September 11th, just after this year's Mid-Autumn Festival, with one last day of the three-day holiday left.
During this time, many bosses in Death Mode of Dark Souls have finally been beaten one after another.
The boss Yhorm, who players had been joking about for so long, is no longer lonely.
Meanwhile, lots of players were tagging Lucas on his official blog, asking all kinds of questions.
Players of all kinds showed up.
Some asked what type of game Lucas was making next, some asked about Dark Souls' story, and some wanted to know if there would be another Dark Souls game in the future.
But on this day, many players were surprised to see a post from the long-silent official account.
It announced something new.
"A brand-new game, Don't Starve, is now live on the Nebula Games platform."
"This is a sandbox game that combines adventure, survival, RPG elements, crafting, and exploration. Players will need to survive in an unknown, mysterious world by finding, digging up, and using all kinds of limited resources."
"It supports multiplayer, so you and your friends can explore and survive together in this strange, mysterious world."
"Game Features: A complete crafting system that gives you the fun of creating; a unique gothic art style; a huge, mysterious map to explore with the freedom of sandbox gameplay."
Like some of their previous smaller titles, such as Legends of the Three Kingdoms and Overcooked,
This time, Don't Starve is being released for both PC and mobile at the same time.
Of course, because of the different control methods and the platform differences brought by mods later on,
The two versions will each have their own servers, and data will only sync for the vanilla version.
In other words, if mods are added, players can still play together, but only with others on the same platform.
Also, players don't need to buy the game twice since their data can be shared.
So if you play on PC, you can keep playing on your phone later,
But only with a clean save from the vanilla version.
After Lucas' post went live,
Gaming sites, forums, and the Nebula Games platform started running ads for Don't Starve.
Of course, it's nowhere near as big as the campaigns for Dark Souls: Age of Fire or It Takes Two,
But it still left a lot of players stunned.
"What's going on? Lucas made another game?"
"Let me see… this looks like a low-budget game?"
"A small game? Let me check… this art style looks kind of creepy!"
"What's the big deal? Didn't Lucas say on his blog it's gothic style?"
"Bro, what does gothic style even mean?"
"How would I know what gothic style means? The only thing I know is gothic loli."
"???? Something feels off… where's the police? I need to report this!"
"Stop getting off track. What is a sandbox game anyway? What kind of game is that?"
"No idea. Probably something Lucas just made up?"
"Survival... and that art style—damn, could this be a horror game?"
"Not impossible! Maybe Lucas made the Silent Hill PT demo before and thought it wasn't enough."
"Stop making things up, guys. Didn't Lucas clearly say on his official blog? No horror tags at all."
"Heh, I only believe half of what Lucas says now. Remember that big hammer in the gameplay showcase? He could turn that into some life philosophy. If you trust him completely, you'd end up counting money after being sold!"
"Anyway, I'll wait and see for now."
"Whatever, I'll just buy it. It's only $4. If it sucks, I'll refund it."
A lot of players were chatting under Lucas's official blog.
Some decided to wait and see, while others were really excited. A survival game like this sounded pretty interesting at least from the description, and the price wasn't expensive at all.
Meanwhile, when game industry designers saw Lucas's blog post, many of them were puzzled.
After all, Lucas wasn't some unknown newbie anymore.
On the PC side, Lucas had released several games that left a big impact on the industry.
Starting with Undertale, which popularized meta-game elements, then Overcooked and It Takes Two, which gave co-op games a new shine.
And Dark Souls amazed designers by proving that even hardcore, high-difficulty games could attract so many players.
As for VR, Nebula Games hadn't fully stepped into that field yet, and no designer had experienced their work there.
But judging by the PC version videos, it was considered a classic. Some horror games that came out later even borrowed the looping mechanic.
Now, even though Don't Starve was a small game, the tag "sandbox" still drew attention from a lot of designers.
"Sandbox? What kind of genre is that? Something Lucas made up for better marketing?"
"Not really. There are already some sandbox games on the market, and a few did pretty well, but they're still niche."
"Forget the game for a sec—didn't you notice something different about this Don't Starve compared to Nebula Games' past titles?"
"What's different?"
"The platform! Normally, Nebula Games' titles launch on their platform first, maybe with some discounts, but they still come to other platforms later. This time, there's zero info about Don't Starve going anywhere else!"
"You mean Lucas plans to release it only on his platform? Does Nebula Games even have that big a user base?"
"Of course they do. Don't underestimate Lucas. I think this might be a test run, since Lucas never said it's an exclusive."
This new release from Nebula Games, Don't Starve, definitely grabbed the attention of many designers.
And not just designers—traditional game companies and distribution platforms like NetDragon and SkyNova were also watching Nebula Games closely this time.
…
But all this industry attention didn't really affect regular players.
As for Don't Starve being only on Nebula Games' platform for now, sure, some players talked about it.
But players who were interested didn't think too much about it and just bought the game.
Especially those who had been following Nebula Games for a while.
Every time Nebula Games released a new title, there were always some discounts for buying it on their platform.
At first, players bought because of the discount, but after two years, many had formed a habit—
Whenever they bought a Nebula Games title, they just naturally went to the Nebula Games platform.
(End of The Chapter)
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