'We have more levels than players': This indie dev's game was a complete flop, but he's powering through with his plan to release 20 seasons of new content anyway

GamesAction’We have more levels than players': This indie dev’s game was a complete flop, but he’s powering through with his plan to release 20 seasons of new content anywayWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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Endlight - Official Trailer - Solid - June 2023 - YouTubeWatch On

Endlight - Official Trailer - Solid - June 2023 - YouTube

The twist is that once a year, Endlight offers a"Right to Replay" challenge, the reward being an in-game “coupon” allowing the holder to play Endlight again—but just once, from the very beginning—at any time over the following 12 months. It’s twisted, completely counter-intuitive, and to McGinley, extremely funny: He acknowledged that a lot of players would hate the idea, but added, “I think people will come around to appreciating the humour.”

Some no doubt did. Endlight has a “positive” user rating on Steam, which is good: The bad is, that rating comes from just 28 reviews. Endlight launched on Steam in July 2023, and put up an all-time peak concurrent player count of—it almost physically hurts to say this—three. Endlight, McGinley said earlier this year, has more levels than players.

“Still the case!” he told me in a more recent chat. “After returns, we’re at ~325 sales. Endlight has 16 seasons, 400 levels.”

Endlight launched with 100 levels, but they’re very short: Some of them can be completed in a matter of seconds if you’re lucky. McGinley’s plan to keep people playing was to release monthly “seasons” of 25 levels each, all of them free, bringing the total number of Endlight levels up to 500 when all were finally out. I wondered if he might be having second thoughts, since nobody’s playing them anyway—two people have made it to the end of season eight, just one has completed everything so far—but that’s not happening: McGinley committed to 20 seasons, and he’s doing 20 seasons.

It’s not just a sense of duty or bloody-mindedness keeping him on the job—there’s a practical justification, too. “Since you can’t replay Endlight, we committed to providing free seasons,” McGinley explained. “After a year, we’restillsupporting a failure—a feat even No Man’s Sky can’t claim.

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It’s not just new levels that are being worked on: McGinley is also following through on the Right to Replay challenge—in fact, work on that has delayed the release of Endlight’s final four seasons. Roughly 50 people tried the 2023 challenge but nobody was able to finish it, so he’s toning things down so someone might actually get it done this year. His rationale for tuning a challenge in a game with no players is very similar to his reason for persisting with Endlight seasons: “Implementing that challenge took roughly two months of work (coding, Q&A, tweaking, making it unhackable) and I can’t let all that good work go to waste simply because no one will play it.”

“There are already indie devs creating hit games with huge audiences [on those platforms] that dwarf the traditional indie game space,” McGinley said. “Could you create a successful Endlight within one of those ecosystems? I’m betting yes. I’m not sure where that leaves indie game developers working on Steam and console. I’m guessing more and cooler projects experiencing less and less success.”

Endlight - Season 16 (of 20) - August 2024 - FREE! - YouTubeWatch On

Endlight - Season 16 (of 20) - August 2024 - FREE! - YouTube

Despite Endlight’s failure and a shift back to his “real skillset” as a commercial full stack engineer, McGinley said he’s “not finished with this videogame nonsense.” Along with wrapping up the remaining four seasons of Endlight, he’s also looking for a publisher for an all-levels-included console edition, and dabbling with a VR version. And at the end of the day, he has no regrets, except that nobody bought the thing.

“Working on Endlight was a dream job. Not everyone gets that chance.”

Endlight’s 2024Right to Replay challengewill be open throughout December 9. Beat it and you’ll win the right to replay the game—biff it, and you’ll have the right to try again in December 2025.

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