Developer AMA answers!
Hello Foragers!
Thank you so much for all the questions you submitted to my previous AMA post! I will be answering most of the non-repeat questions here now!
As a thank you for your support and in the spirit of better developer-community communication, I will be giving a Steam key for Forager to the people that I respond to!
This is one of the many steps I am going to take to keep the community positive and healthy and awesome! I have another surprise coming soon that involves giving Forager Steam keys away every week! It should start this Friday, so stay tuned!
Anyway! Here come the questions!
The game price is $20 on all platforms. If you buy it on Steam, and depending on where you live, you can be eligible for regional discounts! Check this post to know more!
Yes! This is one of the things we are working on while the game is being delayed. We are expecting to have mod support ready for Steam players after the game releases!
Forager has been in development for 2.5 years so far. That's quite a while! Not too bad compared to the average though:
Forager has been delayed for a total of 4 months. That's not nearly as bad as most videogames in this decade!
I explained the reasons behind the delays on this post. Here is the TLDR:
Soon™
It's honestly crazy how much better the game got since I mistakenly said it was "ready" back in November. Here is a detailed list:
Multiplayer work has recently just started. It's going to take a while because we need to rework the entire game's systems to be compatible with several players at once. I have a lot of ideas on how it will work but here are some things I know for sure:
As for free DLC, the game will get free updates and DLC thanks to our Patreon supporters! This includes at least 6 big updates that will come right after the game releases, but I will keep working on free updates and DLC for as long as you guys want me to!
Because it was not finished! I had to wait until the console versions were ready, so why not use that time to make the PC version better anyway? There are several groups of people following Forager's development. Some of them complain and insult me on Steam forums, the others join the Discord server, participate with the community, post guides and tutorials, and donate money for development so I can improve the game and buy food for my family. I assure you Forager's fans have been playing the game for a while now, and they send me their feedback and suggestions every single month!
No more savefile wipes! You are able to play Forager on whatever desktop platform you want and then move your savefiles to Steam/Discord/GOG/whatever and continue playing as normal!
We have established that I need to release all game versions simultaneously. Early Access is legally the same as an official game release. If I did EA I would get sued for breach of contract. That's why I do Patreon, as a donation platform, it doesn't legally count as having released the game on a storefront yet!
I honestly just thought it would be cool! I loved videogames ever since I was a kid and I always dreamed of having shirts made out of some of my games.
A lot of your favorite videogames offered players merch before they released (Binding of Isaac, Ooblets, Celeste, Cuphead, Super Meat Boy and Darkest Dungeon come to mind, I am sure there are many many more). And some of them delay their launches even more than Forager.
I really didn't think it was going to upset the community this much, and for that, I apologize. The worst part is that developers actually make almost no money with merch sales since they are much lower than game sales and also give a MUCH lower net revenue percentage.
It was 100% because I thought it would be cool, and I always dreamed to have shirts and plushies of my games. I am so sorry if I offended you by doing this. I swear it was not my intention!
I care about what the community thinks because this is the first time in my life I am actually on the other side. I was always just part of the community, and this time I am the actual dev. It's super weird and I never get fully used to it.
I want people to like me and I want them to like my game. I spent so much time and effort and money working on it and I feel it's something really special!
We have a new Code of Conduct and toxicity and hate won't be tolerated anymore. Constructive criticism is always appreciated but complaining and insulting is never constructive.
I really hope we can all work together and make this game the best it can be!
I am sorry if I didn't get to yours! If you enjoyed this we can do it more, it was a lot of fun!
And congrats to all the people that just won a Forager Steam key! Yay!
These winners need to contact me in the Forager Group Chat to claim their keys!
What should we do in the meantime to keep the community active while we wait? I am open to event, contest and fun ideas! And I will be giving more and more free Steam keys as we approach release!
Thank you for all your support and Happy Foraging!
Thank you so much for all the questions you submitted to my previous AMA post! I will be answering most of the non-repeat questions here now!
As a thank you for your support and in the spirit of better developer-community communication, I will be giving a Steam key for Forager to the people that I respond to!
This is one of the many steps I am going to take to keep the community positive and healthy and awesome! I have another surprise coming soon that involves giving Forager Steam keys away every week! It should start this Friday, so stay tuned!
Anyway! Here come the questions!
The game price is $20 on all platforms. If you buy it on Steam, and depending on where you live, you can be eligible for regional discounts! Check this post to know more!
Yes! This is one of the things we are working on while the game is being delayed. We are expecting to have mod support ready for Steam players after the game releases!
Forager has been in development for 2.5 years so far. That's quite a while! Not too bad compared to the average though:
Originally posted by WikipediaMost modern PC or console games take from one to three years to complete, where as a mobile game can be developed in a few months. The length of development is influenced by a number of factors, such as genre, scale, development platform and number of assets.
Some games can take much longer than the average time frame to complete. An infamous example is 3D Realms' Duke Nukem Forever, announced to be in production in April 1997 and released fourteen years later in June 2011. Planning for Maxis' game Spore began in late 1999; the game was released nine years later in September 2008. The game Prey was briefly profiled in a 1997 issue of PC Gamer, but was not released until 2006, and only then in highly altered form. Finally, Team Fortress 2 was in development from 1998 until its 2007 release, and emerged from a convoluted development process involving "probably three or four different games", according to Gabe Newell.
