I would have prefered to not need to create this announcement but Space Bob needs your help. A wave of negative reviews have suddenly appeared and although they complain about many different things they essentially all say the same thing in various ways: The game is too hard. This has caused the game's 91% positive review rating to drop to 77% in a matter of days. Visitors to the store page have fallen off a cliff because of this and sales have all but stopped. Needless to say this is a very bad situation and totally unexpected. I thought we had the difficulty balance about right. The difficulty of various elements of the game have been discussed here on Steam and tweaked many times so it was a complete surprise to suddenly see a flurry of negative reviews out of the blue all complaining about difficulty. (Edit: It turns out at least one of these recent negative reviews was based on the fact that only 1% of players have completed the first achievement. The truth is that only 1% of the player base has replayed the game since achievements were added last week in the latest update. Things are starting to make sense.) As a solo developer, one of the biggest problems we must deal with is that we know every inch of our games. We know how every mechanic works and so the game always feels too easy. We never get the opportunity to play a new feature or mechanic without already knowing a way to beat it or how to avoid it. I'm not trying to make a super difficult game. The goal was for it to be challenging but only so far as to be consistently rewarding. Ideally I wanted it to be playable by every skill level. I've made a topic in the discussion area to discuss the subject of difficulty and would seriously appreciate your support by getting involved. Unsurprisingly, sales have dropped dead after the negative wave of reviews and it could spell disaster if we don't get this resolved. There's a link to the discussion below. If the game really is too hard for most of you, and more frustrating than fun, then tell me! This is news to me. That's why the game is in Early Access: to get player feedback and make any necessary tweaks. So please, speak up. Have your say. Let's get this fixed. If you want to see Space Bob succeed please get involved and share your thoughts and experiences with the game. Here's a link to the discussion on this subject. https://steamcommunity.com/app/780390/discussions/0/1727575977555648848/ Thanks for any feedback you can share on this subject.

[ 2018-06-29 11:17:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Space Bob vs. The Replicons is a light hearted yet challenging physics-based planetary exploration, survival, rogue-lite in the final stages of development for PC (Mac & Linux soon). Expect to die in a dozen different ways before you figure out how to survive for an hour.

Combining hand crafted planets with procedurally placed resources and hazards, you must help Bob to solve the mystery of what is keeping him trapped in a never ending time loop while experiencing elements of survival, platforming, adventure and space exploration along with his companion AI.

Gameplay

Explore dozens of planets, collect resources, salvage what you find to craft upgrades, and fight for your life while trying to uncover the time-bending mysteries of Bob's universe.


At first, something as simple as landing on a planet and recovering some salvage will be a challenge. If the planetary hazards don't kill Bob first he will likely be overrun by Replicons before learning that many things are not worth his time to collect. Managing resources while learning how to maneuver valuable loot around obstacles, and out of deep winding caves, is what the game is all about.

The first objective is to escape through the jump gate and this may feel like the end of the game but nothing could be further from the truth. To truly escape Bob will need to explore further, master his skills and ultimately take the battle to the Replicons directly over three story acts.

Whether you live or die, an average play session is designed to take 30-90 minutes. At first you'll die frequently and struggle to do seemingly simple tasks but with patience, careful resource management, time and practice you'll learn to survive long enough to discover that death is not as permanent as it seems. Dig even deeper and you'll find yourself working with mysterious forces to save mankind from alien obliteration over multiple consecutive games.

This game features a type of permadeath. Death doesn't reset the story but it does rewind time. Collected resources and upgrades will be lost so it's best not to try and do too much before learning how to survive first. Also, contrary to some of the early reviews, the game now allows saving at any time but as is typical with rogue-lites your save point will be lost after death.

Technology

Although the game may initially appear to use traditional 2D sprites, it instead uses polygons. This allows for improved performance but also the ability to seamlessly zoom from viewing an entire planet down to having Bob fill the screen, and all without any pixelation.


All objects are physics enabled creating the corner-stone for much of the gameplay. You'll need to figure out how to efficiently connect objects together and return them to your refinery ship in orbit while managing their weight as they swing around the game's environments. Oh, and don't forget that you'll need to do it while trying to survive an alien invasion. Good luck!