Hey guys!

Sorry for the recent radio silence; I was very sick for the last few weeks. With our recent acceptance into Steam Greenlight, I think this is a good time for a progress update on the game and how it is going. While I am a bit hesitant to throw out numbers (the last 10% of game development can be 50% of the work, and numbers can be misleading), I think that transparency is one of the biggest advantages that indie game development has, so I’ll throw caution to the wind. At the moment internally, we are looking at:

90% of classes finished

96% of items finished

39% of item log entries finished

70% of stages finished, with only 30% functioning online

47% of monster logs finished

Small (~20%) of the final stage finished

So what does this mean? Why isn’t all that in the beta? Well, that’s what we’re here to talk about! Right now, the plan is to push for release, rather then create another beta build. Why?

We want to keep some things secret until final release! You guys deserve the best, and we still want things to be exciting when the game is launched. This means not only big stuff (classes, items, etc) but also small things that will keep the game fresh (re-arranging item logs, etc) Developing things for final release (like the final boss and stage) means that after we create it internally, we have to take it back out, which leads to longer development time and potential bugs

The time to develop and maintain a stable beta build is about 2 weeks. Those 90% classes and 96% items haven’t been fully tested, so they can’t just be thrown into a build. That means that the release date is pushed back 2 weeks per beta update. Since we are so close to release, time spent bug fixing and stabilizing a beta build could be time spent bug fixing and stabilizing a final release, especially when the two are so close together.

Our vision of the game isn’t like some other indie games; we don’t plan on keeping the beta going for an extended period of time, but would rather launch the game for everyone to play. Without a proper launch goal in mind, development could drag on for a very long time, with features creeping in. While we aren’t quite comfortable with saying a release date (especially with move-in to an apartment and college starting, yuck), we will post one as soon as we can.

In summation, I think that rather then launching a beta update, we could launch the final game. If you feel otherwise, feel free to post on the forums. We read those; trust me! I know a lot of people may prefer a beta update, and I hope you guys understand why we are choosing this route.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for liking our game so much.

hopoo