I’ll be honest, other than our bi-weekly streams, we’ve been a little tight-lipped on development articles. There’s good reason for this. We’re about 2 months away from our Early Access release. Yes, time flies.
On our last Stream, which you can still re-watch on Twitch here, I made a few large announcements. Namely, detailing more about what will actually be in the Early Access release.
We’ve been putting in extra hours, working through the nights and weekends. Constant discussions have been made about what features will actually make it by Early Access and what features will be included in free updates (note: all updates are free) soon after said release.
The biggest part of the announcements made was the delay of Virus in the alpha. Originally, we planned to have Virus as the third of four Game Worlds that will be in beta stage for Early Access. Due to work on other core elements of the game, this is no longer the case. Instead, an unannounced, never before discussed Game World will take its place as the third Game World ready by Early Access. Fret not, Virus will still be the fourth Game World ready by Early Access. This definitely raises some questions, which I’d like to address today.
The other announcements were: lack of overviews and milestones, Trello timing miscommunication, the store page, the release date of Early Access, and backer fulfillment. To make this easier to read, because I know people are skimming through this, I’ve made some headers for ya’ll.
###Virus will be the last Game World ready for Early Access.
Due to work on core systems of the game, it’s on hold for a bit so we can make the weapon system as great as we can.
###The next Game World is an unannounced, never before talked about game.
We want to keep this one a secret for awhile (because we’re still working out some details on it), so you may not see any work in progress screenshots on the crazy giant thread of work in progress stuff. It is a team vs. team game, though.
###Lack of overviews and milestones
Focus has been put directly on development of the game, which makes the entire team pretty exhausted. We simply don’t have the time for the upkeep of overviews every other week. We stay committed to doing streams every other week (our next one February 5th). It takes quite a bit of time to make the overviews, which is why I’m so backlogged on them. I may fill in some of them this weekend, but I really should be taking a break. Ultimately, I’m completely 100% responsible for the overviews and I’ve pretty much failed on delivering them on time. I apologize and I hope to resume them again on a normal schedule.
###Trello Timing Miscommunication
Once 2016 rolled in, we started talking about our priorities and reorganizing our deadlines to ensure the game has its core functionalities completed in time. Because of this, we ended up ditching Trello for a Google spreadsheet and we haven’t been keeping them synced. To get a better picture of the current state of development, we urge you to use our new spreadsheet: http://roadmap.towerunite.com.
###Steam Store Page
We’re planning to have Tower Unite up on the Steam store page by this week. Steam page is UP! Click here! We are seriously taking our time to ensure every, single, letter is considered informative and helpful. Tower Unite is our debut game, so we’re being extra careful with the store page. The store page, for reasons we have debated, will not have a trailer until Early Access release. We don’t want to make a trailer that is out of date in 2 months and gives people the wrong first impression on our game. Valve wouldn’t let us ship the store page without a trailer, so we made a quick teaser and we’ll follow up with a really awesome set of release trailers in April.
###The Release Date of Early Access
The Steam store page will contain the release date of the Early Access release.
###Backer Fulfillment
We wouldn’t be here without our wonderful Indiegogo backers. So, what’s the exact timeline on all the rewards? We plan to have all digital rewards available by Early Access and all custom rewards a week or two after Early Access. The soundtrack and artbook will be fulfilled three months after Early Access and will be updated whenever we launch new Game Worlds in the future. Oh, and those people who are waiting for desktop wallpapers - they’re coming out next week.
Whew, okay so that’s it. Have a wonderful day and we will be soon posting our next update about our sick new Steam store page!
, and take your time, i’d rather have a great, but delayed game than a game that is shit and rushed.