What Makes an Alpha?

For over a year we’ve been asked variations on the question of what counts as an Alpha or a Beta, and we’d like to share our thinking.

In all projects, there has to be a beginning. One day in the past there was no game, and no commitment to produce a game. The next day there was a commitment. At that point the project had begun. That was the start of pre-Alpha. For us, that was in April 2016, and it took a lot of work to get from there to Alpha.

Ship of Heroes was developed using a project plan in which our first major milestone was to develop a working prototype of the game; this included a fully functioning character creator, the first version on the playable environment, a set of complete, high-quality signature heroes, and basic animations, and to integrate those core pieces into a working prototype. That took us about eight months, starting with a team of two and expanding to a team of about eight, most of whom were volunteers.

Of course, we also had to create a website, 2D concept art, forums, a newsletter process and format, and our first videos. And then we had to add powers, animations, flight, SFX, enemies, etc., and integrate all of those pieces. And code to handle teaming, kicking, instanced missions, XP, Dust, and drops. And we needed to upgrade our engine version, fix bugs, improve the look of Apotheosis City, and create costumes, weapons, and hair models. We developed our Design Studio to show off costumes, and the Powers Testing Center to show off powersets.