Sun Jun 03, 2018 6:07 am
I will also jump on the bandwagon and say that a lot of these names bring back a lot of memories. I believe this was the first real community I was apart of.
And I am months late to the reply, if not a year, but to Jack if you are still reading through the forums:
Do not mistake my complaint as hatred, I genuinely enjoyed the game and eagerly purchased the original Retro game on the iOS as well as JJx on Android and PC. Nor is it entirely just utter disappointment in you guys as a dev team or the game itself. What I believe is that the game lacks an underbelly system that truly makes the universe unique. Once you collect all the rares (or hex them in, whatever be your will) there isn't much left to the game. What makes sandbox games deliver on so much is the actual community itself, and that's where I feel the game was lacking: community content. Whether it be mods, maps, or what have you - there was no easy way to actually do it. I remember spending weeks if not months clearing out an entire map in JJ Retro, then losing that progress because my phone got stolen and having to redo all of it for another several months. Custom maps were hard to make and share because of the lack of ability to produce large maps under easier conditions rather than place every block by hand. I feel if tools, or at the very least, easier ways to create an adventure map of some sort could easily get the community more involved with each other, the forums would have seen more light because more people could have shared ideas, stories, and builds they had created. The biggest thing that makes or breaks sandbox games I feel is the limitations of the game itself and when the limitations make it hard to produce a map for other players to play and share, no one is really going to take on the challenge. I remember maybe three or four adventure maps from Retro, one of them being mine, which took half a year just to make a very small map. And when it came to JJx, I really cannot recall any map that wasn't just a survival world build.
While I understand that maybe the majority of players are on iOS, opening up the Steam game to modding, even if it was just with a very limited API would have definitely increased foot traffic. Games like Minecraft, Terraria, and most other sandbox games would not have lasted as long as they had without the community, and mods play a major role in that. I remember having to jailbreak my original iPhone to install kiri's mod hack to just play around with some of the base game files and mess around. And I remember seeing a lot of people actively looking at the mods and enjoying what they could do, even with limited access. I personally believe that mods could've helped the Steam launch quite a lot.
Overall, I do not think your game is bad in any way or a waste of money. What I do believe is that the lack of community and community projects is what drove the game to it's grave.
-Winter_Snake
Post Edit:
While I understand the game will not receive any other updates (or at least, I assume it wont) - this game was very enjoyable growing up, and I really do mean to say thank you for the memories Jack and XsX.
EDIT2:
Another thing that I do believe could have been improved on is networking and worlds/portals.
List of resources:
• Junk Jack x World/Player Editor: Github
• Youtube Channel: Winter_Snake
• Discord: Winter_Snake
