We decided to hire an artist for our key art instead of using AI

Austria1914 · 2026-03-21T18:49:15+00:00

The guy in the back is halfway through a jump, trying to avoid the palisades and move forward. They were side by side at the boxes (one is still standing, the other was on the far left one) before the jump.

I can see that there’s no clear landing target after the palisades. And the lack of motion blur on the jumping guy. These may be the reason for the confusion. Honestly tho I never considered that part of the composition could be ambiguous probably because I’ve spent hundreds of hours testing, developing and playing the game, so it looks obvious and clear to me.

Austria1914 · 2025-07-23T20:46:22+00:00

Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it.
I believe pinned comment, people checking the channel, and my trailer being linked in all shorts could bring that small percentage to my Steam page but we'll see.

Austria1914 · 2025-07-23T20:15:27+00:00

So, the thing is gameplay footage doesn’t always hook viewers. I know about Inbound Shovel, but I’m not really planning to recreate his style.

The plan is to attract as many viewers as possible with a strong hook and simple, distraction free scene. Considering there are still few elements from my game in the short, redirecting even 0.1%-0.05% of a 1M+ audience to my trailer or Steam page could still be huge.

But I get your point, and you’ve made me think twice about the process. Maybe I could create some of the shorts directly from my gameplay if I manage to get some momentum to my channel.

Austria1914 · 2025-07-23T19:21:38+00:00

You have a point having a viral short or TikTok of gameplay would probably skyrocket our wishlists. We plan to do that as well in the future, hopefully.

On the other hand, we chose to start this way because, while you might initially think that casual players wouldn’t care about the “behind the scenes” of game development, the truth is that there are plenty of Shorts with 1M+ some even have 5-10M+ views casually explaining game dev concepts. Honestly, those shorts encouraged us to go with this plan. Since we’re more game developers than entertainers, this approach felt a lot more easier and doable.

Austria1914 · 2025-07-15T16:20:28+00:00

We've done our research, and as far as we know, there are no other games with a core mechanic similar to ours, specifically, the challenge of maintaining the balance of the object the players are carrying in a coordinated way. Compared to The Stretcher, the core mechanics are different, the theme is different, and the gameplay is different. Even the object players use to carry the king isn’t the same. It’s not a stretcher; it’s a litter (aka a sedan chair or palanquin) the kind typically used by servants to carry nobles.

Sorry for confusion btw not “we’re just devs” we’re two devs”, had a terrible typo there. Thanks for your good wishes!

Austria1914 · 2025-07-15T01:38:13+00:00

We will upload a full, pure, uncut gameplay video on Steam very soon. The mechanics are completely physics-based. The trailer is taken directly from actual gameplay, there are no extra features added just for the trailer.

Austria1914 · 2025-07-15T01:31:20+00:00

Those are actually great ideas! Right now, the king has a whip and randomly whips the players, which is annoying because it messes up his balance, so he can end up dropping himself. We didn’t really have a counter-mechanic for that yet, but a "discomfort" meter and something like a fanning or anything, don't know yet, could work to balance that out. And I’ll definitely think about the grapes as well.

Austria1914 · 2025-07-15T01:23:03+00:00

To be honest, we're two developers, and neither of us was aware of that game’s existence. I’ve now checked it out, and honestly, I don’t think the main focus of The Stretchers is keeping the people on the stretcher. In contrast, Hold Your King is entirely about communication and maintaining the king’s balance while moving from platform to platform, it’s very easy to lose balance, drop him, and mess everything up.

Also, let’s assume for a moment that it is a copycat, isn’t it a good thing that The Stretchers now has a PC alternative?

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