I had planned on getting the Early Access program going this past month, with the first public alpha build of Nectira going live in September.
As I got closer and closer to hitting various “publish” buttons, I was feeling a bit trigger-shy. After taking time to think it through, I realized my game had too many lapses for me to feel comfortable offering it to you. I imagined people stepping into an experience that would have been short of expectation; one not instantly satisfying the feeling of getting one’s money’s worth. (I want the first Alpha release to easily feel worth the price you’ll pay for the full game).
In spite of hours of fun, glaring flaws had me switching gears, from polishing to production. New features since then include:
- Save/Load System,
- An updated options menu,
- Title screen,
- Entirely re-balanced levels (to scale with the current progression of content)
- Everything I previously had in mind to complete by September (3 island progression, difficulty scaling, new music and “cleaning up”)
If you are one of the few who were looking forward to a September alpha release, sorry for the wait. Otherwise, if you’re someone who buys the game later, reading back, I hope you’ll agree that the game would have been much less enjoyable if anything was missing from what you’re now playing.
Looking Ahead:
Already, after having the extra few weeks to focus on progress rather than polish, I’m excited to share where the game has made it to. To be safe, I now plan to spend all of October in development-mode, finally releasing a solid alpha build around the beginning of November.
My main goal this month is to develop the introduction to the game’s story. It’s satisfying to see the world change as you progress through realms, but it’s missing a personal element, which the story is obviously meant to engage. This goal will wrangle in the starting realm, which means:
- a new realm type
- a couple new corresponding trap types,
- a boss
- a few characters
- some events and the like
Optimistic-goals will include:
- 3 additional Yarku types, which will each work much differently than the current core-army units in the game.
- I may also add a couple tracks to the musical score.
Expect the actual launch in November!