Guys, be prepared!
Today's post will be a personal one. And today is also a day to celebrate! After tireless seven years of development and over 7000 hours of work next to a regular daytime job I can finally call Outbuddies DONE.
When I release the game here on Steam about 6 months ago it really wasn't ready in many aspects but I had desperately and finally wanted to get it out there and be played.
Despite a wacky start, we received a warm welcome here on Steam, and while many things weren't perfect (and some aspects of the game never will be) you provided me tons of encouraging feedback and ideas how to make the game more enjoyable, more accessible and just more fun. I did fully commit to the task and released 16 major updates in total to reshape and balance almost every aspect of Outbuddies.
To sum it up, we now have much improved visuals, fixes to the world's layout, a rework of the control scheme and platforming mechanics, lots of equipment and weapon tuning, boss reworks, difficulty and drop-chance tuning, new QoL tools, a completely new UI and, finally, a new dialogue system with localization to seven major languages.
I'm incredibly thankful for this period of development. It for sure was damn exhausting, but in the end many of you helped me make the game I actually had envisioned to make, respecting it's core designs and not demanding it to be a thing it should not be.
To celebrate the result of the last months of post-launch development, we decided to re-brand Outbuddies today as Outbuddies DX!
The DX-update also applies some final touches to the platforming engine, sound FX and the early-game‘s flow. Pressing F2 during gameplay will now show the game-timer for you speedrunners out there, and you can manually adjust screen margins in the options menu, a little feature I needed to implement for the game‘s PS4 port.
Speaking of ports: Outbuddies DX releases on Nintendo Switch and Xbox One in EU and US these days! PS4 will follow very soon, so if you own any of those you can now grab your new favorite Metroidvania for those systems too ;)
So what's next on the horizon? That's a really good question. When I started making this in 2013, I honestly had no idea what I would get myself into. The last years have been an enormous strain, financially, mentally, and even physically. Now, seven years later, I know a lot about making games and this industry. I made I game that will release on all major consoles, which is truly crazy. But, I'm also pretty broke and exhausted, gained 20 pounds of weight, and I have cumulated a sleep deficit of over 100 full days (just actually calculated that). Long story short: I really need to recover from this, and I will. I will also start making another game another day, but it can't be tackled like I did it with Outbuddies, that's certain.
Next to you guys, our players, I also want to take this chance and thank my publishing partners at Headup for always supporting me in so many ways, for investing in this niche thing at all, for not dropping it, despite stakes being high. I thank you for all your hard work in the evenings and on the weekends, adjusting to my own crazy work hours. You really are damn awesome, guys!
I also want to do a big shout out for my game engine provider Clickteam, the actual true veterans of game engines. You started my "career" in this community with the famous Click & Play when I was 12 years old. Today, you're still the same humble guys surviving in this crazy market, doing everything you can to keep up the Fusion Game Engine. You've my deepest respect and admiration. You also did an outstanding job with porting Outbuddies to consoles and it was a great experience working with you!
I'll continue to care for Outbuddies and fix it whenever needed. I'll not drop the love for this and I'll not drop the love for making games. I hope the DX rebranding and console release will help Outbuddies to leave it‘s hidden gem status and reach a wider audience of players in the future.
Please continue supporting Outbuddies yourselves! Spread the word about this DX release, recommend it to your friends, write a review, and help keeping-up and growing our awesome little community.
I'll leave you with some quotes from actual player reviews, it's often just words like those that keep us indie devs going against all odds.
Thank you so much!
Julian
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1083310