Ahoy, adventurers! I have some good news, some bad news, and potentially some exciting news? You be the judge! First, the bad news… We will be closing down the beta testing program as it exists now.

Why, you ask? Without getting too off track, we have found that it is no longer working as intended. Many of our beloved beta testers have moved on, and the amount of constructive criticism and feedback has diminished. As such, in its current state it is no longer meeting the needs of the players or developers.The good news? We are re-working the beta program! Woohoo! It is our hope that this means we get more valuable feedback, and have a clearer, more streamlined process in place to help.

These are the steps we will be taking moving forward.

The old beta will be closed, with all previous beta testers being removed from the sub forum. We will also be changing how the beta is accessed to ensure there is a fresh start. The new beta will be opened! Woohoo! We will be opening applications for the beta 4 times a year. There will be a short questionnaire to fill out that will be reviewed by our team. During this time some beta testers will be removed to make room for new testers. This means that testers can take breaks as needed, and fresh eyes can have a chance to join the team. (Don’t worry, we will discuss with everyone when the time comes about who will be leaving. This will likely be due to other commitments, or people needing to take a break.) For each testing period the beta testers will be set loose in the update, and alongside encouraging general feedback, we will have specific parts of the update that we will seek thoughts on.

So, when is this starting? Fingers crossed for the next major update! We are working on things behind the scenes to make this happen. Please note that all current beta testers (outside of our two biggest streamers, Tacet and Keylime) will need to re-apply to the beta program. We weren’t kidding about this being a fresh start! We will also only be accepting applications during the time frame we specify when the next beta period is planned. If you apply outside of this window, your application won’t be read, and you’ll need to re-send it when the time is right.

In the coming weeks I will be announcing when the fresh beta program opens.

PS, as always the beta is only available on Steam. This is because Steam is the easiest platform to push builds too! This means that when there is time, we can make additional builds of updates based on tester feedback. This isn’t always possible due to time constraints but is something we like to do when we can. APKs on Android can be quite fiddly (don’t even get us started on iOS!) and it isn’t possible to run our beta effectively on Amazon, PS4, Xbox1, or Nintendo Switch.