"Every single fibre of our bodies was like, 'No, don't make a blockgame!'" Donaghey laughs. The one thing they definitely didn't want to do was make a blockgame. "I don't want to come across like, 'Oh, we're burdened with all this interest'," he laughs. The eyes of thousands of players, and some of the biggest players in the game industry, are now very much upon the project he's leading. 500,000, I'm happy, and a million, I'm like, super happy." At the end of the first week, the trailer hit 11 million views. "In my head, you know, anything below 250,000, I'm disappointed. "We had an internal poll on how many views," Donaghey says. But the trailer – which showed off features such as a realistically lit and animated world, adventure and minigame modes, extensive modding, an in-game animation tool and even live scripting – immediately struck a chord. His fear was that Hytale – a game with more than a passing resemblance to Minecraft, created by many people with a background in running a successful Minecraft server – would be dismissed as yet another title destined for the ever-growing blockgame graveyard. The reaction videos started rolling in ten minutes later. "And there was an inhalation – we watched the trailer once, and nothing was happening for like, the first two minutes." But, as people started to finish the video, comment after comment after comment appeared underneath it. Then the network team sprang into action to fix the issue. Everyone on the Hytale team, spread all across the world and gathered on Teamspeak for the occasion, held their breath for a good few seconds. "There was a moment when the countdown hit zero, and the website script didn't just quite perfectly fire," project lead Aaron 'Noxy' Donaghey recalls. What happens when the announcement trailer for your indie game gets 54 million views – and counting? Well, first, your website has a minor meltdown.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |