We've been hard at work since May applying (hopefully) what we learned from our last playtest, and we're ready to invite more people in for round two:
Our next playtest will run from August 31st to September 30th.
At the end of our last playtest in May:
The game was too hard.
There isn't enough variety or incentive to keep coming back for another run.
We needed to be better prepared to make significant balance changes partway into a playtest.
Our development focus has been:
Difficulty, where we introduced difficulty tiers, a secure slot, and rebalanced the sandbox
User Interface, which has been largely replaced and greatly simplified
Progression, where perks and unlocks have been decoupled and simplified
Additionally, there are quite a few other tweaks, refinements, and additions, such as:
Missions overhaul -- now found in-raid and expanded beyond proof-of-concept
Enemy concentrations -- where you're rewarded for opting into more challenge
Hub rework -- with (still largely POC) interactable kiosks and simplified interface
Ship identity -- name your ship and feel suddenly more attached to each bucket of bolts
We also welcomed a new member to our development team, BlackBox, who has been hard at work expanding our item sandbox for more variety, particularly in the early game:
We're going to let this playtest run a bit longer, to give us more time to respond and adjust while people are still playing. We're particularly interested to get some cooperative teams involved this time around, and with a longer run maybe you can find a weekend to get together with your friends!
We'd love to see you on Discord, where we're posting internal progress updates regularly. Feedback is a gift, and the primary source for change has been real players who take the time to share.
Bye for now,
-tol