Marketing

Development is still continuing, albeit more slowly.

I have been subsuming the responsibilities of my co-founder and taking over the marketing and Kickstarter process for our game.

Things are still going!

Alpha Testing Phase Started

Hey all,

We have finally reached the alpha testing stage of development.

Currently operational are these game mechanics:

•     Stars and galaxy - DONE
•     Planets - DONE
•     Planetary cities - DONE
•     Starship design - DONE
•     Starship production - DONE
•     Fleet creation - DONE
•     Research tree - DONE
•     Fiat currencies - DONE
•     Galaxy chat - DONE
•     Technology tree - DONE
•     Fleet travel between stars - DONE
•     Creation of new colonies - DONE
•     Fog of war - DONE

We will continue improving these mechanics based on tester feedback, and we are moving on to the next set of mechanics.

First Alpha Test Push

We are closing on the alpha test and Kickstarter launch, so I am going to cease regular posting on the blog for a bit during the final push to the first alpha test phase such that I can focus on finishing the product.

á na márië,
gumshoe, out.

Where We Are Now: April 2016 Edition

Hey all.

Brief update on our progress lately. 

We are still plugging away at the alpha client and have had a couple of major architectural changes.  First, we migrated the server-side cache from ConcurrentHashMap to Redis.  That was the easy part.  Second, we migrated the chat system from a polling AJAX to WebSockets.  This has proved much more difficult and tricky, but after several weeks of work should be done.

So our Alpha 1 feature list is looking like:

Alpha 1 mechanics:

•     Stars and galaxy - DONE
•     Planets - MOSTLY DONE
•     Planetary cities - DONE
•     Starship design - DONE
•     Starship production - DONE
•     Fleet creation - MOSTLY DONE
•     Research tree - MOSTLY DONE
•     Fiat currencies - DONE
•     Sovereign debt market - BEING DESIGNED
•     Galaxy chat - DONE
•     Technology tree - IN PROGRESS
•     Fleet travel between stars - MOSTLY DONE
•     Fog of war - DONE

We are planning on Kickstarter video shoot for sometime in June, then a few weeks of editing and we should be ready to alpha testing and Kickstarter goodness.

Fun times!

á na márië,
gumshoe, out.

Where We Are Now: January 2016 Edition

People -- chiefly gamers, friends, and family -- constantly ask me, "How close to done are you?"

This project is going to be divided into five primary phases: Pre-alpha, Alpha 1, Alpha 2, Closed Beta, and Open Beta prior to final product launch.

Across the overall project, I would estimate that we are 20-25% finished with all of the mechanics that we have presently planned for the game.

Alpha 1 will be a closed test by invite only.  We already have a list of around 16 players who have expressed interest in testing the Alpha 1 version of the game.

Alpha 1 mechanics:

• Stars and galaxy - DONE
• Planets - MOSTLY DONE
• Planetary cities - MOSTLY DONE
• Starship design - MOSTLY DONE
• Starship production - MOSTLY DONE
• Fleet creation - MOSTLY DONE
• Research tree - MOSTLY DONE
• Fiat currencies - MOSTLY DONE
• Galaxy chat - MOSTLY DONE
• Technology tree - IN PROGRESS
• Fleet travel - IN PROGRESS
• Fleet travel between stars - IN PROGRESS
• Fog of war - IN PROGRESS

By the time we reach Alpha 1, the game should be playable and empire expansion and basic platform and bug fixes will be the primary objective.

Based on our current progress and assuming no catastrophic events, I expect that we will be prepared for Alpha 1 within the next two to eight months.

Alpha 2 will also consist of closed testing by invite and players contributing to our KickStarter

The Alpha 2 features will generally (subject to change) include:

• Fleet combat & formations
• Planetary governors and fleet admirals
• Galactic Exchange for resource trading
• Galactic Council for diplomacy
• Planetary Sway, Discord, & revolt
• Espionage, Assassination, Sabotage, and Subversion spying

The Closed Beta will consist of a test by invite only, except the player list should expand to at least 1000.

The Closed Beta features will generally (subject to change) include:

• Federations (the 'guilds' in this game)
• Federation-level victory, bonuses, flagships, etc.
• Expanded trade and economics
• CETU star systems, fleets, and technology
• AI helper agents

The Open Beta will be a freely available test focused chiefly on ironing out bugs across the entire game and load testing servers.

So, now you know where we are, where we are going, and where you might fit into it.

á na márië,
gumshoe, out.