MegaMare X Dev Update – Dec. 2016

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.

Anonymous asked:

I am happy that you are not releasing the game until it is complete. Don't you agree?

We do agree. And, although it’s hard to tell if this ask is sarcasm, we do think it is for the best for the game and our fans to release when it is complete, or at a least at significantly developed stage. An early Beta release, potentially to a list of interested testers, is a potential option. We’ll certainly have an update if decide to gather some testers to don the armor and blast their way through to success.

Anonymous asked:

Hi, Starlight! My name is Ben and I just want to say that what I've seen so far of this game looks absolutely amazing! Keep up the good work!

Thanks so much, Ben. We certainly will keep it up! We always appreciate hearing from our followers in support.

Anonymous asked:

Do you have any form of crowd-sourced funding so I can help make this a finished product?

We have not had any available funding, nor do we plan to anytime soon. Considering MegaMare X started as a volunteer project, it’s difficult to exactly decide fairness with distributing funds from and, of course, to manage the associated overhead.

ask-the-infiltrators asked:

How does the team over at Starlight Studios feel about someone using Mega Mare X as their muse in a RP or ask driven blog?

Now that you’re part of the team and have some background information on what is going on, it seems like a great idea. This was actually one of the ideas we had for tumblr, but with the workload of the game in mind and no spare writers we chose not to do it at the time.

jackiethefilly asked:

Since MLPOnline has been gone for a while, could I fork your code in bitbucket so I can make changes to make a copyrightless version of the pony game with an offline mode feature and a sandbox feel to it? I'll give full credit to you and of course the game is going to be free without premium stuff.

The MLPOnline source has been available on bitbucket for some time, and you are welcome to use it. Although it doesn’t have any licensing included, feel free to reach out to contact@starlightstudios.org if you want to speak to the engine developer or for other related questions.

Anonymous asked:

Will we see the Ultimate Armour in the game, like in Underpable's concept work? I really like the hovering digits. Also, will the "weapon charge" sound still undergo changes? The one in Phoe's demo sounds pretty annoying.

We have all but one piece of the Ultimate Armor in-game. Our sprite artist who works on the armor set is almost done with the remaining helmet sprite.

The sound is something where we have not gotten any solid work done for, although we do have a few alternatives from various attempts. However, they sound even more annoying at this point, so we do hope to make a better one!

Update soon, but first some ask responses

We’ve built up a queue of asks, and the holidays are a good time to answer some.

MegaMare X Dev Update – Oct. 2016

After a slow period during the summertime months, development has picked up following the joining of some new team members. We’ve welcomed @shinsart​ and Xujints to our ranks and they’re off to a good start. Shintari, as a sprite/pixel artist, has already begun making tilesets, while Xujints has begun on the dialogue and is helping with game design.

Spurred-on by by these team additions, we have produced three more alpha versions and are up to 106. These add placements for some missing items, change the intro boss, fix various gameplay issue, and improve our scripting capabilities for cutscenes. We just completed recent work on our underwater stage’s layout, and finished parts of our upgraded armor sprites, of which half are in-game already. A number of new intro cutscenes have been added, with more cutscenes in progress for the armor parts hidden among the stages.

Now that the exciting stuff you wanted to hear about is over, here’s some boring details on the team’s overall status:

Some of the slowness has been due to a lack of availability with the volunteer nature of the project. So, over the past couple months, we’ve been working with individual members to reduce the amount of churn. Although we are still lacking some of the needed talents for the amount of pixel art the game requires, we hope speed of work will pick-up gradually and be more reliable for continued development. There is also some hold-up with game-design decisions for latter parts of the game that are only roughly written out. So iterations are now in-progress on finalizing details to move those forward.

TLDR: We’re still at it, but nothing looks good in screenshots yet. But it will soon with our new team members!

MegaMare X Dev Update – Aug. 2016

August brings with it a development update! And it’s a special one, because it’s been almost exactly 3 years since MegaMare X made its debut at BronyCon 2013. So it’s a tech-demo anniversary update.

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But first to the development at hand. Summertime for most of our team members, with its sunshine and baking temperatures, has brought with it an unusual set of personal situations. July was especially slow due to this, which, while not good for making progress, doesn’t mean that we’re at a standstill.

We have another alpha update, our 103rd, and a related second in the pipeline for additional bugs, fixes, and scripting support. Our present goal continues toward building out some small pieces of the content for the main portion of the game, and then we are moving on to further design and content milestones. These next milestones to reach will delve into the final stages, their bosses, and the unfolding plot therein. While some decisions need to still be made, the coming months will have some answers and a rough completion of the alpha.

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We’ve come so far, and there’s more to do, but let’s go back 3 years to August 2013 to when our tech demo first hit the public!

Our team decided to get together and setup all we had on a table at BronyCon. MegaMare X had only been in development since the end of 2012 – but we were able to make a somewhat rushed (and often buggy) tech demo that made us realize just how much people enjoyed what we had created.

It was at a peak time during the fandom, and among other activities around us, we held down a table for the full three days over in the Salt Block Lounge. Helping everyone get a turn, listening and recording your feedback, and discussing where things might go.

It may have been a small table, but it often drew a crowd.

This was an exhilarating part of our early development that the team remembers fondly. Not only did it bring us together, but we had an overwhelmingly positive response to the demo, which encouraged us to dive into making the full game.

Looking back over the 3 years since, we’ve continued to have wonderful interactions with our fans. You guys help us keep this project going, and we couldn’t be more thankful for your support.

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Did you know you can see the tech demo? We had an exclusive MegaMare X demo review by Phoe if you’re looking to check out what it was like back then: