I hope work has been going well for you then and that it’s not too stressful or anything! :3
Yeah, it was because of Manly playing DD that it got so much exposure x3 if he hadn’t played it, most people browsing itch would probably never have come across it unless they happened to already follow me or maybe search specifically for yandere games or something, haha. Tbh, it wouldn’t surprise me if at least half, possibly even three-quarters of all of my followers on itch are specifically people who saw Manly’s video and are waiting for DD because within a couple of weeks of the video my followers here rocketed o.o
The weird thing was, he didn’t play it anywhere near when it came out. It was like 2 years after I released it for the jam xD so I have no idea how he even found it, haha.
And weeeell, I think I probably did explode at the time and I’ve been trying to piece myself back together ever since xD
You’re 110% right that having more eyes on the project created more expectation than I’d ever felt in my life x3 Which was a good feeling at first! But then it just became terrifying and more like I was drowning, haha. I’m very thankful that most people have been extremely kind, supportive, and patient about it :3 But the tiiiiny percentage of people who have been more aggressive via emails has been genuinely scary and pretty demotivating >.< Then there’s the problem that even if people put no pressure on me at all, just knowing that there are people who liked the demo and are waiting for more makes me put pressure on myself, haha.
That’s why I don’t think I’ll ever release a demo for anything again if I can help it x3 It’s a tough one because, if you need help with funding projects like I do, then having a demo is a great way to show what you hope to do and find support, but at the same time, it is easier to make progress on projects that people don’t know exist for sure.
I know plenty of devs are happy to put stuff out there in demo form and then ask their audience what they’d like to see from the game in the future, but yeah, that’s not really something I ever anticipated doing because I never imagined anyone would like my games or ideas enough to be suggesting stuff, and I have never really done game dev with the mindset of trying to please an audience >.< I did try to take on board all the feedback and suggestions people started making for DD, and some were even things I was planning to include anyways, but others don’t even remotely line up with my vision for the project x3
I totally understand what you say as well regarding finding it harder to work on something if you were focusing more on what others want rather than your original intentions for a project making it feel less like it’s your project because it did begin to feel a bit like my baby was being wrestled away from me at one point xD
On one hand, it’s nice that people would care enough to want to ask for X or Y to be included in the game, but on the other hand, I had a pretty solid vision for what I wanted to do with DD long before Manly played it, so I wasn’t really looking for suggestions and stuff >.< they just kinda came at me anyways, haha.
And the biggest problem with unsolicited suggestions for content is that the people making them only have the demo to go off of. They can’t see inside my head and know all my plans for the project, so many suggestions just straight-up wouldn’t work because they’d clash with the plans I already have x3 There’s no way for anyone to know that though because I don’t really want to publicly discuss every detail of the game and give away story points and stuff cos it would ruin the surprise of just finding out eventually >.<
It’s a bit like when I released an early demo for Solipsism Reigns that only contained the student route, and someone played it and commented that they thought it was cool, but they couldn’t understand my choice of music at the time for the title screen or the title screen vibes in general because they said it sounded like it was for a sci-fi project, and my game appeared to be slice-of-life. I had to try and explain that the student route was just one route, and that the overall game would actually fall partially into the sci-fi genre x3 Of course, they had no way of knowing that at the time. But it meant that it was a waste of time for them to type that feedback and a waste of my time replying to it really, haha. Pointing stuff out in feedback is great if it’s genuinely constructive, but it’s hard to be constructive with feedback if you don’t have the full picture x3
But yeah, as you say, it’s definitely better imo too to try and just stick to your own vision of the project :3 I guess unless you’re really looking to make a super successful commercial game, and then it’s probably wise to know as much as possible about what your audience wants. But for someone like me who is just doing this as a hobby to stop myself from feeling mega depressed and useless, sticking to the way I want to make it is the more important thing, haha.
The silly thing is, I do wish my other finished projects got as much attention as DD x3 Cos I worked so hard on them, but it’s only a small percentage of players like you who have actually played some of my other games! I can see it staring at me every time I log into itch xD Most of my daily views and downloads are on DD and for some reason, my Yandere Heaven fandub, haha. Some of my other games that have been out for a couple of years still don’t even have 1000 downloads >.<
To me, that’s insane that those are the things people are checking out more than anything out of everything that I’ve done x3 The 2 things that aren’t anywhere near finished xD But then hardly anyone downloads or even looks at my finished games, haha. I guess maybe that’s another factor that’s contributed to me feeling crushed by the expectation attached to DD. Cos sometimes it feels like that’s the only one of my projects people care about and I don’t really know why x3
Anyways, I hope work hasn't taken up all your time over the weekend and that you get to have a good week ahead :3