The developers at the small independent studio Odyssey Interactive are doing something “a little crazy” and releasing an early prototype of their next game, Byte Breakers, to see if people like it and if they should even make it.
Founded in 2020, Odyssey Interactive’s first game, Omega Strikers, took a few years to develop and was released in 2023. However, the game never found an audience and the devs ended support for it in November of last year. Now, they are doing something a bit different with their next game. Byte Breakers is a 4o-player battle-royale spin on platformer fighters. Or to put it another way: It’s like Fortnite x Smash Bros. And this time, Odyssey Interactive wants people to play the game very early so they can decide if this prototype is worth making and supporting.
On September 11, Odyssey Interactive developers Lunchboy and Maple announced that for the last eight months, the team had been working on various prototypes for their potential next game. And the first one they are going to let the community play around with is Byte Breakers.
“With Omega Strikers we learned firsthand the risks of keeping things under wraps for too long and we felt the pain of having to move on from something that we poured three years of our passion into,” explained the devs. “For all of our next projects, we want to hear what you think much earlier.”
Odyssey Interactive says that in the next “few days” they’ll be holding a playtest on Steam where a “few thousand” people will be able to hop in and play a very, very early build of Byte Breakers. You can sign up to play on the game’s newly launched Steam page.
“[The playtest will be] fully public so feel free to talk about it with your friends, make videos about it, or even stream it. We want to hear what you honestly think,” said the devs.
But don’t assume that Byte Breakers is guaranteed to be finished and released. Odyssey Interactive is very clear that it might not end up making Byte Breakers or other games based on player feedback during these early tests.
“We may not end up actually making this prototype,” said the studio. “We may not end up making the next prototype we show you either. But we think that this type of public testing is the best way of figuring out if our ideas have juice. We trust you and we trust your feedback. So get in there and let us know what you think.”
It’s an interesting strategy that feels reminiscent of how Valve is building its next game, Deadlock. For years now, early access has been a part of gaming, with devs releasing unfinished games and building upon them alongside the community. But with Deadlock and Byte Breakers, the studios and devs are bringing players even earlier, less finished prototypes and ideas and going, “Hey, what do you think of this?”
In an industry obsessed with secrecy, it’s a nice change. It also will hopefully help teams avoid spending three years or more on an online game that nobody wants. And that could mean fewer expensive flops that lead to shutdowns and layoffs. So I’m all for studios pulling back the curtain and showing people what they are working on early to see if anybody actually cares.
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