The Future of The Donnerwald Experiment

It's been a while since my last update on The Donnerwald Experiment (TDE). As you might have guessed, I've been busy working on The Murder Hotel (TMH), which is slowly getting closer to its release date this summer. I can actually finish games if I want to.

What is this update about?

At LFG Con in Hof (Germany) where I exhibited TMH, I brought some TDE flyers with me. I didn't show the public any gameplay of TDE since I hadn't registered it, but during breaks, I had the chance to talk with fellow game developers about it and they tried out the game on my Steam Deck.

The comments were actually quite positive, which was surprising to me since I have a negative connection to my previous work. All the negative comments from publishers and my overall sense of guilt overwhelm me whenever I think about it, so it was strange to me that people like TDE.

Then it kind of clicked with me. I need to do something. I should probably share my thoughts with you.

First, I want to apologize again for not being able to finish it. You took the risk of buying a game in Early Access and haven't gotten the full game yet.

Why did TDE "fail" in the first place, anyway?

Initially, The Donnerwald Experiment was more close to a "Paper Mario" styled game. But sadly, this was probably the biggest issue with it's identity. The people that want "Paper Mario" styled games tend to expect paper aesthetics or at least overall colorful and wholesome vibes.

You know, games like Steam post image or Steam post image

Compared to them, The Donnerwald Experiment is clearly the black sheep of Paper Mario likes, as besides the combat it's got nothing that compares to them. That was especially clear to me seeing the comments in all the Paperverse Trailers, that no one really cared about it. Why am I telling you all this? Well, my game missed it's target audience.

Not all is lost

But it's not all gloom and doom, as I used this opportunity to move away from the Paper Mario formular and instead refined the combat to have more of an identity of its own. Despite still using Action Commands, I pushed the game more towards "Decision Making". So instead of timing the attack for the right moment, you can simply hold the attack button during the Hammer Smash to invest more stamina into it, and more stamina means more damage.

Sames goes with a more complex way of balancing characters between "Setup Sweepers" like Erika/Marx, "Haymakers" like Jasmine/SirHennryk and "DamageAbsorbers" like Bernhard/Luka.

And don't get me started on the Robot Building part of the game. I had extremly big plans for it, plans that were clearly out of scope. Which is kind of sad, as "young inventor lady crash-lands in a forest and builds robot to fight" was the base idea of The Donnerwald Experiment.

Here's the very first concept artwork that was made for the vibes of the game. I still remember it clearly, my initial vision. In fact, I remembered it so much that I recently decided to tackle it again, during a 48 hour GameJam.

Together with Birdzozu and my trusted musician Sonorode, we created a little puzzle RPG called Come Undone. If I could travel back in time, I'd show my younger self this prototype and tell myself to make something like this for TDE.

And then there's also some other elements that I really enjoyed while replaying TDE yesterday on my own.

There's the ocean water physics that I could toy endlessly around with. It just felt really satisfying to jump in, take a dive, and see & hear the "submerged" effect go in effect.

And gameplay vise, the Gastfenger chase szene in Chapter 3 comes immidiatly to my mind. I think this is my personal highlight, because it perfectly demonstrates what to expect from this goofy scissorman.

Steam post image In fact, I enjoyed this part so much that we I and my intern Flynn crafted another GameJam project with "being chased" as the coreloop. But instead of Gastfenger, it's the elusive Dream Demon Process that's causing trouble to Charla. (Did I say Charla? I ment Klara. I always confuse those two ~)

What now?

Something that I can certainly say after all this time, is that I grew a lot as a Game Developer. I got a way better grip at scope, my writing improved, and I understand now how important it is to have a proper core gameplay loop.

Though I have no idea what to do with TDE now. My options are:

-Delist it from Steam so no one will accidentally buy this unfinished game -Leave it as it is and work on "Mare Noctem Cardgame" next as a full game (which is the most likely option). -Take like one whole year to finish TDE without any new assets, making Chapter 4 the final part (the one you probably want the most).

And my personal preference: -Completly redo the whole game, smaller in scope, graphic style more unified, maybe as a roguelike. Way less texts, but keeping the same story and focus more on "show, don't tell".

Whatever I do, it will most likely depend on how well The Murder Hotel is doing, as well as my overall financial situation in the upcoming months. Please let me know what you think, by either commenting below this post or sharing your thoughts at our Discord server. Thank you for your time and for still being a fan of my works.

-Wegenbartho