It's one thing to properly develop new content for post-demo. It's entirely different thing to wall off what you already let people play because you now want money.
I will always call out what I view as a developer retracting what was available already. You locked anything below 5000 LATER, after already having released it.
I find that practice predatory.
Add content. Don't wall content that was already available.
And I'm sure there will be some yadayada response about "it's a demo"
The game was released with quite a bit of content available. A lot got locked behind a wall during a later update. A wall designed to push you to pay.
My view doesn't need to be shared. To me. It's predatory.
At this current stage?
I wouldn't buy the game. Solely because I don't support this practice in game development. I barely like demos, but I wanted to give yours a chance because I liked your initial release. Just disappointed at the path that's being taken.
Just my honest feedback. Whatever you do, do you.
I get where you're coming from. It was always the plan to eventually define where the demo ends, and 5000m is where I decided to draw that line.
I'm still adding a lot more content to the demo, and even more beyond that for the full game. This is also my first game, so I'm still learning how to handle things like this and probably could've communicated the change better. I respect your opinion though and appreciate the honest feedback!
Cheers
That was honestly a better response than I expected. I usually get the typical DB trying to yell at me for my opinion rather than provide a productive, honest response. Even if I disagree with the route, I understand how hard it can be to decide where a demo ends and the game starts. I do feel, especially in the world of modern gaming, that the ways demos and dev cycles get handled don't exactly make things easy for indie devs either.
People like me are the result of watching a predatory industry and feeling like we're staring at a keg of TNT ready to wreck the gaming industry. Between that and having grown up in the era both during and before flash gaming, I've watched the industry get chewed up by greedy investors and AAA titles that will never have half of the heart of an indie game. That's why I spend my time testing itch games and supporting indie devs.
Frankly, what you're making had a bit of nostalgia for a game called "motherload" for me, but more than that. By no means did I intend any put-down. I just prefer honesty with developers.
A thought to handle it:
You could have used a true false flag tied to a demo build that basically said "if this is a demo, don't let these things spawn or this content play, but let them dig as deep as they want". That's a bit of extra work and I can see how that might be unappealing to any indie dev, but it is a possible route.
Nonetheless, it was a fun game. My original words probably held a tired irritation from a long day. Apologies for that.