DD #37 The Festival Is Fun.
Hello, everyone. It's another week's developer's diary.
First, I shall welcome a lot of new friends who just added the game to their wishlist.
It's quite unexpected as I almost didn't spend any effort in marketing at all during the "Steam Next Festival." (No wishlist lotteries, no streaming key drops, no shady activities that are used by many other developers in China which I find disgusting. I'm just so old-school and stubborn I guess..)
But, there is still a relatively significant increase in the number of wishlists and people who played the public beta. Thank you! You are awesome! I mean it. After all, you can find this secret game while many others failed.
Here is the current data of the public beta version:
Average time played 1 hour 30 minutes
Median time played 14 minutes
Minimum time played Percentage of users
10 minutes 58%
30 minutes 37%
1 hour 0 minutes 26% (average as compared to other Steam demos)
2 hours 0 minutes 15%
5 hours 0 minutes 10%
10 hours 0 minutes 2%
Unfortunately, we are back to the days when more than 40% of people didn't make it through the first 10 minutes. It's possible that is because there are too many demos out there. But, if there are other reasons, I'd like to investigate further and see if anything can be done to improve.
Meanwhile, I also had a chance to see what others are doing in their projects. Some are quite inspiring. Maybe I will even steal some ideas from them. :P
However, the most important things I received are more feedbacks which helps this ever-evolving game to be better. Although I intended to focus on more safe updates this week as the game is likely to be exposed to much more people than before during the Festival week, some breakthroughs still happened because of some interesting feedbacks.
So, without further ado, let's go down to some highlights of this week's updates:
1, You can now change the portrait of ANY of your teammates!
A new item: the Makeup Tool Set is not sold in the Bazaar. It can allow you to switch the portrait of any of your teammates to a customized one. 144*144 png format is still recommended. But, the game can take a image file of any size less than 4096*4096 in most common formats such as png/jpg/bmp. Your change will also reflect in the dialogs if that involves your teammate. It will likely be also included as a part of future Steam workshop integration when we get there.
2, Gambling in Beggar Gangs Camp
The original plan for a certain beggar gangs vendor is to make sure players will not be soft-locked to a location in the game if they accidentally lost an item. After all, it's an open world, anything can happen. Thus, the beggar gangs may use their network to retrieve that item for you. However, after some interesting brainstorm, now this vendor also sells the lost wallets that contain an unknown amount of money at a fixed price. That's basically gambling like the loot boxes in other games. But, with a lot of luck or save/load a lot to be lucky, some people may actually become quite rich.
3, More configurations
The audio volume can now be adjusted in the game. BGM and SFX are controlled separately.
The fake-full screen background switch is now also part of the game option and can be accessed by hotkey F6 at any time.
Other updates of the week include Vampiric baseball bat and possibly other items with vampiric prefix; more story content in Site Demeter; Fist weapon proficiency skill book in the Dragon's Treasure; New item to stun undead and demons; more recycle format to gain paper from different items; procedurally generated equipment in daily supply box.
That's for this week.
Today's changelog:
#########System#####################
The hotkey F6, which turns on/off a borderless background, is now available globally as long as the game is running. (Previously, it's only working when on a map.)
The functionality of F6 is now also a part of the game option.
The setting of the borderless background is now saved in the game's config file. Thus, if the setting is previously turned on, the game will start with a borderless background.
Added audio volume setting in the game options. The master volume, BGM volume, and SFX volume can be set separately. (The UI may need some polish. But, let's get the function in there first.)
Hotkey F3 now summons the audio volume control menu. (Previously, it's a hotkey to stop bgm.)
First, I shall welcome a lot of new friends who just added the game to their wishlist.
It's quite unexpected as I almost didn't spend any effort in marketing at all during the "Steam Next Festival." (No wishlist lotteries, no streaming key drops, no shady activities that are used by many other developers in China which I find disgusting. I'm just so old-school and stubborn I guess..)
But, there is still a relatively significant increase in the number of wishlists and people who played the public beta. Thank you! You are awesome! I mean it. After all, you can find this secret game while many others failed.
Here is the current data of the public beta version:
Average time played 1 hour 30 minutes
Median time played 14 minutes
Minimum time played Percentage of users
10 minutes 58%
30 minutes 37%
1 hour 0 minutes 26% (average as compared to other Steam demos)
2 hours 0 minutes 15%
5 hours 0 minutes 10%
10 hours 0 minutes 2%
Unfortunately, we are back to the days when more than 40% of people didn't make it through the first 10 minutes. It's possible that is because there are too many demos out there. But, if there are other reasons, I'd like to investigate further and see if anything can be done to improve.
Meanwhile, I also had a chance to see what others are doing in their projects. Some are quite inspiring. Maybe I will even steal some ideas from them. :P
However, the most important things I received are more feedbacks which helps this ever-evolving game to be better. Although I intended to focus on more safe updates this week as the game is likely to be exposed to much more people than before during the Festival week, some breakthroughs still happened because of some interesting feedbacks.
So, without further ado, let's go down to some highlights of this week's updates:
1, You can now change the portrait of ANY of your teammates!
A new item: the Makeup Tool Set is not sold in the Bazaar. It can allow you to switch the portrait of any of your teammates to a customized one. 144*144 png format is still recommended. But, the game can take a image file of any size less than 4096*4096 in most common formats such as png/jpg/bmp. Your change will also reflect in the dialogs if that involves your teammate. It will likely be also included as a part of future Steam workshop integration when we get there.
2, Gambling in Beggar Gangs Camp
The original plan for a certain beggar gangs vendor is to make sure players will not be soft-locked to a location in the game if they accidentally lost an item. After all, it's an open world, anything can happen. Thus, the beggar gangs may use their network to retrieve that item for you. However, after some interesting brainstorm, now this vendor also sells the lost wallets that contain an unknown amount of money at a fixed price. That's basically gambling like the loot boxes in other games. But, with a lot of luck or save/load a lot to be lucky, some people may actually become quite rich.
3, More configurations
The audio volume can now be adjusted in the game. BGM and SFX are controlled separately.
The fake-full screen background switch is now also part of the game option and can be accessed by hotkey F6 at any time.
Other updates of the week include Vampiric baseball bat and possibly other items with vampiric prefix; more story content in Site Demeter; Fist weapon proficiency skill book in the Dragon's Treasure; New item to stun undead and demons; more recycle format to gain paper from different items; procedurally generated equipment in daily supply box.
That's for this week.
Today's changelog:
#########System#####################
The hotkey F6, which turns on/off a borderless background, is now available globally as long as the game is running. (Previously, it's only working when on a map.)
The functionality of F6 is now also a part of the game option.
The setting of the borderless background is now saved in the game's config file. Thus, if the setting is previously turned on, the game will start with a borderless background.
Added audio volume setting in the game options. The master volume, BGM volume, and SFX volume can be set separately. (The UI may need some polish. But, let's get the function in there first.)
Hotkey F3 now summons the audio volume control menu. (Previously, it's a hotkey to stop bgm.)