After all, DETOUR is now released. I’ve got so much to say about the release of our first game, I’m debating how much to include here, and how much to say in later posts, maybe focusing on different areas of development, and so on… One thing I am going to do is be very honest here regarding how I feel about the release, what went wrong and of course, what went right.
When I said “I’m the one responsible for the mess that is DETOUR”, I was seriously making a joke. In an interesting and humbling turn of events, I can safely say I’m just serious. For our first game, developed under part-time circumstances (2 - 4 hours a night, more on weekends and holidays), over the course of 2.25 years, and with very little foresight on what we were doing, DETOUR has been a massive success. We’re not talking sales (nor are we releasingour sales right now). When I refer to DETOUR as a success, I’m referring to the fact that we at Sandswept, completely unknown and non-existant, have released a game on Steam, a major PC platform, and we’ve made back all the money spent during development on licenses, travel, and hardware. We’ve done what many friends, family, and developers have said we couldn’t do. It was (and sometimes remains) fairly surreal, waking up at whatever hour last-minute bug fixing shoved me to, and seeing DETOUR on the Steam store page. It’s up there on the “weird mixed feelings list” with watching someone enjoy your released game for the first time and drinking soda, expecting one flavor and finding out they gave you the wrong one. You know the feeling.
Speaking of getting hours pushed about, Richard and I slept in on the release date of DETOUR, pushing it back about 2 hours. We basically stayed up until 6 AM getting last minute things fixed up. (Someone reading this who may have played on release would wonder if we fixed anything, but hey, you’d be really surprised how much we got done on the night before release.) Release week was really rough, not just for the players, but for us. You’d think some of the bug reports added “I bet you guys enjoy making us suffer” to the end. Believe us; it hurt, not just sales, but also given the time we spent on the project. Knowing people were having horrible bugs, crashes, and other issues really hurt us as developers. The whole point of DETOUR was to make something fun for people, and when that goal wasn’t achieved right away, it was a swift kick in the nuts. But that said, people expect a certain quality out of a released game. A few notable exceptions were people who seemed to enjoy the game, but simply couldn’t give it a real thumbs up due to the release bugs. We don’t blame them.
We’ve more or less hit the intended quality post-release with DETOUR. We’ve been (and will continue to) roll out patches and updates to fix pretty much all the hard-hitting issues that we still probably wouldn’t have found if we pushed our release date further. We really needed the sheer number of players hitting DETOUR in order to get it up to the level it’s at now. In other words, the post-release playerbase of DETOUR has been the best beta testers we could’ve ever asked for. On release DETOUR experienced a higher variety of PC hardware, regional location, and sheer number of man-hours played. We could never have hoped to put that much testing into the game with our non-existant budget and part-time-ed-ness. We did our best. I can say that without fancy marketing charades, any mind of greed, and a completely drained mind and body. We have been working what feels like non-stop, from the beginning.
And we’ve learned a ton. The stuff we’ve learned from DETOUR, from basic technical stuff, to how PC users prefer interface and GUI, to… Well, the idea that we should work on our super crazy only-an-indie-game-studio-would-try-this game concept instead of trying to make a game to fit some market like XBLA.
Let me touch on that for a minute. DETOUR was conceived after our first project, (Project MAESG, otherwise known as Pebble), was dropped. We started Sandswept in December of 2007, working on a fantasy side-scroller. It wasn’t my idea, but I liked the concept and helped the original creator (who left with the project) refine the idea. It eventually got a bit scrambled, mainly due to conflict of interest in how the story, characters, and gameplay should play out. Pretty much everything. December of 2008, we contemplated dropping the project. To do so, we first had to figure out what would be a “better” and “quicker”. (Hah!) Well, DETOUR was it. Richard pitched me what sounded like a pretty fun turn-based board-game idea, and we quickly evolved it into the real-time, fast-paced bomb-based love-fest it is today. Shameless Plug: If you haven’t picked up our fast-paced bomb-based love-fest, I’d recommend it. It’s quite awesome to beat up on your friends.
So, that was how DETOUR was ultimately born. We figured we could create it for XBLA digital distribution, it would have a 6 month development cycle, and … Hah. Well, I can’t keep myself from laughing while typing this, so let’s just stop there.
Make no mistake, though. We’ve learned so much from DETOUR’s arduous and overdrawn development, and we’re applying all of it to our next game like a delicious paste. From the ground up, we will be doing things the right way. That next game, by the way, will be a concept I’ve been refining and conceptualizing for well over 5 years to revive what we consider a long-dead genre. In the simplest of terms, we’re no longer going to be pussy-footing around and trying to ‘bend to a market’. Shameless Plug 2: Still, you are the market we made DETOUR for, so check it out.
DETOUR’s not done yet, of course. I can’t talk as though the storm has passed. (Whether it’s a bounteous rain, or a torrential downpour is up for debate, and still to be determined, by both players, reviewers, and us.)
I guess that wraps up that. I’ve cleared out a good portion of my brain-baggage that has accumulated over the past few weeks, and there’s quite a bit left at baggage claim. I’ll be posting more often, if I can manage. If any one wants me to touch on a topic — any topic — I’ll chime in. This isn’t strictly a dev vlog, and is very much a personal blog. I’d like to be personal with people who like the stuff we make.
After all, we make it for you.
