Vindictive Drive - The story behind the story - Final thoughts
Vindictive Drive’s final version is now being tested and it will be available on Steam very soon, my job is not finished yet, but right now, I have two minutes to stop and think about it, I wanted to share some unknown details of its development with you.
The game was supposed to be a simple, linear 30 minutes long thing I made for fun, and it was, until one day, SometimesYou Publishing contacted me, they were interested in selling my game, they’d cover the costs and advertise it, I had nothing to lose, but I didn’t have the means to use a paypal account, so @morganelisecosplay kindly offered to receive the money in her account for me, so this happened thanks to both of them.
There was a small detail to have in mind, though, all I had back then was a 15 minutes demo, so I had to improvise and rush a story out of thin air, that is how after a couple months, the first Early Access version was born with the first 5 chapters.
This was, obviously, the most defective version, and players who bought the game in such stage, were obviously waiting for the complete product soon, so I had to rush and improvise even more, and faster.
Morgan made a photoshoot with an original design, I loved that design so I decided to create a character with it, almost every character in Vindictive Drive was either evil or corrupted in some way, Luna Herz was the breath of fresh air my story needed, and her creation made the game a better one.
As the development made progress, I felt it was a bit too worldy, and that just a couple mecha were not enough for its fantasy tones, I write Sci-Fi way better than I write thriller, so I had to find the balance, that is how Eureka was created, sadly, for when that happened, it was a bit too late in game.
When I released the current version on Steam, players noticed this, and some of them agreed that Eureka was an element the game needed more.
Eureka gave the game an eerie mystery factor along the sci-fi improvements, something I didn’t plan.
In an ideal world, Eureka and the helper robots would be part of the game since chapter 1.
The last version of the game was supposed to be just a major upgrade of the previous version, enhaced graphics, animations, bug fixes etc...but I agreed with the players, and this is why Freija’s Destroyer Eureka, the special chapter with Eureka and Xera was made.
---------------------------------Kando’s execution(warning: blood)
Conclusion and final thoughts
Vindictive Drive was a fun experience, although quite stressing at times because of the rush, this was a very positive experience, I learned a lot about marketing, interacted with players a lot, one of them, @atlasatrium is now a member of Secret Society Games, and the end result was very good.
The game got over 200.000 plays, it was covered in many game journalist websites, and it produced good money that I certainly needed.
As a product, I think it was one of good quality, it has flaws, not everyone likes the controls and one or two things were too hard, but even some of its negative critics agree that it had a good story, and I believe it still has not reached its full potential.
-She who lives by the grudge, dies by the grudge
This is the reason survival for Arris is only possible if she manages to let her grudges go, nothing good can come from grudges, nothing good can come from suicide, life is important and it’s important for who we are.
Thank you for following the development of Vindictive Drive, and I hope you join me in my next adventure.
