I’ve been talking a lot about long term goals, but it’s been a while since I’ve talked about what we’re currently working on. The biggest reason for this is that right now we’re not having big spectacular accomplishments to brag about; we’re just quietly making sure everything works the way we want it to. It’s fulfilling work certainly, but it tends to make for dry reading. As such, this week’s Dev Update is going to be focused on just two aspects of our current development, because of how important both of them are.
The first aspect is actually … well, it makes me a little bit sad. We’re fixing a bug. It’s one that will be sorely missed, but it’s tied to larger issues that could be potentially game breaking! That’s not exactly something you want to leave around … even if one of its effects is wonderful. See, we have this bug that we’ve affectionately named, “The Spider-Rover.” Basically, if provided the incline of a surface is gentle enough that the player is able to get their wheels onto it, the rover can drive along basically anything. The ground, certainly, but also walls and … ceilings. Whoops. Who knows, the nature of our rover allows itself for some pretty fun modifications down the road. Maybe one day we’ll be able to bring back the Spider-Rover in a meaningful way. Until then, though, I think we all technically agree that this should not be functionality-by-default. Especially since we haven’t exactly designed the demo asteroid for web-slinging adventures!
The second aspect I want to tell you about is actually upcoming: the development is a system in which Alpha players will be able to provide usable feedback. On one hand we want to be able to show off this alpha to give you all a sense of progress. Maybe, just maybe, it’s a sneaky ploy to get you more emotionally invested in the success of our little project, who knows. Don’t tell the boss man I said that. (Note: the boss man is also my editor on these.) On the other hand though, we want to make sure the game feels right to everyone! The best way to achieve this goal is, obviously, to get a bunch of opinions on this matter. Many development studios have dedicated teams of testers that can accomplish this same task, but that’s obviously outside of our financial possibilities at the moment. Instead, we’re offering you a chance to play around with this early build to hopefully get some feedback from you all to make this game as good as we possibly can.
What’d I tell ya? Short Dev Update this week, but we’ll be back next week with even more to talk about! If you want to be notified as soon as possible, be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook! And if you’d like to take part in our Alpha, please consider making a donation to grab yourself a key. Of course, any amount would mean the world to us! If that’s not an option for you though, we fully understand and welcome you to sign up for our newsletter, which automatically puts you in the running for one of many free Alpha Keys! That’s it for this week, but I hope to see you again! Until then, have a great week!
