Hello all! Now that it's been a week since our game's early access launch and everyone has had time to experience the game for themselves, we wanted to make a community update to keep everyone in the loop on what our plans are for the game going forward. Lost To Riches is mostly feature complete, but still has some minor features and mechanics that require implementation.
The Road Going Forward
We will continue development into May and likely June, there are some features and additions that will be split across a handful of major updates, these updates are:
The Theatre Update
Will address bugs that were present at launch, and add a feature that allows players to re-watch past cutscenes.
We will also be moving some player data into it's own files (Checkpoint and tutorial information, settings, etc.) to allow for easier external editing
We anticipate that this update will be out by beginning of next week!
The Convenience Update Part 1
We will be giving the player the ability to purchase cash from Eli in the Hub using Chips, allowing the player to start a run with a cash bonus, as well as the ability to reset your upgrades, refunding all chips spent and allowing a player to respec their upgrades.
We may also experiment with some changes to the game's upgrade system, for example, having a stronger emphasis on min-maxing specific stats rather than giving the ability to max out everything, this will be accomplished by having the purchase of any upgrade raise the price of other upgrades. We will announce whether or not this change will go live as we move closer to the implementation of these changes.
This update will also give the Weapon Table a new model, as well as an expansion to the hub, making parts of it such as the Weapon Table and Slots more accessible, as many players during our internal tests didn't know about the Weapon Table's existence. We believe the best solution would be to increase the size of the hub to allow for objects to be positioned better.
This update will go live around the end of May.
The Convenience Update Part 2
This will bring with it the ability to fast forward runs to a specific floor of the Velvet Angel. Tired of starting in the Casino every run? Well now you can choose to start in the Hotel or even Deep Storage instead!
This is meant to ease the pains of repeat runs by allowing players to start wherever they choose. Fast Forwarding of runs will be done with a new object outside the main door to start a new run. This object will be similar to the Slot Machine and Weapon Table. This object will allow the player to choose to start in the Hotel, Deep Storage, or the VIP Suites, assuming the player has visited these floors already. Fast forwarding will cost a large amount of chips.
This update will become available at some point in early to mid June.
The Controller Update
As some of you may or may not already be aware, Gamepad Support is present in the game, though it's very buggy and very unpolished, this update plans to fully finish Gamepad controls and bring it to a similar degree of smooth control like with Keyboard and Mouse. Gamepad support will handle all controller types, not just Xbox or Dualshock.
This update will go live sometime near the end of June.
In Closing...
Now we obviously can't anticipate potential hot fixes along the way, or changes to production, but this is our plan going forward as we add in missing features. Aside from the Theatre update, these release dates are not final, and are subject to change. We will also have minor updates along the way that will change smaller parts of the game that do not affect gameplay (Such as adding a proper credits screen).
With that aside get hype, and tell us what you guys think of the game and the coming changes in the comments below!
- Ethan