Forager has been delayed for a total of 4 months. That's not nearly as bad as most videogames in this decade!
I explained the reasons behind the delays on this post. Here is the TLDR:
- I signed a contract that required me to release all console versions and PC versions simultaneously. Console versions notoriously take longer to develop (since you need to port the game to a new system). I had no idea how that worked and overestimated how long the process usually takes. Total beginner mistake, but this is my first ever commercial videogame after all!
- The game was technically "ready" in November 2018, but it wasn't nearly as good as it is now. Over time the community made me understand there are some things that NEEDED to be in the game, so it can be the best version of Forager possible. I decided to work on these things so I could release on Steam the BEST version of Forager that I could. Stuff like Mac and Linux support, cosmetic items and costumes, build and terrain replacement, more creative options for buildings, a better endgame, more combat based encounters, better farming aspects, mod support, multiplayer, etc...
Soon™
It's honestly crazy how much better the game got since I mistakenly said it was "ready" back in November. Here is a detailed list:
- Additional desktop exclusive options to disable screen effects, shakes and other accessibility options.
- 8 new items and 1 new structure, each with their own new sprite assets.
- 10 quality of life improvement or optimizations. They are all detailed here, here and here.
- 71 new bugfixes.
- 4 new music tracks.
- Discord rich presence support for Desktop builds.
- Mac version support.
- Linux version support.
- Massive file size optimization for all music files in the game.
- Error handling system that sends error reports from desktop to our server. Integrated with both Discord and Trello.
- Feature suggestion system for desktop, that lets players suggest features directly to us. Integrated with Discord, Trello, and Nolt.
- Automatic savefile backups for desktop.
- New main menu system with detailed development roadmap, community links and extra unlockable content (such as comic books, concept art with dev notes and the game's development story).
- Rebindable key support for both desktop and consoles.
- Code optimization reworks, bringing FPS to constant 60 for all platforms.
- Initial work on Mod Support for the Steam Workshop.
- Initial work on the PC-exclusive multiplayer version.
Multiplayer work has recently just started. It's going to take a while because we need to rework the entire game's systems to be compatible with several players at once. I have a lot of ideas on how it will work but here are some things I know for sure:
- I want it to be able to support at least 4 players at once on the same world.
- I want it to be able to support local multiplayer as well, maybe with splitscreens?
- I want to add more free content so there are fun projects for severla people to work together towards. Think something super hard that requires teamwork: New dungeons with difficult bossess, Building a spacerocket and exploring other worlds, Teleporting to super hard versions of the current biomes, etc...
As for free DLC, the game will get free updates and DLC thanks to our Patreon supporters! This includes at least 6 big updates that will come right after the game releases, but I will keep working on free updates and DLC for as long as you guys want me to!
Because it was not finished! I had to wait until the console versions were ready, so why not use that time to make the PC version better anyway? There are several groups of people following Forager's development. Some of them complain and insult me on Steam forums, the others join the Discord server, participate with the community, post guides and tutorials, and donate money for development so I can improve the game and buy food for my family. I assure you Forager's fans have been playing the game for a while now, and they send me their feedback and suggestions every single month!
No more savefile wipes! You are able to play Forager on whatever desktop platform you want and then move your savefiles to Steam/Discord/GOG/whatever and continue playing as normal!
We have established that I need to release all game versions simultaneously. Early Access is legally the same as an official game release. If I did EA I would get sued for breach of contract. That's why I do Patreon, as a donation platform, it doesn't legally count as having released the game on a storefront yet!
I honestly just thought it would be cool! I loved videogames ever since I was a kid and I always dreamed of having shirts made out of some of my games.
A lot of your favorite videogames offered players merch before they released (Binding of Isaac, Ooblets, Celeste, Cuphead, Super Meat Boy and Darkest Dungeon come to mind, I am sure there are many many more). And some of them delay their launches even more than Forager.
I really didn't think it was going to upset the community this much, and for that, I apologize. The worst part is that developers actually make almost no money with merch sales since they are much lower than game sales and also give a MUCH lower net revenue percentage.
It was 100% because I thought it would be cool, and I always dreamed to have shirts and plushies of my games. I am so sorry if I offended you by doing this. I swear it was not my intention!
I care about what the community thinks because this is the first time in my life I am actually on the other side. I was always just part of the community, and this time I am the actual dev. It's super weird and I never get fully used to it.
I want people to like me and I want them to like my game. I spent so much time and effort and money working on it and I feel it's something really special!
We have a new Code of Conduct and toxicity and hate won't be tolerated anymore. Constructive criticism is always appreciated but complaining and insulting is never constructive.
I really hope we can all work together and make this game the best it can be!
Thank you for all your questions!
I am sorry if I didn't get to yours! If you enjoyed this we can do it more, it was a lot of fun!
And congrats to all the people that just won a Forager Steam key! Yay!
- skelly
- regeleedge
- Duckrinium
- H I M M
- hannasolo100
- BBackx
- iFood
- Flanders
- Gomarel
- 14_04_1987
- Awakeneer
- Bowlegs
These winners need to contact me in the Forager Group Chat to claim their keys!
The game will release as soon as it's ready! And it's going to be awesome!
What should we do in the meantime to keep the community active while we wait? I am open to event, contest and fun ideas! And I will be giving more and more free Steam keys as we approach release!
Thank you for all your support and Happy Foraging!