cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/28095114
Vapor World: Over The Mind is a Soulslike Metroidvania with an evocative, painterly art style reminiscent of Lies of P and the narrative platformers of Playdead. According to Korean studio Alive Inc, the game had 100,000 wishlists just before its early access launch on August 19, mostly on the strength of a demo available since January 2025.
But what should have been a triumphant early access launch went pear shaped very quickly. At launch, few talked about the quite distinctive worldbuilding or the parry-heavy combat. Instead, all focus was trained entirely on something absent from the popular demo: very obvious AI use.
It kinda feels like the game customers are being subtly shamed for having a justified reaction to something departing from what they were initially sold from the demos or whatever and that they had the abillity to immediately correct it the approaching weekend.
Its like, if it was possible then why not do it. Anyway, they seem to have at least sort of learned the hard way, hopefully they have a decent redemption arc and this can be a positive lesson to the industry maybe.
I mean, the customers are the ones with the purchasing power here, and most of the shame was put on the studio.