Name | Maze Qore Arena | ||
Developer | Néotl Empire | ||
Publisher | Néotl Empire | ||
Tags | |||
Release | 2020-03-26 | ||
Steam | |||
News | |||
Controls | Keyboard Mouse | ||
Players online | n/a | ||
Steam Rating | Need more reviews to generate a review score | ||
Steam store | |||
| Public Linux depots | Maze Qore Arena - Linux [2.15 G] |
Qorena has went through a lot of trial and error in the span of 4 years (+1 year of post-game support). From its original debut in 2018, to it's final release in 2022, and post-release support this year in 2023. Now, I finally announce my post-mortem for this game.
[h2]2019[/h2]
[h2]2020[/h2]
[h2]2021[/h2]
www.youtube.com/embed/3CgrizvYLu8?si=cHxosE_eMqJCObUF www.youtube.com/embed/M_vWAczdtKQ?si=YGQ72vAK2RC1krMh www.youtube.com/embed/ZG0wLwhmmSc?si=y1Pzu81zOi-BApZ_ [h2]2022[/h2]
[previewyoutube=bbuZp_8D7qY;full][/previewyoutube] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1xCPgocIkU [h2]2023[/h2]
What have we learned?
Marketplace Developers Beware If you make a marketplace template, ensure it does not share the same style and prototype scheme as the true game. Either make the game extremely different from the template, or just avoid making either that or the game entirely and let one of them sell on its own instead. I got a few complains some have mistook it for an asset flip. I wanted to kill two birds with one stone by using the template I created myself to speed development time and focus on expanding further the gameplay and improving the art, rather than do all of that from scratch. Little did I suspect many would accuse one's own creation of being an asset flip from the marketplace template they created themselves. I still made nearly this entire game by myself, with almost no outside aid, and it was all for naught. Developers use to fear using the marketplace under the pressure that gamers would accuse their game of being an asset flip. Suffice to say, I think this is partially true. If you use marketplace assets such as art or environ packs, it may not be too much of a problem so long as you make a large effort to originate your game or at least turn it into a signature game. Once you make a marketplace template however AND it is selling even decently, you may was well forfeit any plans to make a game out of it. Your task to originate because extraordinarily difficult. In a way, the unwittingly further sealed any chances of Qorena getting anywhere. Ironically I have created this template to raise funds to help me develop this very game. It helped to some degree at first, then little more beyond a year. Ironically, this game was also developed as a means to develop funding for another project that is still in comatose to this day. That has also ultimately failed... Any lingering plans left for Qorena? We planned user-mod support using Modularity's Mod.io, but that ultimately fell through for two reasons:
Mobile Port I considered making use of the competitive MP build and transforming it into an Android port of the game. I underestimated the difficulty and feasibility of mobile builds in Unreal Engine as well as trying to get it signed for Google Play, and ultimately gave up. I might consider a much simpler, yet fun version of the game for Android using Godot in the future, focusing solely on survival and infinite waves, however no promises that will ever happen. Game Over? Yes. I am done with this game. The 2nd developer that helped me with this game has given up on the project and left. The non-dev members of the team have also left the gaming industry for greener pastures. I am all that is left now, and much like a previous project I worked on, I have lost all motivation to work on this game anymore as well. This project is cursed. It was cursed from the beginning. It is still cursed to the end. If you want to see any other projects I am working on, you can check out this one instead. Hopefully it will fair better. |
Qorena is currently available for FREE even after SHMUP Fest!
We will also be hosting playthroughs of the game on YouTube throughout this week! Subscribe to our YouTube channel and keep an eye on this playlist for updates. [previewyoutube=WShZz_JJNyk;full][/previewyoutube] Full Playlist Here LOOKING FOR PLAYERS? Join our Discord server and pair up with other players for a match. We hope you will enjoy playing Qorena! Bring friends and enter the arena!  |
Last update, we released the Campaign Update, introducing the new game mode for mission scenario action with friends and/or bots. Now we brought 4 more missions into the fray!
