As days passed, developnt on Dark Souls was going smoothly.
With a large batch of art assets coming in from outsourcing…
The whole team entered a fast-paced production phase.
At the sa ti, Lucas's official blog and the Nebula Gas website had started warming up the promotion for Dark Souls little by little.
They were doing simple interactions with players and posting so new promotional concept art and such.
Basically, it was just to remind people they're still around.
But during the sa period, other gas were being promoted too.
The ones that drew the most attention were the promotional battles between two of the country's top publishers and ga companies: NetDragon and SkyNova.
Both were VR gas kept under wraps, and both had also appeared at the previous gaplay convention.
Even though Nebula Gas had stolen the spotlight at the convention earlier—
These two new gas were going all out when it ca to promotion.
Each trying to outdo the other.
Their campaigns were big and flashy, but the impact on Nebula Gas wasn't actually that serious.
Mainly because both of those gas were for VR platforms.
Besides that, there was also the ongoing anti-war thed ga competition.
By now, around late July or early August, quite a few anti-war thed gas had already been released on the official platform.
So were mobile gas, others were PC gas.
The genres were all over the place—RPGs, FPS gas, and more.
A lot of them even copied the format Lucas used in To the Moon last year, which won him an award.
But none of them really stood out. In fact, many of them got really low scores from players.
And players were complaining about it online.
"This year's competition the is just… I don't even know what to say!"
"Like, it's an anti-war the, right? You need to show the brutality of war. You need big scenes. But with such a short dev cycle and no big studios involved, these gas just feel super awkward."
" 1. It's like being lectured by so old guy. And the worst part? The lecture is boring as hell."
"Stop arguing and go check Lucas's blog! Looks like he joined the competition too!"
"What? Isn't Lucas working on Dark Souls? How did he have ti to join this contest? Don't tell Dark Souls is already finished?!"
"Who knows... but anti-war isn't an easy the. Can Lucas really pull it off?"
"Whatever, I'll just buy it and try it out. If it's from Lucas, it's probably not that bad. At least better than all these other anti-war gas, right?"
"Yeah, good point!"
As for Valiant Hearts: The Great War being released, Lucas didn't do any major promotion.
He just posted a simple notice on his blog and added a short intro on the main page of the Nebula Gas platform.
But this was clearly different from the early days when Lucas wasn't well known and had to use clever tricks just to get so attention.
Thanks to the huge success of Fall Guys and Legends of the Three Kingdoms, plus the upcoming Dark Souls, Lucas had already made a na for himself and built a fanbase.
Once news about Valiant Hearts: The Great War got out, players quickly noticed.
But while players were excited and Lucas stayed calm,
Many of the other designers in the competition started to panic.
"What the hell? Wasn't Lucas working on Dark Souls? How did he make another ga on top of that?!"
"Yeah! I really thought Lucas was sitting this competition out this year!"
"This is so damn hard!"
A lot of ga designers were starting to feel overwheld. Still, there were so who tried to stay hopeful.
"Co on guys, maybe this one from Lucas is a flop."
"Right, Dark Souls has been getting a lot of promotion lately. He's probably been focused on that. After all, it's his first big project with Nebula Gas."
"Exactly. And anti-war gas are pretty deep. Lucas might not be able to pull it off."
But even while saying that, just like many players, these designers downloaded and bought the ga, wanting to see what it was really like.
Compared to last year's To the Moon, Valiant Hearts: The Great War was priced at 20 yuan, and it was also available on both mobile and PC.
On Shark TV, the hype around Fall Guys that once swept across the entire streaming platform has died down quite a bit.
Even though plenty of strears are still playing it—so even focusing exclusively on Fall Guys and Legends of the Three Kingdoms—most have gone back to their usual content. At most, when there's not much going on, they'll gather with a few familiar strears to ss around in Fall Guys for fun and laughs.
But now that Valiant Hearts: The Great War is out, it's caught the attention of a number of ga strears.
In Shark TV's Luke's stream, she had just gone live and was chatting with her viewers.
"Alright, that's enough talking for now. Let's check out the new ga from Nebula Gas."
"It's not Dark Souls. That one's still just hype with no release in sight. The one we're playing today is part of this season's Ga Hunt—it's called Valiant Hearts: The Great War. Judging by its size, I'd say it fits the scale of an indie ga, even though Nebula Gas probably doesn't count as an indie developer anymore."
Inside the stream, Luke was introducing the ga to her viewers.
He's always followed Nebula Gas pretty closely.
Aside from Outlast and their first ga Mirror, he also really enjoys gas like Overcooked, Fall Guys, Undertale, and To the Moon.
So as soon as he heard Nebula Gas was releasing a new title for the Ga Hunt, he was ready to stream it right away.
As he spoke, Luke opened up the Nebula Gas platform and imdiately saw the ga featured right on the hopage.
The cover showed a soldier in uniform and a war dog.
The art style was clearly cartoonish and animated.
He clicked in to open the ga's store page. In big bold letters was the title Valiant Hearts: The Great War.
The ga description read:
An emotional adventure ga with a unique atmosphere and art style.
A mix of exploration, action, and puzzle-solving.
Help the characters survive the war by sneaking through enemy lines or solving challenges.
The story follows four n and won and one loyal dog, whose lives beco tangled together in this war. It's a tale of revenge, family, and friendship.
This fictional story takes you back to famous World War I settings, reliving major battles on the Western Front and imrsing you in historical events.
Luke hadn't reacted much yet, but her viewers were already flooding the chat with different opinions.
'That description's full of hot air, huh?'
'Yeah, I an it's just a small cartoon-style ga, and it's a side-scroller too. How's that gonna "relive major battles" from the Western Front?'
'Right? The visuals don't really show the horrors of war at all.'
'I trust Lucas, but co on—reliving WWI? I'd believe that from a big-budget ga, but this one?'
'Exactly. Sounds like a stretch!'
'Even Nebula Gas didn't promote it that much!'
After reading the description, a lot of viewers were left confused.
It really did sound like over-the-top self-promotion.
After all, it's just a small 2D ga with cartoon graphics.
How's that going to seriously portray the realities of war or "relive" those brutal historical battles?
But Luke wasn't really focused on the description.
(End of the Chapter)
---
Read 90 advanced chapters on my patre*n
patr eon/GustinaKamiya
Free Tier can read 3 advanced chapters
---
User Comments
0 comments from readers