I might make a future post about how much I struggled to get my game out there and the non-game dev stuff that slowed me down (like losing my job because our company decided to dismiss 50-60% of its work force).
My promise to the players: no vibe coding, no AI art, no AI scripts, no AI music, no AI voices.
My game is called The Milgram Experiment
i have a playtest copy but I haven’t gotten the chance to play it yet. the demo was amazing by itself! i can’t wait to playtest.
btw, I have 1 more playtest invite if anyone wants it! DM for my steam friend code and I’ll send you the invite :)
Good luck to you OP I truly hope your game crushes it.
I saw Psychological Horror’’ as a tag… I won’t be buying your game because my brain can’t handle it.
I do hope everyone else enjoys it and OP makes a shit load of money.
Looks really good. Really wish I had the skills you do on art. I can make just about anything in code but when it comes to graphics, I suck. And can’t afford artists nor do I know any, so I’m always stuck in a loop with games I want to make lol.
Atta boy
Looks cool I wishlisted it.
What I always do when I see cool games like that by solo devs, I always to try to link them to a streamer I watch so he plays the demo/game. That said I will try to forward it incase he sees it which most of the time he does. That should help you get a couple of whishlists more!
Thank you! Also I am planning of releasing an update version on 1st of October of the demo. If they decide to play, please ask them to hold for this date, the update will improve the game significantly
I’d love to support your work, but horror is not my thing.
Best of luck with everything!!Oh, no problem!!! Even the kind words help my mood and confidence :)
Sounds very cool. I’m just hoping the title isn’t spoiling what could otherwise be a very clever potential plot twist.
Hmm, well I don’t know what plot twist you are thinking of, but the the title is not a spoiler in any way.
No plans to put the full game on itch.
Congrats on the wish-lists looks like they are well deserved.
It does not look like my cup of tea, but wish you best of luck for the upcoming release!No problem, not everyone plays these types of games. I’m interested in psychology and moral dilemmas in games and it was appealing to me to try and explore those stuff in a video game. Good luck to you to with anything you have going on!
Will it work in Linux? I assume the answer is yes but just checking.
Nah, with Linux you should never assume the answer but it should run.
The demo worked seamlessly when I tried it. Via Proton.
You lost your job to AI?
Yeah, I company decided to dismiss half the staff and replace us with AI.
What did you do that your work can be replaced by AI?
Don’t think it matters. They’ll replace manual laborers with AI if need be. It’s just a way to juice the numbers to keep the shareholders happy. “Oh we replaced a bunch of people with AI so we now get more done with less costs”. What happens to productivity for real? Next quarter’s problem.
Well about 6 months ago they started getting weird about AI and kind of making us use it more and more and as much as we can.
We also had to write down what task each of us do and how it can be improved by AI. Then a month or two ago they decided to dismiss around 50 or 60% of the company. The rest just have to pick up the slack and doing even more work with AI, but what I hear from my colleagues that are left, they have to work longer hours and it’s not easier for them. Sure AI makes some tasks easier, but you have to baby sit it so much.
I also heard a rumor that they might be preparing for a sale at the end of the year, so this might be a way to artificially pump the stock price and let the next sucker deal with it.
Yeah, I’m going to have some doubts about the “AI replaced me” part. My company works heavily with AI now and no one has lost their job. What their job was is EXTREMELY important here. Did they make birdhouses at a financial firm?
Nevermind. I found him: https://www.bizprofile.net/ca/woodland-hills/theseus-games-inc https://www.themarque.com/profile/justin-berenbaum His LinkedIn connects Thesus Games with Xsolla.
Yeah, he wasn’t “replaced by AI”.
NOTE: If you’re thinking that maybe it is just a dev working for Thesus Games, you can check the comment history on that account like: https://lemmy.world/comment/24338752 Name changes have to go through leadership meaning this was Justin speaking.
There are definitely leaders who think they can just make people use AI and lay off a bunch or suddenly make billions with the same workforce. A friend of mine works at a company where the owner said that he expects productivity go up 3x now that everyone is forced to use AI. Not a joke or a one-off remark either, it’s been the subject of monthly meetings for like a year or more. Don’t think the 3x increase in productivity has materialized yet lol
Yeah and also important to note, we as workers don’t get to do less work. We are just expected to be more productive and do more work for the same time. AI hasn’t really been beneficial.
Hahha dude! That’s not me :D This is company registered in the US it has nothing to do with games. My IRL job had nothing to do with game dev. Theseus Games is just my game dev studio and it operates out of the EU. I’m not responsible for every company in the world that has the same name
The fact that all of your posts have been involved in sleazy ad campaigns doesn’t give any legitimacy to this one. It’s just digital begging using a false AI sob story.
Well I’m happy that you kept your job and stability but I mean have you seen the news lately?
Sooo soo many lay offs. Just because it hasn’t happened to you it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen everywhere else. I can find you 10 stories of companies doing mass lay offs. And that’s just the companies we have heard of like Microsoft, EA and so on… there are thousands more.
Software company, my dude
This looks cool af, wishlisted for sure. Does playing demos do anything for developers? I don’t mind waiting until the full release
Thank you! Well playing the demo and leaving positive reviews helps us a ton. It tells Steam to recommend the game to more people. But you can also just wait until the full release :)))
Far be it from me to criticize but do you think the fact that the name of the game and the scientific study share the same name might be causing you some exposure issues? It might be helpful to do something to differentiate it from the experiment. Like how American McGee’s Alice did to separate themselves from that 50 different iterations of Alice in Wonderland.
I dunno. Feel free to ignore me. Seems like it could be fun and went ahead and wishlisted it to keep an eye on it. Either way good luck! Looking forward to try it out when it’s released.
Well, for now that is the game I like for the game, I don’t think it helps or is in the way of exposure. But a lot of people have told me they played the game because they have heard of the experiment
This is one of those cases where a “Name : Additional Title Tag” might help with exposure.
The name of the experiment draws initial interest, and the additional post colon/title gives it additional ability to distinguish itself from the actual experiment itself in search results.
The Milgram Experiment: I can’t believe it’s not murder
Right on. Just was throwing it out there. I don’t think you should change it away from the title entitely just put something in there to make it easier to make a distinction. I think it’s gonna be hard to tell people to look up the game that shares the exact name with an incredibly popular psychology experiment. I just doubt I’ll be bring it up to other people very much cause there’s an incredible burden on me to make a distinction.
At the end of the day you do you! I’ll still check it out. I just think you might be getting in your own way a little bit the title. If that’s what you want to name it then go for it. That’s kind of the best part of doing a personal project! You can take advice you like and throw out the rest without having to get a consensus from marketing or some asshat in mgmt!
No, thank you! I do appreciate anyone who shares ideas and feedback :)
Will it work on Steam Deck?
Yes
Added to wish list.
RE: work;
I suspect these companies are going to want to re-hire some percentage of the workforce they’ve laid off.
Is there a company / group out there that connects developers to companies that have an emergency need for them?
I don’t know about such groups or services. To be honest in the past month I just worked on my game and trying to figure out the other stuff later.
P.S. Thanks for the wishlist!
