This is a copy of a blog post I made to the Zinnia Games Blog: https://zinniagames.com/retool/

Been a while.

After I released Demo 2 for Skag Malibu I did some preliminary work on a Demo 3, but at the end of January I decided to step back and relax.

During the relaxation time I went back and worked on a 3D Platformer concept that I have been thinking on since around this time last year. I would love to continue that project, but 3D is much more time consuming than 2D is, and I don't have enough experience in 3D modeling to make games with models instead of sprites.

So I put down that project after learning quite a bit from it, and starting thinking about what I wanted to do with Skag Malibu. The first place to start is the feedback, or the lack of it. Not a lot of people downloaded Demo 2, and even less actually gave me any feedback on it. While it isn't the easiest sell to get people to play a game full of test assets, Skag Malibu's current iteration is obviously not catching anyone's attention. For someone who was trying to make a game that was just fun to play, that is a blaring alarm that something has gone deeply wrong.

Here is the page visits and downloads for Skag Malibu on Itch starting from the day Demo 2 was released. Notice how few downloads actually happened. Only 8 downloads were made for the demo, versus 13 for the game's first demo. I advertised this demo on Bluesky quite a bit along with a few Discord servers I am in. Despite having a further reach than I did with Demo 1, the actual download count was nearly halved.

With the lack of feedback it's hard for me to tell what exactly went awry between Demos 1 and 2. Is it just the game's placeholder assets? Is it to do with level design? Game feel? I can't really point it out myself, but I have a feeling it's a combination of all of these factors. Graphics matter, but so does gameplay. I think if the game was more fun the people who downloaded it would have said something.

With 4 months now having passed I can say Demo 2 was ultimately an all-around failure. It doesn't matter that it has a lot more to offer than Demo 1 if what it offers isn't worth the time. If Demo 2 is a rotten foundation, what does that mean for Skag Malibu.

Straight Skagged

To put it bluntly it means Demo 3 as it was is in the can. Building off Demo 2 is going to result in a game that shares the same fate as Demo 2. I'm confident that even if I were to fully artpass the game as I had originally planned with the old Demo 3, it'd be a massive waste of time and effort.

So with what I've learned in the months since I am going to rethink and then rebuild Skag Malibu from the ground up. I've got a lot of ideas floating around for this new iteration, but the main plan is to reduce the scope I was working with. Skag Malibu started to become far too ambitious for a single person to realistically complete. So my grander plans for the project are going into the trash. Sucks to say but at least the game will have a chance of being finished.

I don't have anything else to add as this new iteration of Skag Malibu is still in the very early stages, but I hope to have news soonish. Thanks for reading this post and see y'all next time.