Now that our demo has been out for two weeks it's time to lay out how we will go about openly developing this game.
There are three versions of the game that we will be working with: the main game, the demo, and the playtest builds. The main game will be launched later this year and the launch version will at least contain 3 ways, daily runs and a progression mode. The demo is actually also split in two versions: beta and public.
Here is what will be released to whom and when:
Playtest Builds will be used to sporadically test big changes. They run completely independent from other versions using their own daily run seeds, leaderboards, and save folders. Only our existing playtesters have access to this version but we will accept new signups at some point in the future. Join our Discord to learn about that.
Demos (beta) is where the next demo build goes before being published. This build is the bleeding edge and has more features as well as bugs than any other build. We use it to test changes with a smaller group of players before publishing the build wider. Visit our Discord server if you want to have access to the beta branch.
Demos (public) are the default demo and will always be a showcase of the start of the game. We intend to update the demo every two weeks, adding new tiles, ways, buffs, enemies, graphics, music, and animations. The demo will be changed significantly once the main game launches.
The Main Game is going to be made accessible at launch. We will send previews out to content producers, curators, playtesters, journalists, and friends before the launch.
The update strategy for the finished game will be the topic of a future post. Still a few months to go.
In Part II of this post I will describe the roadmap for the game, what features we have planned and when they will be rolled out.