Developing content for Don't Starve isn't really that hard.
After all, it's a pretty small game.
Art and music production are moving along smoothly.
The more complicated part is making good mod tools for players.
For a game to have lots of mods, it's not just about being fun to play.
How well the game supports mods is also a key factor.
While Don't Starve was being developed, the hype for Dark Souls: Age of Fire kept growing.
After selling nearly 5.5 million copies worldwide in its first month, Dark Souls kept strong in the second month too. Sales dropped to 2.4 million copies worldwide.
During this time, in Death Mode, players finally beat the first boss.
It wasn't a boss from Dark Souls: Age of Fire, but Yhorm the Giant from the previous game.
The Storm Ruler's massive damage bonus still worked on him.
Most hardcore Dark Souls players teamed up to take him down.
Finally, 19 days after the new mode launched, three well-known Dark Souls players from overseas teamed up to score the first kill. But what's funny is, less than 10 minutes later, a Chinese Dark Souls team broke the speedkill record, cutting about 15 seconds off the time.
Players couldn't stop talking about it, and of course, arguments broke out — who was better? The team that got the first kill or the one that came later but set the speed record?
Clearly, neither side wanted to back down, and both claimed they were the strongest.
The next day, the overseas first-kill team beat their own time.
Two days later, the local team took the lead back again.
No other boss had been beaten, but Yhorm the Giant sure took a beating.
For a game like Dark Souls, the stats and content don't need any more changes. The rest is up to Edward's new project team to slowly work on DLC. But since it involves online features and in-game player messages, it's just like Fall Guys, Overcooked, and Legends of the Three Kingdoms — there's a dedicated live-ops team keeping it running.
Of course, as the player base shrinks, they'll merge teams and have one group handle multiple games.
But Lucas has clearly shifted his focus away from Dark Souls.
In the project room, Lucas is talking with Rachel and Hector about some ideas for Don't Starve.
"The whole game is built around survival — that's the core. From that big core, you can break it down into smaller needs."
"For example, the main character has hunger, health, and sanity stats. Combined with the environment and encounters, these stats will drop. If any one of them hits zero, the player dies — which means they've failed to survive."
"So under that big survival goal, players naturally start chasing smaller goals based on these systems."
Lucas explained the core design of Don't Starve to the team.
These systems are the reason he chose Don't Starve as their first try at a sandbox game.
The game's story isn't the focus for now.
All of its systems are tied to clear goals.
Even players who know nothing about sandbox games won't be completely lost after starting the game.
At the very least, they'll understand one thing: keep the character alive. Survival is the only core.
Eat enough, stay warm, and do some fun things to keep the character sane.
Around these goals, players will explore more and learn what sandbox gameplay is really like.
"This sounds really fun!" Anna said, nodding as she listened to Lucas break down the core points.
"Even though it's a small game, it feels like it has a lot of freedom!" Hector, who works on stats and level design, gave his honest impression.
"Yeah, I think playing with friends online could be a lot of fun too." Rachel agreed.
"But if the game is all about surviving day after day, what if one day, the base players worked so hard to build just burns down in a fire, or they suddenly die? All those hours — tens or even hundreds of hours of effort…" Anna suddenly thought of this and spoke up.
Hearing this, everyone turned to look at Lucas.
Just thinking about it gives you chills, right?
It's like spending countless hours grinding in Dark Souls without using any cheats, actually managing to create an insanely strong level 802 character, collecting every single item in the game… and then one day, disaster strikes: your save file is gone!
How hopeless, how crushed, how heartbroken would that player be?
"Ahem… don't look at me like that. I told you, this isn't a rage game. It's not like Getting Over It with no save system. Players can save anytime and even back up their progress," Lucas said with a small cough after seeing everyone's reaction.
"And honestly, I need to say this — fine, players not understanding my original intention is one thing, but how can you all think I make games just to see players suffer?" Lucas said, speechless.
"Anyway, here's the plan: after we finish Don't Starve, we have another game to develop and release before the end of the year. Don't Starve is more of a test for the market, and after launch, we'll still need to update it with new content and open up the workshop for player creations."
"So, by mid-September, let's try to finish Don't Starve and get it live on the platform."
"Got it," Hector nodded.
"A little over a month should be enough time to develop Don't Starve, but quality comes first," Lucas said as he looked at Hector.
...
After talking with Hector and the others about Don't Starve's development details,
Lucas called Ethan into his office.
This time, things would be different compared to games like Dark Souls: Age of Fire or It Takes Two.
For Don't Starve, both the launch and how they run it will be handled differently.
Even though it's a small game, Lucas plans to put some resources into marketing, and for that, he needs Ethan to make a proposal based on the requirements.
(End of The Chapter)
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