Now, I bet you are all wondering… What? Of course, it should! Are you trying to run away with our money?! The answer to that is absolutely not. With more research and opinions from other indie devs, I’ve come to the conclusion that most demos are either wastes of time or bad for a game. So this may make you think that it’s only bad for a game if the game was bad in the first place. It would be bad for bad games but it also could be horrible for story-related games or shorter experiences.

Let me explain. Say I was a casual gamer that wanted to playtest a random game I found called “End of the Line” and saw there was a free demo… Great! I play through the demo and have a pretty good time. I may even look it up for more information on the full game later on… that would be coming months from when I potentially played it. As much as I hate to say it, how many people would honestly remember to come back? There are a million games out there and especially casual gamers don’t want to get invested in a storyline just to wait months for a release. It breaks up the story and reduces the true tension of what is supposed to be a fairly controlled horror experience. It would be like coming back to a movie after never following up on it for months only to restart in the middle.

Now, how would I get proper feedback on the game? Great question! I have a team of great playtesters that each play games a little differently. Each one would represent a certain kind of player with certain objectives (Finish the main story, find easter eggs, etc) This will ensure that a very diverse group of people will be able to play the game in proper amounts of time. In fact, the demo testers will be sent out to play some portions as early as this month!

Keep in mind that if you don’t like the game for some reason, you can always get a refund… however, hopefully, this won’t be necessary for most. Not having a demo would make the full game come out much quicker as I wouldn’t have to script a fake end for each route or do aggressive beta-tests, worry about intense marketing, or do more work that doesn’t actually improve the core game.

So now is your time to vote! I wouldn’t want to do anything that you guys hate, you are my fans… you make or break the game!