To the Palestine Aid Bundle Supporters!
Hey there!
If you got here through the Palestine Aid Bundle, first of all: thank you for all your support to the cause. It's been wonderful seeing the bundle come together and grow into such a massive charity drive, and I really hope we can make a difference by raising our voices as well.
As you can see, this page holds exclusively a demo and doesn't pretend to do otherwise— it includes two full chapters, over two hours of free high quality, polished content.
The Hayseed Knight's demo is far longer than many of the other paid experiences on itch, or in triple A for that matter. It is work I'm deeply proud of, that I decided to offer for a humanitarian cause that I believe in and that I'm not benefiting from.
But by virtue of there existing more content, some people think they're entitled to owning it and have been review bombing this page.
The Hayseed Knight's first two chapters are, and will always be as long as I have a say on it, free. That is what you're acquiring through the bundle, just one of the many other free experiences that are part of it.
If you enjoyed the story and the characters, and find you really want to get the 7 hours of further content that chapter 3 offers and the future updates, then the only way to do so at the moment is through its Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1332990/The_Hayseed_Knight
I hope this will offer some answers if you had questions, and more perspective if you were confused about THK's presence in the bundle.
Hope you all have a good time, and see you once I've got news of Chapter 4!
Get The Hayseed Knight
The Hayseed Knight
Follow the unlikely tale of a one-eyed deer's accidental rise to fame in this fully-voice acted VN!
| Status | Released |
| Author | MaxiMJdev |
| Genre | Visual Novel, Role Playing |
| Tags | 2D, Comedy, Fantasy, Furry, Ren'Py, Romance, Story Rich, Voice Acting |
| Languages | English, Spanish; Castilian, French, Japanese |
| Accessibility | Subtitles |
More posts
- 1.8.1 aka FULL STEAM DECK, CONTROLLER AND KEYBOARD COMPATIBILITY!Jul 13, 2024
- 1.8.0.2, fixes, and the future of The Hayseed Knight!Jun 01, 2024
- The Hayseed knight, AVAILABLE ON ITCH AT LAST!Mar 09, 2024
- THE HAYSEED KNIGHT, FULL GAME OUT!Mar 01, 2024
- The Hayseed Knight - full release on the 29th of February!Feb 24, 2024
- The Hayseed Knight 1.7.1: 翻訳総改訂/Complete Japanese revision!Jun 21, 2023
- Chapter 4, now out on Steam!Feb 01, 2023
- ようこそ to The Hayseed Knight 1.6!Jun 06, 2022
- CHAPTER 3 OUT ON STEAM, NOW!Dec 08, 2020
Comments
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I'm really late to the party on this one and was originally intending to just stay out of it. After the Bundle for Ukraine (which did not feature Hayseed Knight), I have a bit of a perspective on this beyond "there's other demos and even browser only games in the Palestine Aid Bundle."
If you're not familiar with the Bundle for Ukraine, everything in it was supposed to be paid games only - no free games, no name your own price games, no demos unless bundle purchasers were getting the full game. There's been at least one developer that joined this bundle that has since switched their previously free game that went paid onlyback to being free / name your own price... meaning they blatantly changed their pricing structure just to get into the bundle and use it for publicity, which is completely dishonest.
Now as far as the Palestine Aid bundle, there's been a couple of demos in it. Repurpose, Solace State, Alisa | The Awakening, and Advent NEON are all part of this bundle as just demos. If there is a difference, it is only in that they put DEMO in the title.
However if you look at Monstrata Fracture, which is also part of the Palestine Aid Bundle, this game is still in development. If you spend $1 or more, you'll get an add-on to have NPCs wear glasses. The game hasn't been updated since October 31, 2020 and the only way to get process updates on where they are at in development is to go to their Patreon account to give them money every month. This makes the inclusion of this game in the bundle feel like a huge advert for their Patreon account, especially after having played it and finding that you don't get very far into it before things end abruptly on a cliffhanger.
It may have been nice to have the word Demo somewhere in the title. However since the developer does not plan to have this as a Steam exclusive, they're not going to want to do that. They'll want to update the page so that there is the free demo and the paid version all at the same place.
Also I don't see anything disingenuous going on here, like sneaking free games into a paid games only bundle or joining a bundle to promote your Patreon account, as The Hayseed Knight's developer has done neither of these things.
The reason I think people have a problem, is you've presented this as a full game, that is being purchased as part of a charity bundle.
The title and the blurb says:
As presented in the bundle, you're gettting the game. A full game. Then you click to download, and it's just the demo.
Then you go to the game page and says "Oh yeah, it's just the demo, go here to buy the actual game. It's fine, this demo was free anyway!"
I'm just not going to bother playing it, but I figured being you don't seem to understand why people would be irritated at the false advertising, I figured I'd leave the comment explaining that.
