Indie dev David Wehle, who's behind the Gamescom horror farming hit We Harvest Shadows, has admitted that he's "pretty much out of money", and he wants to know what the community thinks he should do next.
In a post on the We Harvest Shadows Steam page, Wehle says that the We Harvest Shadows demo has been praised extensively, including by none other than Remedy's Sam Lake. Despite that, Wehle is "out of money", and We Harvest Shadows still "needs 1+ year of work at least".
Wehle says he "kinda abhor[s] publishers" because of what he calls their "insanely greedy terms and requirements", and so he's considering liquidating his retirement account in order to self-publish We Harvest Shadows. Doing so would, however, make the game a smaller "$15 game" experience.
If Wehle takes this route, he says the game will become "a longer version of the demo but with a few more items, a vehicle, places to explore, story, etc...".
The other option, Wehle says, is to seek out a publisher and use their resources to improve the game's quality and scope. He says this would make We Harvest Shadows "truly feel like a $20 experience".
Wehle says he's currently "at a crossroads"; he doesn't want to give into publishers who didn't support him "a year ago when [he] showed it to them", but he does want We Harvest Shadows to be good.
As such, Wehle wants your feedback. He says that if you've got some thoughts about what he should do, you should leave them as a comment on the Steam post, and he'll "definitely read it and ponder your feedback".
At time of writing, it seems like most of Wehle's audience doesn't want him to use his retirement fund. Some are suggesting Kickstarter or Patreon, while others are recommending finding a publisher or simply scaling back the experience.
If you're wondering exactly what We Harvest Shadows is, Wehle describes it as a "first-person farming horror allegory" in which you must "become a recluse, build up your farm, and survive the lonely nights". You can wishlist it on Steam here.
