NEW PLAY TEST OUT ON STEAM
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2397300/Half_Sword/
Scroll down and submit your request to get access.
NOTE PLAYTEST IS GORELESS
The playtest was made specifically for in person demonstration gore was not added so they could have an open booth vs an ID restricted booth. Gore is still a major part of the game and will be present in other builds.
Please don't lock the game into being Steam exclusive. After nearly 5 years of Valve knowingly causing harm to some users and crossing the line from negligence to actual abuse on several occasions I know of, I'd even argue that *Epic* exclusivity would be a better idea than locking your game behind a platform that's a literal health hazard for some people.
The game does look cool and the demo is fun, but make sure it shows up here, or somewhere else as well as Steam? Obviously in spite of blatantly abusive behaviour from the company, Steam is still the biggest storefront for PC gaming, so not selling it there would be silly if you have the option. But don't lock your potential fans out of the opportunity to pick the game up.
Thanks for the confirmation, but to be clear, I don't only mean paid exclusivity deals. A lot of games which start out here or other indie sites end up showing up on Steam and just quietly not getting updated here any more, with the early build on this site becoming a demo version instead of actually being the full game after launch. I'm hoping you don't go that route (and hoping that was what you were answering, but just want to be sure).
I see, as far as I am aware the plan is to distribute on as many platforms as possible. I see no reason to not publish the final release here as well.
The final decision will be made by the PR and Marketing department, and we are still early in development so no decision will be finalized for some time.
No plans to forget our roots. :)
- Community Manager (lol I need to point this out here more)
I'm "on about" the fact that since an update in 2019, the Steam client has been known to be acting as a trigger for several medical conditions (initially confirmed to be triggering migraines and epilepsy, but later found to be harming people with several other conditions as well). And the fact that Valve's response has at best been to acknowledge the problem exists and say they don't care, and on multiple occasions has included gaslighting affected customers, violating privacy laws, and worse.
Not sure what part of that I was unclear about?
That's nice for you, but doesn't change anything about the facts surrounding the situation. Some people with epilepsy haven't had the Steam client trigger their issues either. Both conditions are highly variable in their triggers from one individual to the next, so it's normal for some people to have issues while others don't. I have migraines severe enough to have put me in hospital on several occasions, and had a little over a month where I only went 4 days *without* a migraine because of the issues (and those 4 days were the days I didn't launch Steam on my PC) before finding out there were people with concerns about it.
There have been half a dozen potential triggers for both conditions which have been confirmed to be present in the Steam client since the update, none of which had been present in older versions of the client, and all of which have been proven to be present without any room for dispute. Jsut because none of them happens to be a trigger which affects you personally, doesn't negate that they're a problem. I've personally never had issues with any other software on any electronic device at all prior to this, but the Steam client since the update has been the most consistent and most aggressive trigger I've found so far in over 20 years of dealing with migraines.
I'm glad you're not having problems, but don't try and pretend that means anything for the problem as a whole.
There have been multiple discussions about it in a lot of places, including the Steam forums. It's easy enough to Google "Steam client migraine epilepsy" and find a bunch of information about it. Here's where one of the Steam mods decided to bury the issue under the beta forum in spite of it being a problem with the current version of the client. It's got a lot of links to other discussions about the problem too:
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/3/2962768084999962...
Dozens of people posted publicly there and I know of a good number who avoided public discussion of the issue and just took it up privately with Steam support. There have been several people I know of who have provided direct proof of multiple problems, some more easily tested for and pinned down than others. Valve's response so far has included admitting they're aware of the problem but promising not to fix it, gaslighting users having issues, and violating the privacy rights of people affected by the problem.
