The developer of a popular Star Fox-style roguelike has said "sorry not sorry" after a player changed their positive review to a negative one following the game's accessibility update.
Aaron San Filippo, developer of Whisker Squadron: Survivor has released a statement after a player felt the need to change their positive review to a negative one following the game's most recent patch. Along with the new accessibility feature, which allows those who need it to slow the game down, the developer also fixed a bug that changed how the game counted a certain achievement - which is what's got some fans so worked up.
On the topic of the bug fix, Filippo writes on Steam: "A recent patch fixed a bug with how we were counting stats for the 'Victory' achievement (unlock criteria: win a run). Consequently, the global completion percentage jumped from around 1% to around 10%." The developer continues: "Someone left a negative review over this, mistakenly thinking that this happened because we added accessibility options that allow you to make the game run a bit slower, or to reduce the incoming damage a bit. That's definitely not the case."
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I'll never understand people getting angry over games having options that they don't want to use that don't affect them at all.September 27, 2023
Here's my "official" statement on this in the Steam forums in case anyone wants to read it. Probably easier than answering the same 2-3 comments here over and over hahahttps://t.co/hFVMcA5oADSeptember 28, 2023
Elaborating further on the changes, Filippo writes: "Yes, there are now accessibility options that give you the option of slowing the game down a bit, or to take a bit less damage. These aren't a complete set of accessibility options, but they are a start, and many players have already voiced their appreciation for them." The developer continues by explaining that "the game is designed to be hard" but the team don't want to "punish" players who want to use the accessibility feature by disabling achievements.
"We made a philosophical design decision to let people use accessibility options and ALSO earn achievements, because achievements are mostly a personal thing," Filippo says, before adding that the studio is aware that this decision means the global completion percentage for most achievements will be marginally higher. "We felt it was more important that all players get to enjoy the achievements aspect of the game even if they choose to use the options that make the game marginally less difficult for them."
Aside from the review in question, Whisker Squadron: Survivor has been fairly well received since its launch this summer - 2 years after its successful Kickstarter campaign. Right now, it still has a "very positive" review rating on Steam, with many players praising it for its similarity to Nintendo's Star Fox series, its soundtrack, and more.
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