To pre or not to pre.

I like that Proteus and Kairo offer an alpha build of the game well before release. I am now considering this for Bientôt l’été.

There’s two reasons why I want to do this. And one why I may not: if people don’t like the unfinished game they may never give the finished one a chance when it’s done.

However, we are talking about only a very small group of people that is interested in playing unfinished versions of games. So not much harm done if they don’t like it. Some people in this small subset may, however, like the game, and if they do, they might be very keen on spreading the word about it. And that is the best publicity an independent developer can get.

I also want to hear reactions to the game, before we confront “the masses” with it. I worry about Bientôt l’été. I have no idea how people will respond. The little experience I’ve had so far with collaborators playing the game, has been tremendously helpful already to help improve the game so many more future players will enjoy it. I want more such feedback.

I’m thinking of releasing a build of the game that doesn’t include some of the features that still need a lot of work. So this build would feel fairly polished and would be fairly stable. It would just be missing some parts. Which would help to keep people interested and curious. And it would also help optimize the simple core of the game. If that part is good, not much can go wrong by adding the missing features.

So, would you buy an alpha build of Bientôt l’été? And if so, would you share your feelings about it with us? Would you share them with your friends?