The Future of Runeborn - What's next?
Hello Runeborn!
This time, we’re bringing you a more serious and reflective Devlog, sharing some important insights and addressing feedback we’ve seen in our community Discord:
[h3]Steam Next Fest[/h3]
Some may have noticed we opted out of the February Steam Next Fest at the last minute. We fully intended to participate and had an entire marketing budget with influencers lined up that we couldn’t cancel. But, we had a serious concern with the demo, and knowing you can only enter Steam Next Fest once, we had to make an important decision.
[h3]What Happened?[/h3]
Last month, we participated in an in-person event hosted by WeTech Alliance and Libro Credit Union. We had the opportunity to share Runeborn with the public, and we learned a very valuable lesson: Make sure you have players playtest your game and watch them play! When watching first-time users, we noticed they did not understand the need to match from the leftmost column to the right, nor did they understand spell lines 4 &5 (the Vs). We even told them, but intuitively, they didn’t get it.
We often saw players create a two or three-match on the right side of the screen and then get disappointed when it wasn’t counted. That disappointment is your worst nightmare as a game developer.
This realization shook us to the core, so much so that we opted out of Steam Next Fest and paused all development to investigate a solution. We didn’t want to present our game to the world if many gamers didn’t ‘get it’ naturally. And yes, we have a tutorial explaining it, but it didn’t seem enough.
We spent a week developing a new prototype that we thought would solve the problem. It didn’t. It only created more questions and other problems to solve. So, instead, we went back to the drawing board to figure out how to fix our current solution.
[h3]Our Fix[/h3]
We’ve added animations and VFX details to emphasize when a match is legit. When a scoring match is made, a connector line is created, binding the two runes together. We’ve also added an animation on the connector line showing movement from left to right. We hope this reinforces the need to create matches from the leftmost column to the right.
[h3]Other Improvements[/h3]
We were fortunate to have YouTube influencer Olexa stream our game, significantly boosting new players. That brought an influx of feedback and recommendations through our Discord channel, which we’ve worked hard to implement.
[h3]Conclusion[/h3]
Although we’re disappointed that we opted out of Steam Next Fest at the last minute, our influencer marketing efforts paid off. We learned a lot about how people play our game through an in-person event. We attempted a pivot and decided it wasn’t the right decision.
Ultimately, creating clearer feedback for our users was the right thing. We really hope you enjoy the updates. Stay tuned for our next Runeborn Demo build, which will go live on March 25th, 2025.
Lastly, we have opted into the June Steam Next Fest and will use the next three months to polish our Early Access build. Stay tuned for its release date shortly after Steam Next Fest.
Check out our demo and wishlist us on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3073990/Runeborn/
This time, we’re bringing you a more serious and reflective Devlog, sharing some important insights and addressing feedback we’ve seen in our community Discord:
[h3]Steam Next Fest[/h3]
Some may have noticed we opted out of the February Steam Next Fest at the last minute. We fully intended to participate and had an entire marketing budget with influencers lined up that we couldn’t cancel. But, we had a serious concern with the demo, and knowing you can only enter Steam Next Fest once, we had to make an important decision.
[h3]What Happened?[/h3]
Last month, we participated in an in-person event hosted by WeTech Alliance and Libro Credit Union. We had the opportunity to share Runeborn with the public, and we learned a very valuable lesson: Make sure you have players playtest your game and watch them play! When watching first-time users, we noticed they did not understand the need to match from the leftmost column to the right, nor did they understand spell lines 4 &5 (the Vs). We even told them, but intuitively, they didn’t get it.
We often saw players create a two or three-match on the right side of the screen and then get disappointed when it wasn’t counted. That disappointment is your worst nightmare as a game developer.
This realization shook us to the core, so much so that we opted out of Steam Next Fest and paused all development to investigate a solution. We didn’t want to present our game to the world if many gamers didn’t ‘get it’ naturally. And yes, we have a tutorial explaining it, but it didn’t seem enough.
We spent a week developing a new prototype that we thought would solve the problem. It didn’t. It only created more questions and other problems to solve. So, instead, we went back to the drawing board to figure out how to fix our current solution.
[h3]Our Fix[/h3]
We’ve added animations and VFX details to emphasize when a match is legit. When a scoring match is made, a connector line is created, binding the two runes together. We’ve also added an animation on the connector line showing movement from left to right. We hope this reinforces the need to create matches from the leftmost column to the right.
[h3]Other Improvements[/h3]
We were fortunate to have YouTube influencer Olexa stream our game, significantly boosting new players. That brought an influx of feedback and recommendations through our Discord channel, which we’ve worked hard to implement.
- Visual updates
- Floating runes
- Spell lines connectors
- Boss mechanic update
- Sped up the intro comic
- Elite and boss intro screens
- Floating runes
- Steam cloud save
- Lots of small bug fixes
[h3]Conclusion[/h3]
Although we’re disappointed that we opted out of Steam Next Fest at the last minute, our influencer marketing efforts paid off. We learned a lot about how people play our game through an in-person event. We attempted a pivot and decided it wasn’t the right decision.
Ultimately, creating clearer feedback for our users was the right thing. We really hope you enjoy the updates. Stay tuned for our next Runeborn Demo build, which will go live on March 25th, 2025.
Lastly, we have opted into the June Steam Next Fest and will use the next three months to polish our Early Access build. Stay tuned for its release date shortly after Steam Next Fest.
Check out our demo and wishlist us on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3073990/Runeborn/