Dear SwarmTroopers,
The hive is stirring once more, and it’s finally time to jump back in! We’re beyond excited to officially announce that Closed Alpha II is going live tomorrow, Tuesday the 4th! You can still sign up for the playtest on the DarkSwarm Steam page: SIGN UP FOR THE PLAYTEST
We’ve been digging through all your feedback since the first playtest, and we’ve been hard at work making major improvements across the board. From overhauled visuals to new features and fresh content, there’s a lot to dive into — and we can’t wait to hear what you think.
Let’s take a look at what’s new:
Chryos, our ice planet, has received a lot of graphics overhaul as well as a complete redesign of the procedural algorithms. It feels more intuitive, and we’ll keep on improving it over time.
We have added some more objectives and minigames to the game, so there’s more interesting stuff to do. Behind the scenes, we are currently working on systems to make it easier to add more like it, so every level can contain more variation.
We have added a bunch of cool social features like Steam friend invites, player kicking, private servers with password protection, and text chat. These features are all new and experimental, and we have a lot of improvements planned for all of them, as well as brand new social features that we would like to add later.
Text chat can be activated by pressing ENTER in-game. This is only supported for keyboard players, but we will add a controller interface to it later so it’s accessible to everybody.
We have made a dedicated effort for crouching to be of more tactical use in the game - especially in the narrow SpaceStation corridors, where players in front will now be able to crouch and not receive damage from their teammates behind them - unless they also crouch!
Have you always wanted to see alien arms fly off when you attack them? Well, even if you hadn’t, you still get it. Feedback is welcome, and we are planning to add more to this in the future.
A major point of concern was how the trappers were too punishing. And while we do want them to make the game more challenging, it’s always about finding that sweet spot between fun and tedious. Hopefully, you will like the changes made.
There are so many things, big or small, which have been improved upon or added to the game since our first Closed Alpha test. And, there is more to come. For now, we hope you will enjoy the game and continue sharing valuable feedback with us.
Much Love,
The DarkSwarm Team