Comments on Colt's original post

basically what i've gotten from ur writeup is:

• kag 2 should make a drastic change away from kag, as evidenced by the failure of soldat 2, which remains less popular than soldat 1. i never really played soldat or soldat 2 but by scrolling through their discord at the time of the soldat 2 launch it seems old players didn't want to switch over to the new game because of the big changes (apparently they didn't like the movement), plus i think they played the original game for the nostalgia factor and because that is what they are familiar with. basically that soldat 2 wasn't significantly better than the original, so current players couldn't be bothered making the switch. i think soldat 2 failed to attract new players (people that never played soldat 1) because the game honestly looks bad for something released in 2020 and appears to be a browser game from 10 years ago. additionally, there was little hype before its release, with the trailer only getting 15k views, and devlogs leading up to the trailer only getting ~5k views each. as for a new game with massive changes, maybe territory control 2 fills this gap?
• kag 2 should have dramatically enhanced graphics - i could not agree more with this - with the abundance of garbage indie games being released i think the main way people instantly tell good from bad is the graphics and overall vibe they bring. i think this is the most important element to get right in order to encourage new people to play the game

overall i think kag is fun for the following reasons

1. casual elements like fun, destructive, silly animations - stuff like blowing people up, collapsing towers, the art style, the wilhelm scream. additionally i think the casual first gameplay where for example in a large server, very bad players don't make a large difference in the outcome of the match like they could in other games. this is similar to tf2, planetside 2, battlefield, csgo casual, etc. where you can bot out and just enjoy playing the game without worrying about having impact or hindering the team.
2. competitive elements like the very high skill ceiling in the timing and movement based knight combat, archer movement, and the quick thinking and reactions required of a builder. these elements make the game fun to get better at, and is what keeps people coming back to the game.
3. community elements like hosting your own servers, it being very simple to create mods, and the development of the game being open - you feel more connected to the game if you can create your own maps, mods, etc. and join servers where the game can be tweaked, think of the vibe from joining cs:source community servers

and so my thoughts on kag 2 is it will be a success if it has drastically improved graphics (not 4k but i mean cohesive style, particle effects, coloured high res lighting, still being pixel art), the same smooth (but less buggy!) mechanics of kag 1, whilst retaining the 3 main things that make it fun. overall though 2d side scrolling games haven't been popular for a while, although i could see this changing if kyora and tc2 get big, and this could make more people interested in these types of games, including kag 2