Dev Update 8
Kartik: Greenlight, Roadmap Complete, Improved Environment Visuals, Final Flow Started
We had a solid 5-hour company meeting where we hashed out the entirety of the rest of the game, which is described intentionally vaguely below. We also decided to go ahead and post our Greenlight even though we are only in pre-alpha. This has been a very anxiety inducing experience for me personally, putting my work in the public space is hard enough especially when I know we’re not even close to making this look as great as we can.
Greenlight
Here is the link to the Greenlight campaign. This is how we’re going to get on Steam, so if you like what you see (or believe that we’re going to continue working on this and actually finish it) please give us a vote here.
Also, get in touch with us via that page! Tell us what you think and what you want to see in the game, I look forward to responding to some of you!
Roadmap Complete
Pre-Alpha to Alpha: Ok, here is the basics of the roadmap and what we’re looking to do with the gameplay. We are currently in Pre-Alpha because our core gameplay isn’t quite complete, we are missing one core function: player abilities. Once all player abilities are complete and working we are going to be in Alpha. Here is a taste of some abilities I’m currently prototyping: Grappling Hook, Power Punch, Super Taser... etc. We have them all planned out, just a matter of prototyping and figuring out what is fun and what works.
Beta: Once we have reached our Alpha milestone, we will start working towards our Beta milestone that will be a matter of completing all the content. Our planned content (subject to change) includes three chapters that take place in unique environments, with unique boss fight(s), and a story arc that ends with an epic final boss fight. We will also have an “Arcade” mode that unlocks various stages as you progress through the story. The ‘Arcade’ mode levels take place in small arenas where you face an endless horde of enemies and compete for the best high score. Once all of the content exists in a playable format we will officially be in Beta. At this point we may or may not decide to do some public testing, but that is TBD.
Gold and Reach Goals: Once the Beta is complete, we will continue to polish and do as much quality assurance as possible before hitting a launch date sometime Q4 2017. Some reach goals we will try to accomplish around this time include: Online Cooperative, Online Arcade Leaderboards, and whatever other fun ideas we’ll come up with as development progresses.
Thats our roadmap as of right now, the entire thing is subject to change, but I am going to do everything in my power to hit our (internal) deadline dates to ensure we reach a reasonable release date.
Improved Environment Assets
Ok, on to talking about actual development! I’ve spent this past week polishing environmental art a LOT. Our unique camera angle presents a range of problems with how we chose to do our environment. In the screenshot below, I pulled the camera to an angle you don’t normally see to give a better view of the environment I’ve been building for the game. All the art is done as sprites and placed in 3D space, which in hindsight wasn’t the best way to do things but that is where we are now.
I also spent a lot of time sweetening the lighting and adding ambient occlusion decals wherever geometry intersection stood out too much. Although this is a lot of work to do by hand, I’m very pleased with the results and the fine control I have over each aspect of the visuals is exciting to me.
Final Flow Started
Here you can see the main menu has some new options on it, namely: Story and Arcade. Everything else is about the same, but will probably be slightly reworked as the flow is finalized.
Eric spent some time getting the loading and scene transitions to work with knowing what mode we’re in, and which scene to go to as we reuse modular UI elements. Eric also re-worked the training scene since up until recently it had been a very weird/disconnected scene from the rest of the game. It now has a similar flow to the core gameplay and less prone to breaking.
This concludes this weeks update, I look forward to seeing how our Greenlight is received and what kind of community engagement we receive. This is the first time I’ve put a game in front of such a wide audience, and this is a fairly scary process for me. Go easy on my heart, world.

















