Romero City Officers,
It is with a heavy heart that I must concede that I've added a feature to the game
that I've always told myself that I'd never do.
First time players are now automatically thrust into the tutorial.
Why?
I've noticed a trend in which your average casual gamer will buy the game,
fail to interact with or understand the mechanics, die, refund the game
and/or leave me a bad review.
I don't have millions of dollars to throw around for a marketing budget.
I work a day job just like you do. So my review score, refund rate,
and personal reputation is all I have to continue to grow the game.
Those of you who have actually put the time in to understand the game mechanics,
have the mechanical skill to complete the game, and the intelligence to
solve it: Thank you. You are part of an elite cadre of gamers,
and I salute you. This game is for you, not the masses of whiny casuals
who couldn't be bothered to play a game that actually required them to
use their skill and wits to survive. You kick serious ass. I'm not saying that to
gas you up: I have statistical evidence to back it up.
If you want to help the project, write a review. Introduce it to your friends.
Make a suggestion to your favorite streamer or content creator to play it.
Join the Discord and make suggestions or report bugs.
You have real agency to prove to the gaming industry that we don't have to be
ripped off by cash grabbing corporations who couldn't give a damn if they
released a good product or not.
Additionally,
The other new feature is a new difficulty adjustment fallback that is triggered
at the death screen. If you die, you are presented with the option to continue
to play with the difficulty adjusted automatically. This is to encourage
players to continue to play without the shame of manually walking over
to the game options board to select easy mode.
I want to remind everyone that the game is fully completable on Easy.
You can see all of the content and unlock all levels and secret characters
on Easy mode.
This patch also includes major localization refinements
(Still very much a work in progress), and a long overdue cleanup
of the code database that I have to admit is more for my benefit
than anyone else's.
That being said,
I am incredibly grateful for the fans of NDOD. It's been an awesome
privilege to create a game for a dedicated community who have been
ignored by corporate game studios for decades. We've built something
here that could never be replicated by a corporate studio because
investors would never fund a project so niche and risky.
I didn't make this game. We did.
-Mike