Well, yeah, that's why I said we knew that'd happen.That's just semantics.
You can't say it's playable from beginning to end if the end ain't there.
That's why you failed submission.
I wouldn't call that an "ending" myself, but I can see what you mean.I can't think of an-
Let me rephrase that, I can't think of a single game that doesn't have an ending that isn't dogshit shovelware that never should have been allowed on the platform.
Even if it's just like a "The End" text over a single CG that pops up when you beat the final level, there's still something that theoretically constitutes an ending.
Actually, that's specifically why we did it; to help ensure the game gets out, buyable, on time.Also, the fact that you didn't expect it to pass is kind of the issue.
You were talking about how you submitted it on schedule as though that was you meeting your deadline. But it doesn't count if you fail submission.
Because that's not going to actually get the game out on buyable on-time, is it?
When we first submitted the demo for Steam Nextfest, we were sure it'd be in without issue.
A week+ goes by and... it's rejected.
Why? Because of a tiny mistake we made when submitting it and not checking a specific box. The game itself was fine, but because we made that mistake, we had to wait ANOTHER week+ to get in, and in doing so, missed a huge portion of the pre-NextFest stuff which could have helped us a lot.
By submitting it like this, due to full games getting way more scrutiny on submission, we did in fact help the game be buyable on-time by ensuring that in our submission process, we weren't going to be hit by anything like that. And luckily, it is good that we submitted as such, because the report we got back did note things we weren't aware of when it comes to submitting a build on Steam, that weren't issues with the demo alone.
Had we submitted as-is without submitting this initial build, we absolutely would have missed any deadline we set for ourselves because we 100% would have been rejected.
But that wouldn't be the truth. I'd rather be up front about it not passing than try to get people's hopes up by claiming it'd pass. Additionally, if you check my posts, I never once boasted about it "meeting a deadline" with any of this, so I'm not sure why that keeps coming up as if that was a motive or incentive for us.Like, yeah I think people would have been unhappy to hear you directly say that there's another delay, but I still think it'd have come across better than "Well, technically we submitted it on time, even though we knew full well that it wouldn't actually pass submission."
And continuing from earlier, here's why we would have failed.It didn't fail on a technicality, it failed because it wasn't done yet.
In doing that submission, we found out from Steam staff that your store page has to 1:1 be a description of what's in your game.
Meaning, if ANY voicework was missing, if ANY cutscenes were missing, any dialogue, any content whatsoever, and that content was listed on the store page as being in the game, we would have failed. It's not just endings.
But by doing that submission, we were able to go back and forth with Steam and confirm that if we edit our store page to be listed like this;
Then we would be allowed to put the game up, even if it's not complete.======================
GAME FEATURES
- 5 levels with 120 maps each
- Fully voice acted in English*
- 250 cutscenes*
- 100 sex scenes
- 5 hours of music
*SPECIAL NOTE
Currently, the game is in a "soft launch state".
The following content is missing the following amounts;
- Voicework: 10%.
- Cutscenes: 5%.
Additionally, some remaining polish has yet to be completed. We expect this remaining content to be completed shortly, and will be providing weekly update posts clarifying when remaining content is finished.
The game is, however, playable from start to finish and is almost entirely done otherwise.
======================
Had we not found out about this and waited to submit until a week or two before the release date, we would have went on, oblivious, submitted it without knowing this, we would have been rejected and guaranteed to miss any deadline we set.