[previewyoutube=D1xCPgocIkU;full][/previewyoutube]       IMPROVEMENTS:
COMING SOON:
IMPORTANT NOTE: The settings, map cycle, and customizer storage system has been updated. You may have to resave your respective content in order for the effects to properly apply. For instance, and as a result, chances are your mannequins will look brighter or paler than usual. MATCHMAKING: If you want to find players to play this game with (in the event the server browser is empty), you can join our Discord server. ___ We hope you will enjoy playing Qorena with this bountiful update. |
TIME FOR THE TRUTH:
While we still intend on releasing mod tools for the game, the only thing we can focus on without your support is the just level editor, before discontinuing post-support for the game, writing it off as a colossal failure, and moving on to other projects. In order for us to go further with more tools such as:
We truly need YOUR support to ensure that happens. We need to see that enough players truly care for this game and our vision. Far as we are concerned, there are practically crickets playing our game - practically, as in just 1 or 2 players (that may likely have been our playtesters) chime in on their own volition to play the game once in a blue moon. We know Qorena is not the best game in the world, nothing compared to the likes of BattleBit Remastered, Teardown, Door Kickers, or even the top-down Battle Royale IO games, but we do try our best to make this top-down bullet-hell game fun, enjoyable, and worthwhile. Since the original launch in 2018 as Maze Qore Arena, much has changed tremendously under the new title Qorena. For starters, we introduced upgrades and powerful weapon levels, making the weapons like the assault rifle and machine gun turn from standard-fare to powerful gatling blasters; rocket launcher turns into a missile barrage cannon; sniper rifle can penetrate through walls, and the flamethrower is augmented with minerals harvested from the Warp, to become the Voidthrower. Enemies now have dialog and music plays in an event-based fashion. Each survival level has their own unique preset of enemies that spawn. For instance, prison arena levels feature special enemies from Maze Qore prison (save for the Yellow Sector spawning exclusively hornets, and Red Sector spawning predominantly Psykers and their possessed victims), whereas outdoor levels feature enemies working for the Imperium - an evil tyrannical government set on imperializing and conquering the entire planet of Asterisk. What more can we honestly do with this game without transforming it too far beyond its original design and goals (again)? Call it an identity crisis if you wish, however it is a problem we have been trying to resolve for roughly 5 years - seemingly to no avail, and still are trying. We hired playtesters to play our game, find bugs and glitches, and help us improve the game to be fun and more available for anyone willing to play it for at least an hour, not 9 minutes at best. We tried to seek funding and marketing support for this game as well - to no avail. We have honestly ran out of ideas, so Version 0.9.X will very likely be our final update milestone for the game. We no longer have any motivation to complete the game enough to leave the Beta stage by reaching Version 1.0. Until a miracle is made, there is no point wasting anymore of our time if our audience simply does not exist outside of 'personal associates'. In fact, we're probably talking to ghosts here at this point. To anyone that did read this far into this post, thank you for paying attention I guess... |
The Campaign game mode is finally here with Version 0.9.2! You can now fight against enemy forces in campaign mission packs alone or with bots offline, or with friends and strangers online. For now, only one mission pack exists - Operation Desert Storm. This will change in the future with 4 more mission packs.
COMING SOON:
___ We hope you will (at least someday) enjoy playing Qorena more than we ultimately did developing this game... |
We have made an important announcement regarding all of our products actively being sold on all digital storefronts. Any that use Unreal Engine it are extremely affected.
We are MOVING FAR AWAY from Unreal Engine and abandoning Epic Games. We are moving on to greener pastures. |
The 2022 Steam Winter Sale is here! Qorena is 10% off from now until March 23! |
It has been a while since this game was updated. Important fixes to the game has been applied along with a major graphical revamp.
COMING SOON:
We hope you will enjoy playing Qorena more than we did working on it. There will be a sale coming soon in the Summer. Wishlist us on Steam for updates on sales and more updates like this. |
The 2022 Steam Winter Sale is here! Qorena is 25% off for the rest of this month until January 5th! |
After 4 years, Qorena is finally out of Early Access and onto full release! Those of you who downloaded the game during the EA already got to keep it free. Others will have to buy it now at standard price. |
Another Qorena Foresight Playtest this weekend! Anyone is welcome to join! |
Another Qorena Foresight Playtest this weekend! Anyone is welcome to join! |
Another Qorena Foresight Playtest this weekend! Anyone is welcome to join! |
Another Qorena Foresight Playtest this weekend! Anyone is welcome to join! |
On this special day, we are kicking off the first Qorena Foresight Playtest! Anyone is welcome to join! |
This game has been out for a full year, improving the game overtime. We truly want to make a fun game that is worth the player's time (however long it takes...), so much that we have made the entire early access free rather than charge money like most developers typically would do with their games (which is also fine). |
KNOWN BUGS
MOST IMPORTANT NEWS As this year comes to a close, we've been deciding long and hard with what to do with this game. Despite our efforts, nigh no one seems to care that this game even exists as it has languished for months with no online servers populated with players (let alone at least one server to join), and almost no activity. Either that, or they probably played the outdated singleplayer demo and forgot about the entire game afterwards. For all we know, we are unsure if anyone is probably even reading these update articles. So considering this and the research on how competitive multiplayer games fare on this marketplace, we've concluded that competitive multiplayer is a fruitless endeavor. We really want to give players a reason to care for this game, and most importantly enjoy the game, for our success can only be achieved when players are enjoying this game. Starting next year (and part of our resolution for 2022), Maze Qore Arena will be overhauled. It will no longer feature competitive gameplay as it currently stands. Instead, it shall live closer to it's name; an Arena; a coliseum of enemies to slay; a might and fight for survival. MQA is going cooperative. WHAT ABOUT THE CONTENT? Most of the pre-existing levels, sprites, and gameplay will remain intact. The game modes will be scrapped and replaced with only one; Survival. NPCs from the old singleplayer demo will make their return to the overhaul. Bots will be overhauled to specifically support this game mode, so hopefully you will not have to fight alone against waves offline. This also means MQA might compete with the likes of Killing Floor when it comes to it's new gameplay direction (even though we're not trying to compete with them). From the beginning of this game development, we wanted to provide a variety of gameplay options for players to enjoy including the Survival mode (eventually), however we've learned that MP games for the most part have gone nowhere, often dead-on arrival. We tried to rectify this with bot support, giving players an alternative to at least still enjoy the game offline should online disappoint. We've learned that sometimes. it is better to keep it simple and straight-forward, rather than try to make an online game suite. Hopefully all goes well. _____________ I hope you enjoyed this update and thanks for playing Maze Qore Arena! - Establish. Explore. Expand. |
Greetings!
