See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

January came and went and along with it several flu strains and other illnesses affected various members of the team, including your friendly update poster @toastyjustice. Having taken the time to recover, we’re back with a quick development update prior to showing off the stuff we had hoped to last month.

Alpha 109 is scheduled to be done soon, as late as middle of next week. Bug fixes, platform frame rate improvements, enemy changes and timers, and some boss tweaks are some of the various work we’ve got in the queue. There’s also more visuals to be added: upgrade capsule animations, Sombra sprites, lighting behaviour, and some additions to the title screen. It’s a mixed set of alpha changes that is not really focused on anything in particular, but rather follows our constant iterations and attention for building things into the game and improving upon them.

The next few posts to come will show off the armor, some animations, and excerpts from some of the cutscenes. These are all parts of the milestone we hit, which we referred to in the prior update. Since we’re not sure when the game is done, where exactly does this put us currently?

The milestone we hit was to have the set of content that makes for a ‘playable’ alpha. But 'playable’ does not mean publicly releasable, as we’re still some distance from that. Rather, it means that any member of our team should be able to pick up and play the game through to the end, as rough as some of those may be. They can save and load their game, acquire all the items, and get a sense of the unfolding storyline. So far, the things we have are the following:

• Opening cutscene.
• Intro stage, with containing smaller cutscenes to ramp up the story and the first boss.
• 4 'primary’ stages, each with a unique boss that will give Lyra an associated weapon.
• All the suit upgrades and heart/sub tank pickups available to try out.
• Final stage placeholders for progressing to the end game credits.

These aren’t all finished, but having all the parts in the game puts us in the best position to work from. It lets us build out the rest of the stages and game, tune the gameplay mechanics, and keep a standard of play through the alphas. We’ll be able to add sprites, mechanical polish, and fill in the holes as we keep things in a playable state. Meanwhile, the list of what we have done and in-progress is telling of the remaining work towards the game. The end of the game is developed in writing, but is being worked out stage-wise as well as conceptually. This includes bosses, which need some solid design and artwork, and the cutscenes that play into the climax and finale of the game.

TLDR: The team’s bouncing back from some recent ailments. Our 109 alpha is in the works and will feed into a series of posts showing off some of the current in-game features.

Let’s close out the 2016 year with another development update.

Dear Celestia A.I., there will be some good stuff coming in the 2017. This year has been a bit rough at times, but we’ve made a good steady pace. Once January is underway with the holidays over, we’ll show various features and progress that we’ve only talked about and not shown. Cutscenes, armor, and more will be featured in the new year’s updates as we finish up the remaining work in our 1st major alpha milestone.

What’s all this milestone business? It means we’ve hit all our core gameplay needs, and we’re ready to move on into iterations territory. Our 108th alpha build came out just before the holidays, with save/load game mechanics, various cutscene improvements, bug fixes, and a spiffy, fresh title screen:

The release also caused a few hiccups in the scripting files, and we’re waiting on the last sprite-work for our armor pieces to be in-game before that’s ready to show off.

As for what’s next and underway:

• End-of-game script-writing and boss design.
  
• Tileset sketches for completed stages.
  
• New and revised stage layouts.
  
• Weapon power sprite effects.
  
• Cutscene animations and portraits.
  
• Apple-flavored alpha testing.
  
• Updated UI improvements and features.
  

And that’s just the tip of what we’ve already got started as we continue past the year marker. Meanwhile, the team’s been gaming together, had members return with fixed computers, and are gathering fresh energy. Our newest team recruits have been diving into things and are off to a great start. We’ve got what it takes, and the love to make it great.

Now for the ever-burning question on your snow-sprinkled holiday brains:

When will the game be released?

We don’t know. It’s unlikely in to be in 2017, but if our pace quickens a bit, a beta build in the coming year is possible. And betas mean testing. We’ve received a lot of interest in playtesting, but we haven’t worked out an effective plan for how to approach it. If there’s anything we decide on, we’ll let you know here first.

Keep your asks and comments coming in, we’re always happy to hear from our fans.

TLDR: We have almost reached a milestone, and will be ready to show some stuff in Jan. There’s still lots to do, but the team is getting good at this, so we’re hoping for a 2017 beta.

Continue the cheer and friendship, sprinkle in some hard work, and be on the lookout for some robot-blasting fun in the new year.