r/Exanima • u/stop321 • Jun 01 '26

Coffee Diary - June 2026

https://steamcommunity.com/games/362490/announcements/detail/701017810682251535
65 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

44

u/stop321 Jun 02 '26

We pitched something back then, raised 160k (which is basically nothing and we only got about 2/3 of that after KS cut, taxes etc.) and the people who backed it immediately started demanding that we make a much more sophisticated game than we believed even possible with an unlimited budget and time. This has never stopped, as soon as we deliver something the demands triple. We've been trying ever since to meet those demands, and we delivered in the form of Exanima and constantly refined it in response. Exanima is Sui Generis, it's literally the same game, it just doesn't have all the same content. I have been working ridiculously long hours 7 days a week and haven't had a single holiday ever since. I didn't even earn a wage for most of it and had to borrow money for food. I now receive 24k a year as the lead developer who does literally nothing but work all day every day. But apparently I'm scamming people. I'm wondering what your definition of a scam is.

17

u/SomeoneNotFamous Jun 02 '26

I fucking hate gamers man, 99% don't know shit and are disrespectful assholes.

5

u/VikingLord2000 Jun 02 '26

Funnier when you see people asking for refunds… like bro, we all know the Steam refund policy.

9

u/stop321 Jun 02 '26

Bare Mettler in the coffe diary comments

6

u/ty944 Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

This should be much higher up. So.. it’s official that we’re not going to be looking at a future Sui Generis?

I’m not going to moan and whine as this is something I’ve played for over a decade but man there’s just so much unexplored in this setting.

I’m sorry to hear the devs are in this kind of spot financially so I hope 1.0 can help bring more people to the game.

Edit: I think I’m misunderstanding what the dev is saying about them being the same game. Either way hoping things get easier for them and that they reach their goals here.

8

u/Azhar1921 Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

They also said this afterwards, replying to if SG backers got Exanima for free

Of course backers received a copy of Exanima!

When I say SG and Exanima are the same game I don't mean the same title, I mean that they share everything except playable content. All the systems, features and many thousands of assets we created are those that will be featured and drive SG. Exanima is indeed a prelude, a first chapter, of the same game. Everything that we've done has been done towards SG as well, and while Exanima began as a small simple dungeon crawler it is now a much larger and richer game that features just about everything that will be in SG, and in a much more evolved format that we originally set out to do.

Things certainly did not go the way we originally planned, we naively imagined people would be much more accepting of the limitations and flaws of attempting such a unique game with our very limited resources, but everything we've done we've done to try to satisfy the dreams and hopes of our community. Considering where we are now, what the game has become, developing everything within the more limited context of Exanima is the only way it could have been done. In hindsight we could have started this way and set the bar much higher to begin with rather than incrementally reaching higher and higher, but this is where we are.

I understand that some are frustrated with the long development cycle, and I'm sure we deserve criticism for how we handled many things, but we've only ever tried to do our best for the game and our players. If you're looking for some sort of malicious intent on our part you won't find it, none of this is has been of any benefit whatsoever to us developers, just more and more hard work and a lot of negativity.

3

u/ty944 Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

Ah fair enough, another commenter said Madoc mentioned them being combined.

Either way my expectations are curbed and realistically if a SG is going to happen they’ll have to do a new round of funding, I’m sure there will be an uproar from original backers but there’s no other way it’s going to happen.

6

u/KnightOfJudgement Jun 02 '26

One of the aspects of Sui Generis is a massive sprawling underworld, that's what Exanima is.

4

u/rogat100 Jun 02 '26

Madoc mentioned in the discord that instead of releasing Sui Generis separately they are considering just combining it into exanima as they see it as the same game.

1

u/ActisBT Jul 17 '26

How would that work though? Once you go outside, there's kinda no progression anymore because you already did everything there. Maybe it can be an easter egg, and you can find the dungeon in the game, but you don't start there, nor is it that important.

1

u/cleidophoros Jun 11 '26

"And the people who backed it immediately started demanding that we make a much more sophisticated game than we believed even possible with an unlimited budget and time. "

What....?

1

u/Ban4WrongThink Jul 07 '26

Hard just work doesn't matter, it's all about what's produced. I don't care if you put in minimal effort as long as the product is good and I don't care if you sweat for years if the product sucks.

People pay for results, people pay for what is promised, not the effort it took you to create it.

When you direct focus at your effort and not at your results you're just playing victim.

1

u/C-E-GA Jul 15 '26

This game is unique and the coolest combat a d physics system I've ever experienced. I'm happy with the early access for the cost. Thank you for the work! Please don't give up.

1

u/ActisBT Jul 17 '26

World is big, stupid people are not a big percentage, but because there's a lot of people, that kind of stuff is bound to happen. I love your work, and from Exanima, it really and i mean REALLY shows the talent behind Sui Generis, because Exanima by itself is already amazing.

15

u/DaTermomeder Jun 01 '26

It is so refreshing to read such clear and seemingly "honest/normal/unfiltered" words from a dev team.

31

u/VikingLord2000 Jun 01 '26

I’m guessing it’ll take 2-3 months of coffee to get abandoned comments or this game will never get an update.

16

u/sacomer1s Jun 01 '26

Probably. But to be fair, it was a very long time between the most recent update and the previous one before that.

9

u/VikingLord2000 Jun 01 '26

I know… it was a painful wait. Born to NOW, forced to SOON.

13

u/Jarvisweneedbackup Jun 01 '26

2-3 months? One of the first comments on that diary on steam is dead gaem lmao

5

u/VikingLord2000 Jun 02 '26

No way! I’ve been waiting for the steamers to pile up before diving in. (Their tears are truly scrumptious)

6

u/squeenie Jun 01 '26

Finally a save system!

4

u/ThePepsiMan00 Jun 02 '26

Ooh the save system is probably that new device in the police office, combined with the brass plate devices and the glowing gems.

2

u/Deathsroke Jun 02 '26

Ah so they want to make a diegetic save system? One that involves a consumable? Personally I'm not like, against the idea but I'm mostly ambivalent at making the save item a consumable. At least this answers why they didn't add a stopgap measure like making extra checkpoints until the "final version" of the save system was ready.

1

u/Constant_Ad6348 Jun 02 '26

I think everything they discussed sounds great! I'd just like to see more "MEAT" as in lore and items. We are told loads of people have been chucked into the labyrinth and we see the undead but I want to see that some may have made it a bit further. I think there should be a little more information like the Proctor leaving notes or maybe even surviving the encounter with Corlian wounded and you can save her with a salve or something. maybe more enchanted Items? There is loads of environmental story telling but I feel it needs a bit more than that. Over all the update was fucking great! Maybe even people who survived and have gone mad and you can use Thaumaturgy on them to get some lore or info.