I mean, it’s no Star Citizen but it’s certainly not great either. And don’t get me wrong, you guys have accomplished a lot in 5 years for such a small team, I’m mainly just pointing out how I really think you’re prioritizing the wrong things, as well as breaking a few promises, which is very wrong when crowdfunding. Advertising features to get someone’s money and then either taking many years to deliver or, even worse, just not delivering at all is a huge slap in the face to the people that enabled you to make the game in the first place.
You’re probably going to get a lot of flak for this but I do agree that it’s disappointing that a lot of promised features have either not been delivered or scrapped entirely after half a decade.
It seems to me like most of these things stopped being on the radar years ago already, considering how most of the milestones that we do have in the game were implemented way back.
Almost all of your woes are due to the small size of the development team plus feature creep and technical debt.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Tower Unite is too large a project for such a small team, no matter how talented or hard-working the members are. It’s a AA, verging on AAA project being developed by an indie company. Additionally, now that I’m seeing the Indiegogo pledge, $50000 feels way too optimistic a financial goal. I worry the most about for how long will Pixeltail be able to keep going.
Yes, exactly. That’s actually why I mentioned Star Citizen. Both are cases of small dev teams taking on way bigger projects than they should have. I mean sure, both will likely be finished eventually, but “eventually” really doesn’t cut it when people are paying you ahead of time.
I definitely feel like Tower Unite has had some major missteps. It’s definitely not the game that was pitched in the IGG, and it’s most certainly not the game GMT used to be. I’ve been playing this game for years and been following with pretty heavy dedication for ages, but it’s a little heartbreaking that I’ll never have the same fun as GMT in this game. It’s just not the same… All the priorities feel out of whack, and it’s a struggle to have the same kind of fun. Some things work mostly okay, like Ball Race, but as a whole I don’t feel the same comfort, community, and warmth as I did in GMT. I miss it dearly.
I completely agree that it is disappointing that so many proposed features never got made or were started, but never completed (looking at you, bumper cars, cooking and planet panic). I do want to add in that the Midas watch is in the game and has been since the closed alpha. I think I also overheard a few years ago that everyone who obtained the custom attraction tier either never responded what they wanted or declined the perk.
Reading your reply just made me miss GMT even more than I have ever since it shutdown. I am not saying I prefer GMTower over Tower Unite. But like you said, the community and social interaction just isn’t the same. And of all things, most of my nostalgia from GMT comes from the community it had back in the day.
I kinda wanna keep talking about this. It’s kinda funny, in a way, because if you look through these lists there are some features that were completed/developed and then never implemented, or REMOVED and never put back. Remember the monorail? It was in the game for a very long time, and even though it was a little useless, it functioned and added some life to the plaza. With Lobby3 it just never came back. I recall hearing the plan was to re-add it when the offshore island was mapped out. Who gives a shit about another island. The monorail is finished, and the dev showcases have displayed that its fully dynamic and VERY EASY to put it on a new track. This has been shown, and yet, here we are with no monorail.
This is just a tiny thing, but they all add up fast. Do you guys remember the Kamikaze attraction? It was a boardwalk ride that had multiple minigames built in, was fully modeled, and had functioning light shows and code. Really it looked about 80% finished. Pop! Gone forever.
Things like this make me wonder if half the dev team walking to go make Jazztronauts on GMod is a result of this kind of thing.
Huge agree. They have merch and a patreon now, and I’m concerned about not only their wellbeing but their ability to deliver this product.
I know development is a very heavy task, and things can pop up and stunt it which is understandable.
But why on EARTH is energy being put towards dumbfuck content like a shooting gallery and juice store nobody enters? There’s already existing code for plaza PVP and weaponry, but the duel arena hasn’t been implemented? Why do we have two thousand of these terrible little “toys”? All they do is take up space and let people be obnoxious. Very few of them are fun and interesting.
I miss GMT. I know this dev team can make something more heartfelt than this, and with better focus and priority. This game is a mess right now, and feels like it has no intention of focusing on the things that attracted us to the Tower in the first place.
GMT can never be recreated because it existed as a vacuum of sorts. It was birthed from Source’s popularity and strong modding community and lived off of that… which interestingly enough is one of TU’s weaknesses: the engine. I’m biased in saying that Source was my favourite game engine (in all its perfect flaws), but it was specifically built around “First Person Whatever” type games and was upgraded by Valve with each major game release.
A lot of this game is focused on trying to recreate Source in UE4 but, in my experience, UE4 is a godless being.
I vaguely remember some old attractions on the boardwalk (like the old Shooting Gallery), but I don’t think I remember this one. Are there any pics, because now I’m curious.
Also I think the reason the Monorail isn’t back is because it’s useless in Lobby 3. With Lobby 2 there was far too much space and without our current mobility it could take over a minute to walk across the island (and then they added those launchpads lmao). But when Lobby 3 cut out the empty space, the monorail would take longer than just soaring, rocket jumping, etc.
That being said, there’s clearly love and care put into this game. From my experiences in GameDev, no matter how small the project, plans always change. As the team’s skills grow, they go back and redo certain aspects (thank GOD we’re getting replacements for the Fuse models). TU is extremely ambitious, but it’s getting there.
I would agree but almost all of the things you pointed out are still planned, talked about by the devs, and on the game’s trello (besides VR support and trading). Not to say I don’t disagree with everything you’re saying, but I’d agree more if less than like 95% of the things you pointed out weren’t all things the devs still plan on adding to the game.
I also feel like TU doesn’t feel the same as GMT, but it’s not like the devs can just create a community that’s as great as GMT’s was. And even though TU’s community doesn’t feel nearly the same I’ve made a lot of great friends from playing the game.
Also I agree that it feels confusing to me why the devs put priority on some stuff a lot of the time but it feels a lot more understandable when you put into perspective that TU is dozens of games in one, and all of them need to have the same amount of attention put into them, which is kinda impossible to do with a team as small as Pixeltail.
tldr i agree/partially agree with some stuff but also dont agree with some other stuff mentioned in the thread
Totally agree to this. But I think there’s a big difference between a change in plans and scope creep. To me, it feels like the things that are actually important have been misplaced or half-baked in turn for other things, whether they be new things we don’t need yet from the IGG, or new ideas that we don’t need yet, etc.
(Also, death to Fuse models!)
(Edited to reword oops)
You missed my point. Yes, many of the things I pointed out are still planned but it’s been 5 YEARS. To promise something on a crowdfunding campaign and then push it to the backburner for many years is wrong.
I’d definitely like the Casino phase 2 to be released. It’s needed an expansion for a while, and I’m always surprised it’s as busy as it is. Roulette, blackjack, and video machines would add more variety to the reels machines we have.
I feel the pain of the 3 shooter and 2 racing minigames. My wife doesn’t like Shooting or competitive games, so we usually end up playing Minigolf if we want to play a minigame. I know SDNL is the next planned minigame which she isn’t going to want to play, so she’s just taking a break from the game.
More media players for music/video are needed. The theater is always empty, and while Private Theaters are a great way of future proofing the area in case they become popular, very unnecessary to prioritize now.
Lastly I keep seeing community being mentioned. The issue with community is that most minigames are better played alone or as the host. No one really has any reason to interact with one another outside of just being social/friendly, and like all games, people choose not to interact with others. Competitive games tend to breed toxicity or elitism. I’m personally looking forward to more cooperative games. The on-rail shooter might actually make people want to play together as a team.
