GTTOD: ‘Get to the Orange Door’ Lets Players Be a Part of its Active Development | 2022 Preview…
What Does it Mean to be in Early Access?
What Does it Mean to be in Early Access?
This article has been imported from another site. It was originally published in 2022 and may not reflect the current state of the game. Some grammatical elements have been changed to reflect my modern style, but the rhetoric is still the same.
If you love dev logs and being behind the scenes while a game is in development, then Get to the Orange Door (GTTOD) will be your bread and butter. As a game alone in its current state [again, as of 2022], it’s hard to recommend.
Diving deeper, I originally saw this being played by a YouTuber, and from their footage, commentary and recommendation, I was heavily impressed to check it out. It’s a movement shooter with roguelite elements at its core, which is two genres that I am always interested in, so I bought the game soon after on a whim. On top of that, it’s pretty cheap at its base price, and when it’s on sale it’s really cheap. Even for an Early Access game. I didn’t have much to lose.
I hate to report, but unfortunately, it’s still quite rough around the edges. The footage and commentary I saw on YouTube I believe praised the game a little too heavily, and skewed my expectations. I was definitely expecting a much more polished experience. I don’t want to be overly critical because it IS in Alpha, but if other influencers attract more players without explaining the entire picture, uninformed players will buy it now and be disappointed. At the time of writing, the Steam Store rating is at 89%, and looking at the reviews, I genuinely believe it’s attracting too many players from this group. I’m not sure if the dev reached out to influencers too early, or if a major streamer just found and played it, and it trickled out of that space, but if it’s intentional, I think the dev should pull back from the exposure for a bit longer until more of the game is ready for a push into a near feature complete beta.
I look at GTTOD, and think of my purchase of it as more of a promise, that one day, I’ll go back through my Steam Library, find this game at its full 1.0(+) release, and have a blast. Through my experience playing, I can at least see that potential there. For players like me, it feels more like I’ve thrown down money as a pledge, towards some kind of Kickstarter campaign, and I’m happy to do so in order to support the project & the developer. I love the style, totally vibe with the mechanics, and I genuinely hope the full scope of the game gets realized. This is the main reason why I might recommend it; to support its development so it can become a true, full release one day.
However, I realize the value of having a completely open alpha like this, which gives me another subset of players to recommend it to. Some players might be really into the idea of following this game's development progress along for the next several years (or however long), and will be happy to know that the main developer is super active in their discord, taking community feedback very seriously. Some people love seeing behind the curtain of a game's development, and having opportunities to possibly shape the direction of a game. If that’s you, I think you’ll love joining this game on its journey and being an active part of that community. Very worth your purchase.
If you’re not in either of those camps, it might be better to wait for this game to develop a bit more. It’s an alpha, so some of the mechanics aren’t flushed out entirely. The gun play feels good enough, but gets stale after a while. There is no real goal at the moment besides leveling up your character for marginal starting differences. The view bobbing and overall camera shaking is crazy… You can look through the reviews to find more of these kinds of complaints, but it’s definitely nothing that truly can’t change before the game is officially released. GTTOD has potential around every corner, and promise at every horizon… but it just might take a while in the oven to get there, and it’s important to realize that.
I think with all that information, you’re informed enough to purchase it, or not. My advice is to not buy into the exceptionally well done marketing or the words of YouTubers. Do your research, see if you want to contribute. Remember that as of right now, [again, in 2022] you’re not buying a full-game right now… but rather proof of your belief that the devs can put in the work to make and release a great full-sized game someday. And that in the meantime, you’ve got the added bonus of access to an ever-changing meaty alpha version of it, while you wait.
Originally published at https://backloggd.com.