First, I'd like to thank everyone who has purchased Artificial Extinction 2, left a positive review, shared feedback, and continued helping me improve the game. I've been reading your comments and thinking carefully about where to take the game next. I've learned that players enjoy different styles of gameplay. Some enjoy careful planning, while others want to spend less time building and more time fighting. Rather than trying to guess the perfect balance, I'd like to experiment together.
Over the next week, I plan to release a new Experimental Branch on Steam. The goal isn't simply to make the game easier or harder. Instead, I want to give players more control over certain gameplay settings and explore how different combinations affect the overall experience. Your feedback during this process will help identify which ideas are worth developing further and which should remain experiments. One of the most common requests has been for faster base construction, often through the addition of a second Replicator Drone. Rather than solve the problem that way, I'd like to explore a different approach: what if players simply didn't need to build as many turrets in the first place? Perhaps fewer, stronger, more expensive defenses create a more enjoyable experience while still preserving the strategic planning that Artificial Extinction 2 was designed around. There may be other interesting possibilities as well, and that's exactly what this Experimental Branch is intended to discover. Not every experiment will become part of the main game, but every experiment teaches us something. I'm looking forward to seeing what we discover together.
I'm also happy to announce that the Steam Demo will be returning. The demo gives new players an opportunity to experience Artificial Extinction 2 before purchasing, and I'm hoping it will introduce more people to the game and continue growing our community.
I'm aiming to release the Experimental Branch within the next week and will share more details as development progresses. As always, thank you for your continued support.