Now, if it said "The Hayseed Knight Demo" I doubt there'd be any problem.
Hey Ovion! Thank you for taking the time to kindly explain your thoughts in detail.
As I've pointed out in another comment, this is where The Hayseed Knight started, was exclusive to for 3 years as I worked on every version, and was meant to always be offered in its entirety as a free game. That was the plan until my health started deteriorating fast last year, and I could no longer afford to keep making a free game due to both the economical costs of paying a full team of voice actors and the physical cost of developing the game.
I decided then to make a switch to steam in order to make sure the game could cost its own development so that I could continue making it in the future.
I'm currently not handling versions across two marketplaces because I'm a one person team working full time in other projects just to be able to afford my medical expenses. This IS meant to continue being its main page eventually as the description reads in the very first line of the disclaimer, however:
In the meantime, people get over 2 hours of free, high quality content, much like any other free content out there in the Palestine Aid bundle, which I joined simply to support the cause started by devs I trusted, before it blew up and the gesture ended massively out of context.
This devlog was meant to address something different, however: even if this all wasn't the case, people have access to several thousands of games, assets and handbooks for 5$, in support of an urgent humanitarian cause. They're getting a good quality product they don't *have* to go through, same as you chose not to. I don't understand how anyone can zoom in on one project that failed to offer enough in their eyes and claim they're being swindled, somehow, instead of simply moving on.
Hope that cleared that, and that you have a wonderful day
You did nothing for the charity though. Your addition to the bundle is just free advertising for you as you didn't actually put up anything of value into it. You're backpacking on a charity for the advertising.
Now that you pointed it out, there is a lot of free stuff in it. Thanks for making filtering all the stuff in the BLM and palestine bundles easier
It sounds like you feel very strongly about both of these causes - we're very much on the same side, there. I can understand the frustration that could come seeing free games in a charity drive, especially one so important, and thinking they add nothing of value. What makes you think that I haven't done anything for the charity, however?
I decided to add my work early on, when the call for games was first released long before it became the huge success it ended up being, because I wanted to increase the amount of voices in the cause and make a statement: I, and anything I create on my own consequently, stand behind Palestine's freedom.
To that end, I made sure to see if demos were allowed in as it's all I have to offer on itch - all I had to offer since 2017 until last December, when I had to make the full game paid in order to afford my own medical bills.
It's been part of the bundle since, even though there's been nothing to gain from keeping it in up other than the constant stream of people who would assume it was done in bad faith. Do you think it would have made any difference to my online presence if I had asked the itch.io staff to remove it after that, other than make my life easier?
I've been on top of developments these last two years, doing everything in my hand to uplift Black Lives Matters and the Palestinian cause. I have bought these bundles as well hoping to be a grain of sand in a mountain and make some change, like everyone else. That's why I added years of my own work to the bundle, to stand strong by my resolution on this matter.
I want your honest, opinion - how would any of us removing our contributions, free or otherwise, improve the bundle for you?
It wouldn't do anything to the bundle. It's a matter of ethics on the part of developers. Your addition added nothing and cost you nothing. All you're getting is free advertising
How am I supposed to achieve that? I don't have any PR team or Community Manager beyond myself as I'm making this game on my own. Replying to every single accusation of bad faith over these last few months takes hours of my own time that I could have spent in developing the game further - in which way is agreeing with the people who insist I did this with bad intent showing ethics on my part?
That may be true but is no reason to get upset. It's over 1000 games for $5 so to complain about how the dev didn't properly label it as a demo is very entitled, I'm sorry.
I saw some kind of comic pack on one of the support bundles once that seemed more like free advertising than a donation.
Entitled gamers are the wooooorst. Thanks for joining the bundle, looking forward to playing!
regardless if this is a demo or not, it seems like a very nice and charming game to play...
nonetheless, a few bonus items (wallpapers/art/unique in-game items etc) would've been a cool treat for people who would get the bundle.
however i really like that this demo seems more like a semi-full game, with 2 large chapters being free to play. thats very good.
keep up the good work!
just wondering, will you put the full version in itch after the game is finished? (i'm not saying for the ones who buy it from this bundle, but in general). if you don't want to release the full version in itch at all, maybe you can consider changing the game's title as "The Hayseed Knight Demo" so it'll be easier to sort out.
Hey there! I do intend to bring THK's full version to itch one day as it says on the description since THK started out on itch, but for now I'm keeping it on steam exclusively. Very much a "we'll cross that bridge when we get to it" thing since I have to juggle a lot of marketing, assets and versions across marketplaces otherwise
scum.
I mean, if you're going to take the time to insult me at least be specific over what, sheesh.
Reported for hate speech.
"Scum" because they support a charity? Or is it because you feel like you are entitled to more from a bundle that already offers so much that demanding more is like a childs temper tantrum?
Grow up.