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I’m early on in development but not crazy far off of potentially having a rough demo.
(Currently no visible steam page )
I’m considering releaseing the demo and updating it regularly to get feed back on things like movement , visuals , story , but I’m not sure if there are any downsides with releasing a demo too early or in a rough state if it’s iterated on regularly
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The downside is that people might remember you in future as the person who had a bad-looking demo. Why risk it? Design by committee is always a bad idea anyway.
Agreed ,
especially the avoiding design by committee point.
I guess I had in mind more trying to emulate getting feed back from friends and family but with fresher eyes,
and to avoid developing in a vacuum.
Might be worth just waiting till I have a few more levels
Getting feedback is not the same as design by committee, as long as you listen to the complaints and takeproposed solutions and ideas with a grain of salt. Those you should come up with yourself.
When I released my demo on Steam, it got some initial attention from youtubers just for being in the new demos section. I would suggest adding those extra levels so there's more to dig into because a common complaint was that the demo was too short.
Sounds like OP should do a Steam Playtest instead of a demo
I released my entire game in early access when it was about the size of a demo and it went over well for me. I had people paying to play test my game for me essentially - and it helped to start a community and identify bugs.
It's a great idea to do it but make sure your game is stable, fun and playable - showing off a prototype as a demo could cause the opposite effect as others mentioned.
This is a great to hear and is reassuring that early access can work out , it's definitely on my radar for potential paths.
I often hear mixed things about early access so will look into it more to see if my game could be a good fit.
A critical part of my success was certainly due to communication and promptly responding to issues players had. Any negative reviews I had I worked to flip to positive. Players respond very well to a caring and active dev. Discord was critical for this.
I'm not OP, but I have my game ready for a demo quality wise. However, the game is highly story-based and I'm afraid that people may not buy the full game if they have already seen a big part of the story (we have two chapters done, two more to go). Do you think releasing a demo would still be a good idea for this type of game? And how much did you charge for your demo (compared to what should be the cost of the full game)?
To be honest I don't know if I'm going to be your best resource since I never released a demo (bad!) But I would say a demo is still a good idea even if it's very short. The point is to give the player an idea of how it plays, and that's all it might take for them to buy into the game. I released into early access right away.
Not OP but this was my plan. How long were you in EA before you launched v1.0?
I'm still in EA and it's been a couple of years. I'm excited to release but I always seem to have more to do...
itch.io is a better platform for rough demo. What kind of game are you making anyway?
I don't know much about itch but I see it mentioned a lot in places , so might be time to look into it properly .
It's a 3D side scroller story game about a toy car inspired by games like "Inside" and "Unravel"
but more light-hearted
Release the demo onto itch first :) it's easy.
I did an early demo of mine, still is up actually. However, I didnt do it as a Demo, but instead steams Playtest feature.
I choose to because i am not mimicking a successful trend or type and am trying to make a unique roguelike tower defense. Hence, i need actual feedback on if my unique features are good or not. Last thing i would want is more months working on it to find out that a whole mechanic is just ignored.
In this i wanted feedback and wanted to react to it. I guess it depends on what you want out of it though.
Also while i say early, i have most core features already implemented.
I just re-read the question and I suppose if its too early, even people who may have potentially bought the game might see it and decide they dont like it for reasons that may not be present in the final version. Thus losing you people.
There is such a thing as too early and I'd recommend having a closed controlled test before doing a public demo.
I sent a demo out to my friends of a project and they correctly pointed out what I made was a tech demo and not yet a game. Things like having to tell someone X isn't done yet or don't place X on Y because I didn't program that functionality yet, etc. don't really fly well if you want to get meaningful feedback for what you're creating. If it doesn't capture the essentials of what you think the gameplay will be, it's not ready for public release.
I recall being a tester in another case for a co-worker and going bro I click on start and it instantly crashes, to be told it doesn't crash on Y level. How was I supposed to know not to select the second level from the main menu?
Closed demos will point out issues like this that would leave a terrible impression for a wider release.
Conversely, if you have a game that's in decent shape from your closed test and get good feedback, but are unsure of the balance and difficulties, that may be time where you'd consider going broader with who gets to play your game.
I myself personally would want my game to be very close to being an approximation of the final game minus some additional content before going EA level public, as I know I wouldn't be able to do major feature additions frequently as a solo individual.
I think a closed controlled test is what I'm after ,
what would be the best way about doing this ?
I have a had a few people play what little I currently have via steam playtest's developer codes but realistically I want more people to give feed back and to give out less permanent codes.
Steam playtest can do this. I'm not sure how you have yours setup.
You can make it a button on your store page where people can self sign up, and the access they are given is independent of ownership of your game, so you're not giving out "permanent game access".
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People have told me to make your demo as polished or better than you game build, the wishlists will either multiply or subtract after they play it. I’m making a demo for my game because it’s unconventional gameplay so I want to set expectations accordingly.
the risk is you find out your game actually sucks and you can make it better
This really is what I want , to find out whats unclear and what is below par so that when I eventually come to release I have something worth while .
It's just getting that feedback without tarnishing my games currently non-existent reputation
exactly… your games dont even have a reputation to tarnish
also, who would be mad at a developer who takes feedback and makes their games better…..
I get how you feel, but I think you should be looking at this the opposite way.
Even if it were to "ruin" your reputation, it's better to do that now when you have a small follower base than it is to find out when you're making a big release push and you have tons more eyeballs watching.
Also, the number of steam users is astronomical, so even if you piss off literally everyone currently following your game, there are plenty more people to find. And the chances you actually upset and push away people are pretty low. They've already expressed interest in your idea!
Plus, you can always try to set expectations with whatever you release. Say you're looking for early alpha playtesting and people will expect it to be rough around the edges etc.
I release supper short demo on Steam after 1 year of work. I did it to get feedback and start make a community. I have a plan to update demo few times until Steam Next fest on October 2024. I still don’t know how it will be, but I like that I can see how people play my game.
Steam sends you a burst of traffic right after you launch a demo--its a good marketing opportunity if you are ready for it and you only get it once. We briefly made new and trending on the Steam demos hub, but if we'd planned better and delayed our demo release for a few months we could have gotten a lot more out of it.
Any clue if putting out a second demo can garner than initial demo boost? As in, you release a demo for a month, take if off for 3 months, and put out a new version.
I suppose this is why people do standalone prologue versions of their game to cash in on that hype boost
We're going to releasing a major update to our demo in a couple weeks. I am hoping to create some hype around that; we'll see how it works out. I am still learning how the Steam demos hub works. You can see this big spike of traffic to our page when we launch the demo which caught me off guard. The green line is from the demos hub. In retrospect, I wish I had done a Steam playtest then instead.
I think if it’s a temporary 3 months of getting feed back and hype is fine. Especially if the end design is different or expanded a lot more. Releasing a prototype of sorts with simple assets. Half the game is the art and design. The other half is the code and gameplay
“Too early” it’s in the title really, if you release before you’re ready then the big showcase your game will get will be for a product that doesn’t excite enough people and therefore won’t drive and trigger organic engagement / algorithm boosting.
That being said the journey of something growing turned into consistent content is a great way to get free promotion from streaming and videos. There’s no right way to do it, besides doing it! :)
It can take time to maintain a released game, patching bugs and that kind of thing