Infinitap Games

Open development was essential to making Neverending Nightmares. As we work on an unannounced project, it's a bit more challenging. Here are my thoughts on this!

Would you ever consider doing Early Access for a future title? I think it can be good for sandboxy type games where they can gradually add features but the game is still fully playable in a more basic state. Although I haven't found many games that interested me enough to go in on the Early Access, Project Zomboid is the only one so far, and I looked at that more as supporting a developer that had a solid idea and has also had a string of misfortunes. Darkest Dungeon also hits early access next week, and I'm really excited about that.

So I am curious, you speak of 'Kickstarter' and 'Early Access' as if they are two exclusive funding models.. Why would you not have a kickstarter and as part of that, have an early access tier (and then also set up an early access version on steam once development gets far enough along) ? Is there laws against this or some industry faux pas that prevents it?


I do love that you are feeling a bit stuck because you want to be open and somewhat transparent in terms of development, but you also have to be careful not to devulge anything about your next game. It is like that weird hesitation dance one does at the threshold of a party when you aren't sure you want to join it or walk away.. hehehe.

I completely understand the dilema though. Because your work is very Atmosphere focused, is (potentially) going to be very story driven and not as much about gameplay and mechanics, there isn't even a pre-pre-pre-alpha to show that isn't spoilery or that won't look completely incoherent. With some dev's they can show 'conceptual' level design using simple 3d geometry and assets and you get a feel for the mechanics and so have an understanding of game design. But if say, you did a classic "point and click" game, well, that just doesn't work.

"Ok you point the mouse at this.. black square, and then the purple triangle moved over there and then the yellow rectangle disappears. Kool huh?! "

Yeah.. kinda pointless.

Personally, I don't see so much of an issue devulging very basic ideas about the game that would be readily evident in even the teaser trailer. I wouldn't go so far as to toss out a title and detailed stuff, but more generic " a boy on an epic journey to discover his penis" or something is at least a starting point that could end with ALL KINDS of final game designs/stories. Or use it to your advantage and give just enough to let folk know the basics, but never let on that the 'twist' or hook for the game is something completely different.

Sort of like if your last game was "Neverending Torment" and sold itself as not being a nightmare you are trying to wake from, but rather an actual hell that you are trapped in and it isn't until you get to the end (or one of the endings) that you realize it was all a dreamscape. Granted I am glad you didn't do this with NeN cause it's crazy cliche, but twists come in all kinds of flavors. Look at Nier as an example of how far down a rabbit hole you can go over replays.. hehehe. Initially you are fighting we'rd monsters in this fantasy realm as a father trying to protect and save his daughter (surface level) and over time you uncover all kinds of details that completely shift your notion of their reality, who is a good guy and who is the bad guy, and what is ACTUALLY happening in the game. This kind of layering and complexity is beautiful and fun and allows for a lot of replayability. Starting that with early discussions and threads is possible, and makes for interesting discussion later when gamers realise that in the epic tale of a boy journeying to find his penis "originally the boy was going to be a eunic, but later we chose to change it to having him be a hermaphrodite because it added more story significance" and then gamers sit and think " wow how would the game be different if they didn't make that change? "

I guess part of my point is that during development GAMES CHANGE and yeah some folk will cry and whine but I think there's a fair community of fans that find this fascinating and fun to find out. I've seen lots of this on Pop-Fiction's videos and plenty more on 'Did you Know Gaming's' video's. So don't think giving away a detail early and then having it go away is only going to catch you flack. Some of us like discovering detaisl about it later on in the autumn years of a game.

also.. i think you'd spur a lot more traffic and community here if you started tossing breadcrumbs at us about the next project. heck throw SEVERAL projects at us so we don't know which is the final one and give us lots of 'what if's" to talk about.

Or.. ya know.. continue doing the hesitation dance in the doorway.

I think Early Access is cool and definitely would consider it if I had a game design that had emergent gameplay systems, but I don't really plan on making any of those soon - or ever because honestly, I don't really care much for games with a lot of replayability. I like hand designed campaigns with a beginning, middle, and end. I'm sure there are some really great games that I'm missing out on, but they just aren't my thing. If a game isn't my thing, then it's tough to make one. haha

I guess the exception was that I was thinking at one point at making a procedural loot-y game since I do like Borderlands, but I'm quite busy now working on horror games.

You can do Steam Early Access and Kickstarter, but again, if your game is story based and doesn't have a lot of replay value, Steam early access is a bad choice because people don't want to play again. We did "Infinitap early access" for our kickstarter backers, but Steam Early Access has completely different expectations and you have to worry about user reviews on an unfinished project... :-/

With respect to our next project, I could drop clues (and there have been a few clues here and here), but I'm not sure people will get really excited about the idea without showing the execution. Plus, everything is subject to change, so I want to know that I love it before I try to get anyone else excited about it. haha