Experience the early access of the retro role-playing game CrossCode
CrossCode from Radical Fish Games has left Steam’s early access. Developer Felix Klein told Gamasutra portal about how the storyline single managed to maintain popularity in three years in early access. We give an extract from his interview.
About the game
CrossCode is a story—driven action RPG with a retro style. The developers wanted its 16-bit graphic style to make the player nostalgic for Super NES and games such as Chrono Trigger and Terranigma. The creators of the game bet on the fact that retro games are still very popular these days, although just the 16-bit style compared to the 8-bit is not so common now. The same indie developers often prefer 8-bit because of its minimalism, Klein notes.
But in fact, the pixel style is the only thing in CrossCode that refers the player to the SNES. The artificially aged picture is accompanied by quite modern mechanics and a dynamic combat system, as well as a futuristic plot.
At the heart of CrossCode is a sayfay-a story about a girl Lea. In the distant future, she travels through the virtual world of the MMORPG CrossWordls to remember her past and regain her speech.
About Early access
The idea to present the game on Steam using early access did not come to the developers immediately. They collected funds for the game by crowdfunding on Indiegogo and during this they noticed that other developers were offering beta versions of their projects to players. Radical Fish decided to follow their example, and later the beta version of CrossCode migrated to Steam early access.
Subsequently, this resulted in confusion with the price tags of the game. For the opportunity to play the beta version (and then someday get the full game), people gave €25, but the early access version on Steam was priced at €15. The developers expected that this would cause outrage among the players, so they decided to compromise: first they gave access to the game to those who spent a large amount to buy the beta version, and then to everyone else.
About the reaction of the players
The creators of the game understood from the very beginning that a single-RPG is far from the best genre for early access. CrossCode has a lot of voluminous characters and hundreds of dialogues, its plot spans 20 hours. For a game like this, getting into early access for three years is a risky step, because you can’t leave the game unfinished for such a long time. It’s just that it will be difficult to make the players want to come back and go through it to the end.
Nevertheless, the developers managed to attract, maintain and increase the fan base due to two things:
- the plot for CrossCode was written last, after creating the gameplay and filling the game with content in the form of locations and opponents. The release update added more than half of the plot to the game (whereas the early access version contained mostly gameplay);
- the developers were in close contact with the players, answered their questions personally both on Twitch and in Steam discussions. They tried to release news about the game as often as possible, making it clear that the development is proceeding systematically.
For three years, while preparing CrossCode for release, the developers noticed that players downloading early access versions of games can be divided into two types. Some players were so passionate about the gameplay that they went through the game more than once or twice. Others postponed the game immediately after purchase and wrote in the reviews that they would wait for the final version.
Nevertheless, judging by 94% of positive reviews on Steam, both liked the final version of the game. Players note an excellent fusion of RPG with interesting puzzles, a convenient combat system and a really intriguing plot. Klein himself stated that presenting the game in early access was definitely the right decision, and that he personally would like to try this with other projects.
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