After a positive showing at Gamescom and other previews that accrued positive interest, Namra is determined to turn Aka’s fate around. Game Rant recently caught up with Namra to discuss his experiences since launch, and his hopes for Aka’s comeback story.
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A Rough Landing for Aka
Namra’s initial response to the harsh reviews was confusion. The game had been shown off ahead of launch in several formats and venues, including Jirard Khalid’s IndieLand event, all to largely positive reception. When Namra realized that players’ grievances were based on progress-blocking bugs, he felt awful.
Between the final work push to get Aka to launch, the promotion leading up to the launch, and the rough feedback to the initial response, Namra has commented that the past six months have been “a living nightmare.” But as soon as Namra realized the majority of user complaints were due to the game’s unintended dead ends, he switched to communication mode, letting fans know that fixing the problems were has top priority. In the weeks since launch, Namra has never worked harder.
Building Aka 2.0
Aka, at it’s core, will remain the same after the planned relaunch. The game revolves around farming, as well as mini-games such as simple takes on rhythm action music and card battling. But Namra wants fans who have been following the game from the beginning to feel satisfied and rewarded for their patience.
The primary priorities for Namra’s fixes are the progress blocking bugs, followed immediately by finding ways to preserve players’ saves. Additionally, Namra hopes to touch up the user-interface, which, despite seeing a positive to neutral early reception via demos and events, was a point of sharp criticism in the post-launch reviews. Apart from the changes, Namra has considered adding a suffix or extra word to Aka’s title to let players know that it is a thoroughly re-vamped upgrade from the original title.
It’s clear that Aka is very important to Namra, not only as a business venture or means of testing game design skills, but as a piece of personal artistic expression. Aka’s underlying themes of finding peace with one’s own path, facing survivor’s guilt, and overcoming trauma to find inner peace, have a high-minded, heartfelt approach to escapism.
Comeback Kings
It is impossible to re-do poor first impressions, and incredibly difficult to overcome them, but the overwhelming successes of Final Fantasy 14 and No Man’s Sky demonstrate satisfying comebacks in very tangible forms. No Man’s Sky is in contention for the “Labor of Love” honor again in 2022’s Steam awards, and each new Final Fantasy 14 expansion draws a fresh round of critical acclaim and praise from fans.
Admittedly, Aka has a lower profile and less support than most of gaming’s greatest comeback stories, but many gamers expressed conflicted feelings about not recommending Aka on Steam, and stated that they would revise their reviews if certain changes were made. Hopefully, Namra will be able to capitalize on that good will and realize his dream of giving Aka a fresh start. If nothing else, the eponymous Red Panda protagonist’s future isn’t set in stone.
Aka is available on PC and Nintendo Switch.
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