Post by Tanxui in DreamLink comments

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Your renders are really well made. Your game is well-paced, story-driven and overall well written. You are so exceptionally good at what you do, I can barely believe that that this is your first project! Keep it up, will definitly keep an eye on you.

Now, about the Eternum similarities. I'm torn on this. While it's hard to not notice the similarites in the very beginning, you're diverging from it really well and this is no longer an issue afterwards. I think you are well within your rights to take inspiration from other games and your game is anything but a cheap copy. Though as far as first impressions go, it's easy to assume that you're uninspired for someone who is just playing the first 30 minutes. It's kind of depressing that a game of this caliber gets dragged down by good ol' human psychology.

Listen, your game is great. I'd say don't listen to them, but I have to admit that their experience is somewhat relatable. I don't want the beginning to change, but it might also be foolish to not do it. It's a decision I'm definitely not envying you for. Good luck.

Noctus Games221 days ago(+1)

Thank you for the kind words and feedback! I think the upcoming updates will do even more to show the originality of the story, but I think you've put it perfectly - first impressions matter. It's a hard choice, and I want to focus on upcoming updates rather than taking away time to revamp previous content... but I'm banking on people being willing to give it a chance all the way through.

Maybe wishful thinking.

Tanxui220 days ago(+1)

The way I see it, this acts as a kind of filter that only a percentace of new players get past. Though on the other hand, too long intervals between meaningful updates make it harder to retain your current player base, especially in the beginning.

I've seen quite a few projects, like Ripples and Evermore, do a lengthy rework at some later point, to iron out their early flaws. You could consider this too! Or, you could do just a bit of rework with every update, to maybe get the best of both worlds. It depends on how impactful the problem actually is, which I can't really estimate from my POV. Maybe you can do a poll? Don't forget to account for bias though. :P

quikbrnfox141 days ago(+1)

Promise kept. Eye-focus posted. As an aside, the examples given in this post are not encouraging. Evermore is essentially abandoned, and Ripples artist seems to be growing tired of the assholery of the free masses. Seems to be friendly with the Sad Crab guys though, which, while parts of that game are very good, at the time I first found it, Innocent Witches was a masterclass on how not to do a rework.

Tanxui141 days ago

Thanks for posting it! You're right, Evermore got abandoned a few days after I posted this, even before the dev was able to publish the rework for it. Not necessarily encouraging, but let's not get superstitious.

It's possible that I am too optimistic about reworks. The thing is, if I were the dev, I'd try to go for it at some point because I want my work to stand on its own, without it being accused of it being overly derivative. On the other hand, who are those people that make this a dealbreaker? Do I really want to cater to them? And yeah, there's always the risk of a rework making things worse. I dont know what the best choice is, this is a decision that only the dev can make. Fingers crossed.

Tanxui141 days ago

I'm pinging you right now because the dev mistakenly responded to my post instead of yours, here you go: https://itch.io/post/10550449