_________ - Establish, Explore, Expand. |
Greetings!
NOTE: This patch applies only to Windows. Linux packaging is under difficulty and will arrive at a later time. _________ - Establish, Explore, Expand. |
KNOWN BUGS
After feedback from the team, we decided to alter our plan for the final release and post-support. We will take our chances introducing mod support before early access ends and hope for the best. We may have been looking at this the wrong and realized the potential the game truly has beyond just an action-arena, E-sports-friendly, shooter. We want to make it modular and expand the game with multiple themes to suit the gamer's preference, somewhat similar to Prison Architect only better. As a spin-off to our main project, we now seek to expand this game outside the confines of a prison, and we will start showing this by the next update version 0.7 with more outdoor levels and another new game mode. By version 0.8, we will bring two more new game modes, and a handful of game themes (to be discussed when that time comes). By version 0.9, bot support should be completed, and mod tools released in beta phase. By the end of early access (1.0), mod tools will leave beta, completing the entire project. Post release may see two additional game modes, and a series of holiday events for two years. _____________ I hope you enjoyed this update and thanks for playing Maze Qore Arena! - Establish. Explore. Expand. |
We have made a mistake regarding the singleplayer build. Our original thought was that Steam's demo system would still work in liaison with the full version. Little did we know it would replace the demo and render it inoperable once the full version is purchased. Understanding this, we have decided to release a quick update. |
IMPROVEMENTS
_____________ I hope you enjoyed this update and thanks for playing Maze Qore Arena! Establish, Explore, Expand. _____________ [h2]QUICK UPDATE[/h2] If you are having trouble finding a multiplayer server to play on, or finding players to play with, you can join our Discord server to lobby for players and join a match together. Use !register to access the server, then use the #gaming channel to host a session to other gamers. |
Greetings!
Apologies for the inconvenience. Hope you will still be able to enjoy Maze Qore Arena. _________ - Establish, Explore, Expand. |
Greetings!
Apologies for the inconvenience. Hope you will still be able to enjoy Maze Qore Arena. _________ - Establish, Explore, Expand. |
From hence on, we do not plan to update the single-player mode from this point save for perhaps a few patches. It seems we've done as much as possible to improve this side of the game. The only possible two updates for single-player remaining are:
As also stated in the previous 0.3 update, we are deprecating support for Windows 32-bit operating systems. Epic Games has overhauled the cooking and packaging infrastructure and thus effectively rendered 32-bit impossible to work with it unless we flip a switch in the project settings in Unreal Editor. Since they also stated in their engine version notes they will deprecate 32-bit support in 4.26, and remove it higher versions, we decided to deprecate support now. As it stands, version 0.4 of Maze Qore Arena will be the final version to support 32-bit OS and thus will be played in single player only. Once MQA reaches version 1.0 (and leaves early access) we will remove 32-bit support entirely. Seems the 32-bit era is sadly coming to an end. Now is the time to upgrade to 64-bit computers if you have not already done so. If you wish to play the single player in 32-bit after this point, the retail version will still be available on the game's Game Jolt page. _____________ IMPORTANT NOTE Singleplayer and Multiplayer builds have been separated and renamed. For those tech savvy, you may notice in the file directory that the Maze Qore Arena folder now has SP and MP folders to separate the two halves, this has as a result broken the save storage for the game so if you have played earlier versions here is how to fix this: "C:/Users/ <Your Computer Name> /AppData/Local"If MQA_SP already exists. Delete the folder before following the above steps. Ultimately, it may be best to start anew instead as a few changes in the game has occurred however nothing that should corrupt saves. _____________ I hope you enjoyed this update and thanks for playing Maze Qore Arena! - Establish. Explore. Expand. _____ EDIT: Bugs found. Patch inbound. |
Greetings!
Changes:
___ Establish, Explore, Expand |
