It's time to talk about the public alpha release! You know that it exists, but we haven't said too much about what's actually in it. I'm here to furnish you with some screenshots, as well as a video of some sweet sweet grameplay and a little info about our vision for the final game.
In the alpha, you'll be introduced to our protagonist, Tavish Gordon, the Watchman (one of our early enemies) and an NPC named Ms. Sweepy. Ms. Sweepy is essentially a steampunk Roomba, but she plays an important role in the final game.
Save me, Tavish Gordon! You're my only hope.
A lot of work went into putting it the HUD together, and it will only be evolving in functionality as the game moves forward. That central console? It's going to be kind of amazing* some day not so far off. Taking damage on your health odometer may look choppy at the moment, but that's because right now enemy attacks do preset damage. The wheel is actually extremely granular.
It's a tarp!
Why should you play the final version of Greywater when it's released? You can think of it as Diablo envisioned for the modern world. We've learned a lot over the years as a species, and games have become ever more complex and feature-rich. It's also going to be a witty*, charming* romp through a beautiful* and storied* steampunk world.
Greywater will borrow elements from puzzle games, point and click adventures and modern RPGs. Everything we can do to make the game a wonderful, memorable experience on a budget and a realistic schedule, we'll do.
Here's a video of gameplay from the alpha. It's largely the same content as you'll be experiencing when you play the build, so if you want to be surprised, you may just want to wait a few days. That said, it features some of the awesome work by our composer Chris, so maybe do watch it but with your eyes closed?
The final game will feature a simple, yet elegantly robust crafting system, an item-based ability system* and a very unique currency system. It will have a linear plot with a side-quest* system. None of that pointless MMO-style quest bullhonkery. We don't want want you to kill six snow moose.
The way we've envisioned it, the game's plot spans three medium-length acts. Obviously at this point in development a lot is still up in the air, but we have a great deal of the final game's functionality and content planned out already. You may have inferred as much by putting together our team moniker and the disclosure of our beloved wheeled friend.
As we prepare to release the alpha, we are beginning to look for additional talent to crank up the rate of development on the project. So if you're a fabulous pixel, concept, or storyboard artist, or a programmer, we want you! Skype and a microphone is a must. This is a labor of love (we are all starving artists), so there won't be any monetary compensation until a successful Kickstarter much later in development. If all that sounds grood to you, get in touch with us and send us your work! Email us, tweet us, or even tumble at us (if that's a real thing and you think we'll see it amidst the sea of gifs).
We were planning to delay the release of the alpha build until it ran as smoothly on Mac OSX, but we've discovered that will require us to move from standard Java to Libgdx, so that's going to take at least the better part of November. Instead, we're going to be releasing the Windows build very soon. Like, super soon.
This may seem like we're leaving Mac users out in the cold, but its really only the lazy ones. Are you a Mac user like me? Use Bootcamp or install Parallels/VMware. Boom. Your Steam library will thank you. You can try running the Java file on OSX, but you're going to be a sad panda.
