Topic: Spacebase DF-9 being made into full game

[idolminds]

Spacebase DF-9 started out as one of the experimental games in the Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight, but now it's being turned into a full game! Its basically Dwarf Fortress in space made by Double Fine. Whats not to love?

It's up on Steam Early Access. I hope they plan a DRM-free release when its done.

[Quemaqua]

That sounds bloody brilliant.

[idolminds]

Amazingly, they made back their $400,000 investment in two weeks.

Spacebase required around $400k to develop, so it would have been unwise for Indie Fund to go it alone. A $400k game in a stable of $50k-$150k games would make for an imbalanced portfolio, and would mean more risk than we were comfortable with.

So we asked some folks we know if they’d be interested in joining this experiment. Indie Fund ended up putting $75k into this project, and Humble Bundle, Hemisphere Games, make all, AppAbove Games, Adam Saltsman, The Behemoth, Morgan Webb, and Rob Reid put in the rest.

Spacebase DF-9 went into open alpha last month and recouped the entire $400k investment two weeks from that date. 85% of the revenue came in via Steam Early Access, and the other 15% via direct sales by Double Fine.

[Quemaqua]

Damn. That's crazy.

[idolminds]

So apparently development is done.

Big news everyone, Spacebase DF-9 1.0 will be released next month! It’s been a pleasure sharing this experience with those of you who picked the game up during Early Access and provided the feedback that helped shape it into what it has become.

...

As for what will be added between now and the 1.0 build, new features will be aimed at providing the complete experience you’d expect of a non-Early Access game: a Tutorial mode to smooth out the early game a bit and help new players learn the basics, and a Goal system that lets you work towards concrete objectives. That as well as over a month’s worth of pure bug-fixing work and final polish.

We’re also pleased to announce we’ll be releasing the game’s full Lua source code a short time after 1.0, which will allow the community to create potentially far-ranging mods that add content, new features, and change some fundamental game behaviors. We’ll of course be sticking around a bit for bug fixing and support, but any new content for the game will now be in your hands. We’re eager to see what people do with this game!

Here was the latest Alpha 6 video from earlier this month:

This has upset a bunch of people. The game has been on Early Access selling for $30 or so and was recently on sale for less. There was a big list of features they wanted to add to the game that never got added.

I can kind of understand why people are upset but also why development might have stopped. The team was pretty small but DF has several larger projects they are working on now (Broken Age, Massive Chalice, Grim Fandango HD, Costume Quest 2 is probably in crunch mode right now) so they probably had to pull those devs back onto those projects to get them done. Plus if it hasnt been selling well then it might just be a reality that they have to stop. I'm sure we'll here some more about this in the coming days/weeks.

But when you've paid in possible $30 for an early access and it goes from alpha to final in a month? Yeah...that seems weird. But what is alpha anymore? Most game "betas" are essentially complete demos for the final game. Alpha might not mean so much. There is a big list of features that they wanted to add but didn't get around to...I'm sure that isn't unique for most games. DF is just more open about their plans and it seems to just come around and hurt them.

I think the question will be is the 1.0 release a "finished game" you want to buy? We'll see. Looks interesting to me but maybe not for $30. Also one of those buyer beware situations with Early Access games. Don't put money down unless what is already available is worth to you what they are charging.

[idolminds]

Lead dev posted on DF forum:

When we started Spacebase a year and a half ago, we knew that its continued development past Alpha 1 would be contingent on things partly or wholly outside our control.  Spacebase had a strong launch in October of last year and while sales remained steady for a while afterwards, earlier this year it became clear that we would have to work towards wrapping up development.  As project lead I can honestly tell you that we’ve done everything we could to keep making the game the best it can be.  We pulled out all the stops we could for Alpha 6 and we’re proud of the depth it has added to the game.  I believe the Goals and Tutorial Mode we’re adding for 1.0 are also a large missing piece that will lend the game greater unity and direction.  We were careful not to make promises about anything on the old dev plan page, even as we hoped we’d someday get to implement all of it and more.  Again this came down to time and resources, factors beyond my control.

To everyone who has supported Spacebase since or after its genesis in Amnesia Fortnight 2012, to everyone who has provided feedback, and voiced constructive criticism or even disappointment: you have my deepest thanks.  With the dev time we have left we’re going to do the best we can to create something worthy of all that.  This didn’t end up being a decade-in-development odyssey, but I hope you’ve enjoyed the process and find the end result fun to play.

[idolminds]

Tim posts

Hi everybody. I want to apologize for the delayed response from me on recent announcement of Spacebase v1.0. Most of Double Fine’s publishing staff and I are currently attending Fantastic Arcade in Austin, TX, and have been trying our best to keep up with the situation via our phones while we’re on the road. But now that I finally have time to sit down with a laptop, I’d like to answer some representative questions we’ve seen on these forums.

