Hi everyone, I’m currently well in the process of creating a narrative-focused single-player RPG, which I’m planning to have span several chapters and well over 20 hours of gameplay, so it’ll be a couple years before the full game sees the light of day.
Before I commit fully to my vision, I want to first see if people are interested in what I have to offer, and so I am thinking of fully fleshing out a demo of the first full chapter of my game, as well as a mid-game dungeon + boss fight. Since I’m planning on using it as marketing, I’m going to make it as polished as possible, and release it in as much of a bug-free state as I can.
However, I’ve seen online that many recommend only publishing a demo when the full game is complete, because the demo may be well out of date by the time the full game releases, and might hinder wishlist count. On the contrary, I see games like Threads of Time and Alabaster Dawn that have released demos of their prologue (and in some instances, a mid-game section of a dungeon and/or boss fight) and have yet to release a full game years later, all while stockpiling a large amount of wishlists (and I do realize their development scale and budget is much, much higher than mine).
Another angle I was thinking, ideally, is that I can release a polished demo alongside a kickstarter to gauge interest in the vision of the product, but I have no real experience with this, and I’ve hear that kickstarters need a pre-existing community in order to be successful (majority of the time).
Curious to hear your guys’ thoughts on the options I’m thinking of, and I’d love to hear any of yours as well, if you have any! Thanks!