Hi!

Around May 2023, the very first version of Burder's demo was released. It was an important milestone for me, because at the time, I had already spent 3 years working on this project during my free time (being a web dev to pay the bills). So I was very relieved to finally "let it go" and move on the next areas of the game.

I went to a few gamedev events where I live, near Paris, France, to meet other gamedevs and share about our experiences. I did receive some feedback back then, which helped me a lot to understand where my game was lacking, what aspects were more frustrating than what "normal game design" should allow!

Burder being a (narrative, but also) puzzle game, I saw that some of my puzzles were kinda confusing in the way they presented themselves. I even noticed that a specific puzzle was solved by several players in a way that was totally unexpected for me, and was really a bug.

I learnt that, in puzzles, the more you "confine" the player in indicative restrictions, the clearer the path to the solution will be. My puzzle presentation was probably too vague.

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Anyway, enough about 2023. After receiving such feedback, I spent a part of 2023, and the entirety of 2024 improving the demo:

- First on "fixing" what I considered to be relevant feedback, genuine game design issues with my game.

- Then I improved some visual aspects of the game, parts I wasn't a fan of, like dialogues' faces. I also added more animated stuff in the backgrounds, particles, etc, to make the world feel more alive. I also added some lore parts, especially the "opening visual novel sequence" (for those that aren't into VN at all, I promise the VN parts will remain short and rare in Burder)

- Finally, my biggest task for this new demo: making the game's music! I had no background regarding music theory or any practice of an instrument. I still can't use a piano or a guitar even if I own some in my apartment, but I spent the first half of 2024 learning music theory, sound design, and the use of a DAW. So all of the music you hear in this new demo is from me. It sure sounds less professional than the license-free music I had in place, but for this first game I'm making, I really wanted to be a "jack of all trades" in order to learn all aspects that surround the act of making a game, and have a better understanding of the whole process. After that, even though I took a real interest in drawing illustrations or composing music, I can more clearly see that for my next projects, I would ideally be accompanied by an audio artist, a graphic designer, and maybe a fellow developer. And focus myself more on what I estimate are my own fields : programming and writing (I still need to keep practicing that one)

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So this is it, Demo Version 2 of Burder should now be live on Gamejolt for Windows, Mac and Linux. I hope you enjoy it if you give it a try, and feel free to contact me on Twitter, Blusky or my Discord server (more deserted than the Sahara for now) if you have any feedback to give!