Game Demos and How I've gotten them wrong

So when developers get together to make a game, their first priority is usually to get a demo out.  After several games and several demos, I have come to my own conclusions about demos and how most of them get it wrong.  I can say this with certainty, because I've gotten it wrong many many times. 

For Blackwell Legacy, I didn't even consider creating a demo.  I just wanted to make a game, and surely the game would be so awesome that people were going to buy it sight unseen, yes?  Well, duh.  Of course not.  People wanted to try it before they bought it.  Perfectly understandable, but I was faced with a problem.  The draw of the game was the emerging relationship between Rosa and Joey, but Joey doesn't actually show up until you've played through a decent chunk of the game.  I could have started the demo there, but the events that followed wouldn't have made any sense. 

So, I hemmed and hawed and I patched together a demo that that was a heavily edited version of the first fourth of the game. It did the job, barely, but many people have told me that it doesn't sell the game terribly well.  I have to agree.  So from then on, I always planned my demos alongside the actual design of the game.  And for Blackwell Convergence, I thought I got it nailed.

From the Blackwell Convergence demo.

I had a brilliant idea.  I would start the game off with a stand-alone story - a ghost in an abandoned office that you had to save.  It had nothing to do with the rest of the game, but it would serve as an introduction to the Blackwell world for newcomers and a refresher for everybody else.  And the bonus?  I could break it off and release it for free as a demo.  Win-win.

But no.  I realize in retrospect that it was a mistake.  I'd forgotten the purpose of a demo, which is to encourage people to buy my game.  By releasing a demo with a stand alone story -  with a definite beginning, middle, and end - I utterly failed to leave you wanting more.  There was no reason for you to come back.  You had already left perfectly satisfied, and got it for free to boot.

So what's my plan for the Deception demo?  To leave you hanging as much as possible.  You're welcome, everybody.

-Dave

From programmer art to final art

Hey, who remembers this?

One month ago, I showed off this lovely piece of programmer art for Blackwell Deception.  I drew it myself, using such high-tech drawing tools as a white piece of printer paper and a ballpoint pen.  I then scanned it into my computer and incorporated it into the game so I could program the basics of the location.  I made sure to add the words "This is a yacht" for the benefit of anyone unlucky enough to actually try it out. 

Eventually, Pepe (the background artist) took pity and did a preliminary sketch of the room:

It actually looks like a boat now!  Kinda.  You can faintly see Chelsea Piers in the background, which is where the boat is docked before setting off.   I greedily incorporated this sketch into the game so I wouldn't have to look at my own artwork.  Eventually, after several bouts of going back back and forth with the coloring, the final product emerged:

Overall, I am very happy with this.  It's the very first scene in the game, so I wanted to make a good impression.  There are clouds that drift by and a water reflection that shifts around.  When the boat starts moving there's a nice image of the George Washington Bridge that scrolls in the background.  Simple effects, but they do the job nicely.

Like with Convergence, I plan on releasing a free stand-alone demo to show off the game.  You should see this background (along with a few others) incorporated in that demo a month or two before release.

-Dave