Hello to our extremely patient and good looking wishlisters,
Today I FINALLY get to announce that our public demo will drop tomorrow (Friday), and Cleared Hot will be in the Steam Next Fest the following week!]
About a month ago, I wasn't sure we would hit this. It was going to be risky, but I felt it was the right time to release something playable. We talked as a team and decided to go all in and do our best to hit it.
Our spirit producer kept chanting his mantra...
About 3 weeks ago things were questionable. We put in a massive week and I was starting to feel that familiar smell of burn out. Things were going well but we had a lot to do and our trello board only seemed to grow larger with each day.
We thought about delaying it but we didn't want to make you wait any longer
So we kept at it. About 2 weeks ago it started to feel possible. I started feel emotionally ready to joke about releasing our demo right before next fest, which is... not the common advice :D
We let in some more playtesters from the email list and started to get some real feedback.
But we persevered and we finally pushed our last commit of what would become our golden-master demo build, marked with an equally epic commit log of "No comment has been set". That's just Ruben being humble.
We pushed it live and after a very late night and very early morning, we sent the build out to streamers and content creators, and crossed our fingers.
To our relief, it went really well.
Both LevelCap and Raptor released videos super quickly, and we have more on the way. Check them out below. Special thanks to LevelCap for giving us feedback over the last year or so!
Watch on YouTube
We even got a visit in the comments from Tony Barnes, the co-designer of the Strike series, who I've been in touch with since our Steam page launched. I still marvel that they programmed those games in assembly language.
This is such a huge milestone for us, seriously, I am so happy to announce this. So much work had to come together to hit this, about a month ago I wasn't sure we could do it. It is a bit early for us to join the Next Fest, but I felt it was time for us to release something that you could play.
The demo will feature 4 missions, a bit of the early story. I think y'all will like it.
We can't wait for you to play and share your nostalgia + feedback with us!
The demo will go live on Steam sometime Friday morning, around 10am PDT. Maybe earlier if that big green release button looks irresistible.
Please play the demo, wishlist it if you haven't already, and give us your feedback!
Seriously, thanks so much for all the support. This is a major milestone and marks a new phase where your feedback will shape the game even more.
Thanks for sticking with us! Enjoy the demo!!
-A very tired Colin "cfinger" and the very tired Cleared Hot team
