Three Minutes To Eight

About this game

Latest news

• Announcements·22 Jul 2024Official

  Words from the Mind and Heart

  Hello everyone! It has been some months since the release of Three Minutes To Eight, and I'm writing this DevLog to reflect on the nine months that have passed since the game’s launch. Developers often share insights into the development process (as I did in a previous DevLog and a video interview partially featured on the game’s Steam homepage), but it's less common to hear their thoughts nine months post-release. Well, here I am! I must admit I'm a bit disappointed with how things are going with Three Minutes To Eight, both in terms of sales and player reviews. I consider Three Minutes To Eight the best game I've ever made, yet the sales and reviews are worse than some of my previous games like ENCODYA or Clunky Hero. The market isn't at its best right now, but adventure games are still selling a decent number of copies. I'm not here to whine about bad luck or things like that. There are hundreds of video games released every month; it’s normal that some do well while others don’t. However, we launched with a decent number of wishlists (about 30K), yet the reviews are mixed, and sales are so-so. This is despite receiving a solid 5/5 from Adventure Gamers (registered as 100/100 on Metacritic) and winning the Best Indie Game award at the Game Development World Championship, Summer Edition 2023. So, what's the reason behind this "meh" result? I believe the strengths of my game are also its weaknesses, at least for some players. The unique aspects that make my game stand out among many adventure games are also considered its flaws. Three Minutes To Eight is a classic example of a game that you either love or hate. The limited locations, repetitive actions, time loop, and narrative structure (or lack thereof, with ten different narratives that coexist in a clockwork mechanism, without a main story) have apparently displeased a good portion of gamers. Yet, I think these aspects also make it a great and unique game. Not to mention that the soundtrack, voice acting, dialo...
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• Announcements·21 Nov 2023Official

  Vote for TMTE!

  Dear Puzzlers, Today the Steam Awards are kicking-off. I would be honoured and thrilled if you choose to cast your vote for Three Minutes To Eight in the Most Innovative Gameplay category. Thank you for your ongoing support. Yours, Nicola https://store.steampowered.com/app/2303320/Three_Minutes_To_Eight/
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• Patch Notes·8 Nov 2023Official

  Update v.0.6.2 LIVE

  Dear Puzzlers, thank you for your humble feedback on my latest developer notes about the most reported flaws of Three Minutes To Eight. As stated there, I took your feedback very seriously trying to adjust the discussed negative issues as good as possible. Here's the changelog: Removed the "Typewriting" effect on subtitles (now they appear right away) Reduced them to the bare minimum "safety" time before skipping a dialogue line Both things make the skipping of lines about 5X faster than before Also, there's a 1 second safety margin when the dialogue options appear, so if player is fast-skipping all the lines, then it has a short moment of pause when it's time to make a decision (this to avoid to start a dialogue again by mistake) Improved the movement when using Point'n'Click controls Holding the left mouse button down will keep the player running until it's released (to avoid double clicking each time, very useful when running on large scens, like the street) Fixed a bunch of localization issues; especially for German, Italian and Chinese Fixed a bug related to giving the Titanium Positron to PD-99 when you're not on that narrative Fixed a bug related to showing the year as "nil" when ending a narrative in the future during narrator's lines Removed the possibility to have duplicates of items (like battery and charged battery, pistol and charged pistol, etc.) Lowered the intercom sound to make it less bothering Adjusted the size of text for the Journal as well as adding green highlight to the last line (once accomplished), for better readability of the various narratives Plus some additional minor polishing and bugfixes. Thanks again for your feedback and patience so far and what's to come. It is much appreciated. I hope the changes add more comfort to the repeating dialogue skips. Yours, Nicola
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• Announcements·2 Nov 2023Official

  A Developer's Note

  Hello Steam Community, Three Minutes To Eight developer is here. And before we dive into the feedback, I want to express my honest gratitude to everyone who has supported Three Minutes To Eight. Your enthusiasm, your feedback and support really mean a lot to me. So far, Three Minutes To Eight has collected very mixed reviews since its release. There are people that absolutely love it, and people that don’t – which is okay. Creating a game that everybody loves would be the holy grail. Positive or negative, I’m beyond thankful for everyone that chose to play my game and took their time to provide me with valuable feedback. Anyways, while it's always tough to receive and read negative reviews – especially as a mostly solo developer with little resources – I still see it as a valuable opportunity to learn and improve both the game and me on a personal level. I'm committed to taking your input to heart, trying to make the game the best it can be. So, since it’s always important for me to listen what players have to say, I'm working on a patch with a few fixes (to be released early next week). All in all, I'd like to share some development insights regarding a few points of this game and its intricate mechanics to give you a better understanding how certain things work in Three Minutes To Eight and why. In summary, the most disappointing points coming from the ones that left a negative review, can be summarized in two things: I don't know what to do. I cannot skip dialogues. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO The game starts in a state of confusion, like the protagonist, who must find out what's really going on, starting with just a few clues. The design of the game is that every narrative is doable within the very first run (given that you know what to do), and all the 10 endings are co-existing at the same time. How is that possible? The articulated design is based on "triggers". For example, a trigger could be a certain event, items that the player can find, or something that a c...
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• Press Coverage·25 Oct 2023

  Point-and-click mystery adventure Three Minutes to Eight is out now

  Chaosmonger Studio and Assemble Entertainment today released Three Minutes to Eight, a point and click mystery adventure game from the same developer behind ENCODYA and Clunky Hero. Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/10/point-and-click-mystery-adventure-three-minutes-to-eight-is-out-now
  Read full article on GamingOnLinux