These last couple of days have been building and testing v1.0, pushing to Itch, pushing to Steam and making a Demo.
Building the Demo
Yesterday I finished the demo. It's an interesting challenge on a game this size of how to give enough in the demo to entice a user but not so much that they basically have the entire game available to them. I opted to provide 3 waves in the game and let them sample 2 power ups in the process. The 3 waves jump pretty substantially in difficulty and, using my wife as a measure of a non-gamer trying it - seemed to be balanced just about right. She wanted to play more after the 3 waves were completed (she had to try more than a few times to finish all 3). So in my opinion that's exactly what you want in a demo. Leave them wanting more. I found myself having the same reaction when testing it. I'd "forget" it was a demo until the 3rd wave ended and I'd feel the urgency to play again. Of course I may be biased.
Smashing Bugs
I feel like I've knocked out all of the "major" bugs in the game. I patched a very minor one today where not all of the enemies were giving you a directional indicator when the amount of them in a wave got sparse. I'll be pushing another build with that patch shortly.
An Appreciation for Itch.io Platform
So, I had heard rumors that setting up your Steam presence and submitting your application had some "challenges" associated with it. I can say now that I have gone thru that process that Itch.io is FAR, FAR easier to work with. I am SUPER thankful for Butler - it is simple to work with and for me has just worked. I think Steam should take a few notes and update their pipeline!
In the Final Stretch
I looked for a way to submit status on this DevLog to 90 or 100% but didn't see an option to do so. With that said, I think the game is done and I am just wrapping up a bit of polish and marketing before it goes live! This has been an awesome experience and I'm looking forward to repeating it with my next project!