I want to share some super exciting news. As mentioned in my last update, I’m currently in NYC at the moment for IndieCade East. Yesterday was the first day of the conference. I didn’t get to attend too many of the talks, as I had a lot of fun just meeting other developers in person and talking to them about my game and what they were working on.
The best part was I got to meet Alexander Bruce, who created Antichamber! Any of you who’ve been following this devlog will know that that game is a huge influence on Relativity, and is one of the games I’ve studied very closely this past year in making mine. The influence is probably quite evident in the aesthetic choices I’ve made, but also in the design of the overall structure and the progressions system of the game.
Anyway, it was super awesome to finally meet Bruce in person. He playtested the game and gave me some really good and invaluable feedback. We ended up talking for an hour or so, and it was an incredible experience for me to be a able to pick his brain on different design challenges I had been struggling with, and to get insight into how he approached the same kinds of problems for Antichamber. We even discussed the logistics for some of the new mechanics I’m thinking of introducing later in the game.
Talking to Bruce, I realized there were a lot of issues with the first stage of the game, with some of the mechanics for keeping track of progression, and some of the backtracking that the player had to do. Bruce gave me a lot of good suggestions on how I can approach these problems and possible solutions to implement.
Most importantly for me, he believed that my game was interesting and had potential. Of course, there’s still a ton of work that needs to be done, and a lot of problems to be addressed, but it was really great to hear that from him. He’s really direct and honest in his feedback too, so I can definitely take take his word at face value.
For me, as someone making a game for the first time, and also doing it completely on my own, it was very reaffirming to get positive feedback from someone whose work I hold in high regard. It took some weight of my shoulder, just knowing that I’m not deluding myself on the quality of my work.