Shallow Space, a 3D sci-fi RTS from 2015 that was initially very promising but ultimately ended up in development hell appears to be alive again.
Writing on Steam, the developer made a post back in May titled "What happened here?" and briefly went over some of the issues. Things like limited resources, things not implemented properly, a publisher backed out on them and a key reseller got hold of a bunch of keys which apparently dried up their sales too.
The developer went onto mention that since then they've continued learning, becoming a better developer and they've decided they're actually going to give it another go and finish Shallow Space. They've been tinkering behind the scenes for a few months now and have begun talking a little more about their plan.
In a new post titled "What's the plan?" posted in June and it sounds largely positive. They have most of the assets they need already to "recreate Shallow Space as a more fun game using more modern tech". Additionally, they will shortly be making the game free to play on Steam. Originally they used Unity but they've also confirmed they're moving the client over to the free and open source Godot Engine, with the back-end being written in Python.
As for when? Hard to say. They estimate about six months to get it to where they want but because it's going to be free, they're "not going to get stressed about delivering it again, better to enjoy the journey and the positive community spirit the project has always seemed to attract." and then attempt to bring it to a state where it's fun and eventually look at some kind of funding to properly finish.
You can follow Shallow Space on Steam.
Great to see it happening though, despite my reservations.
I do wish devs like this would just skip Steam and get an Itch page up. That way, you can get the game for free, but later, if you like it, throw some money their way. F2P on Steam will just attract review bombs.
Great to see it happening though, despite my reservations.
With respect that's horse**** no one review bombs a game for nothing. When developers **** consumers they invite the bad reviews.
I do wish devs like this would just skip Steam and get an Itch page up. That way, you can get the game for free, but later, if you like it, throw some money their way. F2P on Steam will just attract review bombs.
Great to see it happening though, despite my reservations.
With respect that's horse**** no one review bombs a game for nothing. When developers **** consumers they invite the bad reviews.
If only that were true. Or, in the cases where it is arguable true, if only gamers had some perspective, empathy and compassion and weren't generally just bitter neckbeards venting like the manbabies they are.
But I've yet to see a case of review bombing which didn't feature general nastiness and that wasn't a completely over the top, often absurd and frankly shameful reaction to what often boils down to a dev asking "do I want to starve?".
Sure, there are some cases, usually involving big publishers, where you can see that review bombing is just borne of frustration and it's kind of justified (or if not justified, then at least understandable)... but that's rarely the case, and certainly shouldn't be the case here, where no malice was intended.
bitter neckbeardsI take your general point, but I do want to say that I find the whole "neckbeards" schtick annoying. Connecting a whole constellation of negative qualities to the concept of not being interested in certain kinds of grooming just strikes me as really superficial and saying something weird about a culture that makes us feel like this is a natural kind of insult.
bitter neckbeardsI take your general point, but I do want to say that I find the whole "neckbeards" schtick annoying. Connecting a whole constellation of negative qualities to the concept of not being interested in certain kinds of grooming just strikes me as really superficial and saying something weird about a culture that makes us feel like this is a natural kind of insult.
Fair point. I'm a neckbeard myself these days! Not bitter though.
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