixed the issues that was raised during the testing, I will release the demo for all of you to enjoy. Wishlist the game to be notified the second the demo is released. For your limited-time field guide, please subscribe to the development newsletter.
I just want to once again thank everyone that has wishlisted the game so far - it's currently the only metric I have to see if people are interested and your wishslists have kept me extremely motivated.