Here’s the first question!

“How about an ACTUAL explanation of what happened behind the scenes?”

We started Spacebase with an open ended-production plan, hoping that it would find similar success (and therefore funding) to the alpha-funded games that inspired it. Some of its early sales numbers indicated this might be the case, but slowly things changed, and it became clear that this was looking like a year and a half of production instead of five or so. With each Alpha release there was the hope that things would change, but they didn’t. We put every dime we made from Spacebase back into Spacebase, and then we put in some more. Obviously, spending more money than we were making isn’t something we can afford to do forever. So, as much as we tried to put off the decision, we finally had to change gears and put Spacebase into finishing mode and plan for version 1.0.

“What happened to the devplan? What happened to the beta stage?  How can ANY game go from Alpha 6 to a “finished” 1.0?”

In traditional development, “Beta” refers to a time when no new features are added but bugs are fixed. Things are different in early access where the game is in players’ hands at an earlier state, so the team has been fixing bugs all along as features are added. In the remaining dev time, there will be both bug fixes and new features so it’s true—calling it “beta” is a little inaccurate. But the amount of time fixing bugs is comparable to that of a traditionally-developed game.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to silently pull the plug?”

We are not silently pulling the plug. We are announcing our finishing features and v1.0 plan. I know it’s not a lot of advance notice, but we’re still here telling you our plan instead of vanishing quietly in the night.

“If you were going to end development, why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

One of the biggest lessons we have learned in this, our first early access title, is about communication. There should have been more communication to the players about the state of the game, and we apologize for that. But for us, it was never clear whether development was going to end because we always hoped that the next update would turn it around and allow us to extend development. So I suppose, ultimately, the answer was we always had hope we weren’t going to end it, until the end.

“Why put the game on sale (while internally knowing that development of the game was stopping)?”

Frequent sales are part of the Steam marketplace. We’ve had multiple sales throughout the game’s early access period in attempts to create a bigger audience for the game. As for the version of the game that people bought in this most recent sale, we are still working on it, fixing bugs and adding the final features to make the 1.0 version of Spacebase a fun and complete game.

I understand that the recent announcement was a disappointment. It was for you, and it was for us. We wanted to keep working on Spacebase for years. But Spacebase spends more money than it brings in, and that’s just not something we can afford to do any more. Set up against the expectation of the game being in development as long as Prison Architect or Dwarf Fortress, it’s hard not to find fault in the game by comparison. But we continued to sell the game, and will continue to sell the game, because we feel that based solely on its own merits, Spacebase DF9 is still a fun, clever, hilarious, beautiful and complete game.

It’s hard for me to see JP and his team get eviscerated on these forums, after I’ve watched them put their blood, sweat, and tears into Spacebase for the last year and a half. Telling you that they are hard-working and talented developers who toiled in good faith to create this unique work of entertainment probably isn’t going to change your minds about how you feel about this game. But I hope you might at least consider that no one is more disappointed than them that they will not be able to work on this game for years and years to come for reasons mostly out of their control.

We have stumbled awkwardly through some new territory with this game, and in terms of early access communication we fell short. But we are still proud of the game in the end, and are happy to have it on the roster of Double Fine titles. I hope you are able to reserve judgment on version 1.0 until it comes out, and then enjoy it for the unique and entertaining experience that it is.
Thanks for reading, and thank you for playing Spacebase.

-Tim

[idolminds]

Spacebase is out, but they have sweetened the deal.

Spacebase DF9 was just updated to the 1.0 build on Steam! In addition to hundreds of bug fixes and polish items, this release adds a Tutorial Mode for newcomers and a Goals screen that gives players objectives to work toward. These and many smaller improvements knit the game together into a more complete experience for 1.0.

The game’s Lua source code is now available in the game’s install directory on all platforms. Usually this will be in your Steam directory, under SteamApps\common\SpacebaseDF9\Data\Scripts. If you own the game you can modify these files and distribute your modifications to other users as you like. A large portion of Spacebase is written in Lua, so there are relatively few limits on what you can do with this.

The 1.0 release also sees the game’s price drop to the science-fictionally appropriate price of $20.01 US. In addition we’re introducing a new bundle of our two community-voted Amnesia Fortnight turned Indie Funded projects, Spacebase and Hack ‘n’ Slash, for $24.99. As a bonus for the customers who have supported us thus far, anyone who already owns the game gets a free copy of Hack ‘n’ Slash and anyone who owns Hack ‘n’ Slash gets a free copy of Spacebase.

As we’ve done with all our alpha releases, we’ll roll out minor updates in the next few days or weeks to fix any issues that come up.

Thank you so much for your support and patience for the past year. We’ve learned a lot and are proud of what we managed to accomplish, and it’s all thanks to your support.

[Xessive]

Ohhhh awesome! I was wondering who the heck gifted me Hack'n'Slash! haha