Everyone,
Over the last several weeks, we have been discussing the launch of a single-player prototype demo of Deadhaus Sonata. The reasons for releasing the demo was to do the following:
- Reward the early adopters
- Raise awareness of the game
- Give the community an understanding of the gameplay direction of the game
At Apocalypse, we believe that we work for gamers, and we want to do everything we can to communicate what we are doing as clearly as possible. Denis has over 30 years of development experience in the video game industry, and with this comes some extra options. One of these is significant connections with other people who can visit the studio and give us advice. Recently, we had the opportunity to speak with some people who had some significant (successful) experience in the F2P space. We went over our schedules and the above goals, and we were given the advice not to release the demo as it is a prototype and not likely to be understood well by those not exposed to the development process. After much debate, knowing that a prototype is exceptionally early in development and not something we consider polished, we agreed with this direction. Although we understand some people will be disappointed, we believe this is the correct direction to go, and we will not be releasing the demo. We want to get the highest quality experience for our community, and we believe we have a better way to do the above while focusing on the demo.
To that end, we are excited to announce that we will be doing weekly developer video updates starting in January. These updates will cover all aspects of the game, giving project status updates, showing work in progress, design philosophies, the cats and much more. Bringing Scott Rook onboard is the first of several steps we will be making. The Journey Into Darkness segments are on hold, making way for our new weekly format. Guy Sclanders is a fantastic host, and we feel lucky to work with him, but not being in the studio presented a serious obstacle. We plan on working with Guy in the future when the time is right.
We are extremely grateful to our fans, early adopters and partners who have been with us since day one and believe in Deadhaus Sonata. We work every day to make this game the best it can be and pride ourselves on our transparency throughout this whole process. The weekly video updates will provide a unique perspective on what it takes to create a massive project like Deadhaus Sonata and what goes into game development. We hope you will continue to follow us on our forums, Discord and social media as we continue to make this project a reality.
Thank you,
The Apocalypse Team
