The Ground Breaking
Hello, I'm Danny Judas. I am pleased (and a little nervous) to announce that the Steam playtest is now available for all to experiment with. It took a bit longer than I hoped to get to this point, but all-in-all I am excited that it didn't take nearly as long as it could have.
Once again, I'll reiterate that the important part of this for me is just to show that I am working on something and that it is playable. This is still extremely early in development and many things you will encounter are not simply unfinished, but entirely prototypical.
Now that the test is going fully live, allow me to explain some of the purpose and thought behind it.
Phase Two Testing
It's inevitable that many people will play this version of the game and find it to be extremely undercooked. That is definitely true and there is still a long way to go with the game. The main purpose of this playtest, beyond proof of life, is to get feedback and criticism on the game's core systems leading up to a more polished demo release sometime in the Summer. So, if you're hoping for a very polished experience you might want to simply observe until that release comes around.
Right now the curious among you will have an opportunity to play with the project while it is still extremely stripped back. Right now the most complete part of the game is the core combat loop. It is feeling fairly refined* and I think is comfortably representative of my vision for battles in Collect Call. I doubt it will change much from this point beyond improved presentation and readability.
The next part may be a bit hard to follow without having played the game first, so if you're planning on trying it out you may want to come back after having given it a whirl.
Here is what this playtest has in store for it in the near future:
Perform at least partial visual passes on all remaining screens and enemy types. This is a bit backwards for how games are usually developed, so it might be something I switch back and forth between as I try to hit other milestones. But the general idea is that the actual content in the game won't change too much from here until the demo. Visual design is extremely time consuming for me compared to mechanics work so tackling it first might save me some crunch near the end.
Improve immediacy of 'targeted cards.' This sentence won't make any sense to you if you haven't played the game, but once you do you'll probably notice it immediately. The long and short of it is to reduce the number of clicks and forethought required to play certain cards.
Second full rework of Feng Shui items and interactions. Feng Shui is extremely underdeveloped in the current iteration of the game and is primarily used to determine what type and number of cards you add to your deck as you play. I would like it to remain a subtle system, but it needs to be more impactful than it is.
Tutorialization cleanup. The game is fairly left-field for games in its genre, so better onboarding for new players is a very important facet of development.
Card collection expansion and theming. The vast majority of cards currently in the game were designed back in 2017 without respect to deckbuilding rules. The original proof-of-concept for Collect Call did not even feature card suits and was vastly more primitive than this iteration. Therefore there's not a whole lot of build cohesion currently in the game.
What to Expect
To reiterate, the game is currently extremely lean. I have not yet taken time to add additional content and have been entirely focused on triaging issues and responding to tester feedback, as well as scattered efforts to prepare for future demos.
3 Enemy Factions
85 Player Cards
2 Characters
18 Feng Shui Items
English Language Voice and Text Only
There is no controller support, defined "end", ascensions, or rebindable keys. I think the game is pretty challenging as-is so the areas that will probably see the most aggressive expansion during Phase 2 are going to be Player Cards and Feng Shui items (as mentioned above). Of course quality-of-life and control enhancements are a huge deal to implement as Soon™️ as possible.
Public Relations
If you want to hear more about the game's development more frequently, or would like to talk about it with other testers, feel free to join the public discord. There is also a link provided in the demo itself. I also post sporadic updates and teasers to my Twitter.
Please feel free to invite your friends, take screenshots, and record or stream the game.
Thank you for your attention.