Mar 4, 2025 5 min read One Last Job

👨‍🏫 Gamedev advice: three things to avoid 🚫

...and, of course, why we're doing them anyway. 🤞

Lucas here, bringing you all the updates on all Triple Eye topics! So... let's get sta...

Hold up! How did the games do in Next Fest?

Oh, thanks for asking!

According to some very clever people who spend a lot of time trying to understand how Steam works (and festivals influence how Steam works), it looks like Another Round and One Last Job did "so-so" (at median, below average vs other demos), and Null State did "pretty good" (above median, at average (excluding top-end performers)). None of our demos really broke through during the fest, however we got a few mentions in a few places – and, let me tell you: it's a really nice feeling when you see folks "get it" with a game and ask for more!

Also, thanks to a last-minute effort from Billy (linktree), we were able to gather some really interesting metrics re: which languages were used to play each of the demos. These results aren't particularly surprising, and break down into roughly what I would have expected based on my prior publishing experience:

The ratio of EN to other languages is a bit high; I can probably attribute this to the fact I mostly communicate about the game in English. 🦅

With that said, we've learned a lot from player feedback during the Next Fest, and I've decided to break all of my rules for how to make sure a product ships (built up across more than a decade of experience releasing games & other software). So... let's get started on the short list of things I know we shouldn't do in the month before we ship, but that we're gonna do anyway!

#1 - Add more content

Oh man, Lucas, why are you doing this?! You're supposed to be done and just doing bug-fixing! The last 4-6 weeks before shipping a game, you should just be grinding down the rough spots and making things smooth!

Well, yeah, I know that...

The thing is, some of the feedback on Null State which we picked up during Next Fest is that the players are looking forward to a bit more complexity in the combat systems – and I think there's some "simple" things we can patch in which will make combat more interesting for the player (without making it too difficult). For example, the combat AI needs to be a little smarter and more adaptive; right now, the player can kill the enemy faster than it can figure out how to damage the player at all!

We show the player how the AI plans and searches for the player's ware - there are several problems with the opponent's decision-making which make it a complete non-threat, for now.

And don't get me started on the storylines Pip (site) is still packaging up & adjusting to work with the in-game storytelling tools we have (which our language team is still localizing, to boot!).

#2 - Overhaul the UI

WHAT?! What are you doing? Surely your UI was locked months ago! Why would anyone decide to completely rebuild a game's interface just a few weeks before release!

Well, yeah, that's a good point...

The thing is, some of the feedback on One Last Job which we picked up during Next Fest is that the systems are very opaque / unclear for the players. There's a real sense from many players that there's an "optimal" move at most moments of the game, and they just don't have all of the information they need in order to make that move. We already took a big step towards surfacing useful info to the player – with a major interface overhaul that Robin (linktree) completed in the middle of Next Fest!

We're using the whole "middle column" now, breaking out info on how each of the crew contributes to the job.

There's still some more work we can do, though, to lay bare how a player's choices influence the outcomes of each job. Part of that will be to add more VFX, so that player choices are SHOWN affecting the game. Part of that will be changing the rules a bit, so that the player has additional choices when they start the game. Finally, there's some celebration we need to add to the process of leveling up... I'm just not sure what, yet.

#3 - Add additional platforms / control schemes

Lucas, that doesn't even make sense. You're supposed to settle target platforms WAAAAY before launch; that's like, a thing that's normally decided before you even start working on a game!!

Well, yeah, that's a good point...

The thing is, some of the feedback on Another Round which we picked up during Next Fest is that the controls are just a little wonky, especially when playing on Steam Deck. As a portable gaming device which can act as either a controller OR a touch device, we're currently doing... neither on Steam Deck; instead, we're emulating a mouse with the controller buttons (a default option that Steam Decks offer, for sure, but really not the best for a game like Another Round).

We'll have to remember that any mouse-centric icons need to use the face buttons instead!

So now we're going to test out what Another Round might look like with controller support. And, while we're at it, we can look at adding controller support to the other two games – because if you're already breaking rules, why not go big?!

Will your team get everything done in time?

I really need to stop messing with everything sometime in the next 3 weeks, so that we can just focus on bug-fixing through the end of the month. However, if I've learned anything since we started this whole shindig, it's that I can trust my team to tell me what's possible and what's not. We'll get as much done as we can in the time we've got left!

Target release date for all three games is 4/4 – I like a pair of nice, even numbers. Don't you?