Hoot up, everyone!
Only two weeks left until the release of Helvetii. I'm both pretty excited and nervous, to say the least.
With the 3rd of February looming over, I wanted to take some time to talk a bit about our plans up to the release of the game as well as what's in store for the immediate future (and maybe slightly beyond), i.e. patch 1.1 and beyond.
Demo end and post-release support
First of all, a week from now we will be taking down the Helvetii demo. Beta access will also be revoked at that point for the private testers.
The reason for taking down the demo is pretty simple: taking care of all the versions of Helvetii (not just on Steam, but consoles as well) is a not-insignificant-amount of work for a small team such as ours. So having to update the demo as well would be a bit much for us.
You might ask "Why not leave it as is?". It is simply because we think the demo would not be a good representation of the actual product anymore. Even now, the release version already has a bunch of fixes compared to the current demo.
I understand that some people might be disappointed as they like being able to test a product before buying it and I get it. But our ressources are pretty limited as is.
With that said, and to be fairly blunt, the steam refund system is there if you need a demo of the game and aren't sure about your purchase.
Once release hits, we will prioritize our efforts on keeping an eye out for any sort of major bugs and early feedback, in case we need to readjust some things first. We also have the physical Kickstarter rewards to wrap up and send.
Other than that, we'll keep a rather low profile during these first few weeks. Don't expect anything major during that time period.
However, I will continue to use Steam news to keep you all in the loop when I have significant updates to share.
Speaking of which
Working on 1.1(aka "The Cooking Patch")
Okay, here's the real meat and potatoes (in more ways than you think).
We have at least a couple patches planned for the future of Helvetii (1.1 and 1.2). Both of those will serve to add a bit more content as well as addressing some core issues that we couldn't really address before release.
Notably, we want to add a bit of flavor to the runs, continuing to improve the flow and feel of combat and giving extra options to players over time.
Of course we won't be able to do everything at once, but we have laid out some things we want to work on for these first two patches.
As for an ETA of their release: none for the moment.
My hope is "not too long", as some of the visual content for the first patch has already been done. My hope is to have 1.1 done before the middle of the year, and then 1.2 on the second half of 2023 at the most.
As for what will be in the first patch....
Quality of life/Upgrade screen improvements
One of the things we wanted to do ASAP is bring a few improvements to the user experience.
Notably, we want to make the Sigils (aka the "Upgrade screen" on the character select menu) a bit more useful and comprehensible.
The game has a lot of obtainable upgrades for individual characters as well as the whole team that people might not even know about. Not only that, but the current "toggle" option is pretty much not functioning properly, so we'll be fixing that.
(Below is a mockup, so might see some slight changes)
Sigils will now be ordered by "Acquired/Unlocked/Locked", with the toggle being now for characters instead. More importantly, "Locked" will also show the unlock condition so that you know what to work towards.
Item improvement and additional moves
Another point we want to improve is the uniqueness of items during run, especially character-specific items.
Right now, you might've come across some items that would improve Divico's moveset for instance. Not just visually, but by adding extra effects or hits.
We want to have a bit more of that extra flair across all characters to make runs feel a bit more unique for each character (regardless of the summons). This includes improvements/changes to existing items, as well as a bunch of new ones that will bring some new options for the characters.
In addition, we will be adding a new move to every character's base kit, a "Dash-Throw cancel" (i.e cancelling your dash with a projectile attack).
These moves will work a bit similarily to regular dash-attacks but will have a bit of a mana cost associated with them (since it's a projectile attack) and are designed towards a more "repositionning" role.
Here's an example for Divico. Obviously a bit WIP and in our secret "testing stuff out" room.
Divico's cancel hits the enemy twice before turning and throwing an axe (which can also get you a wall bounce). Note that the mana cost only triggers on the axe throw after the jump, so savvy fighters could potentially jump cancel before it to save some mana.
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Moving forward, updating the moveset through items, base kit or even unlocks will always be on the docket as we think a lot of players enjoy having more tools to their kit.
Cooking!!!
And the one i'm the most excited for: ~COOKING~.
Cooking will be a new minigame added to campfire scenes in-between levels (alongside the resting and dice game options).
Bob and the Boblings are ready to introduce you to Owl Cuisine.
Sitting on too many coins?
Characters maybe a bit low on stats to get that perfect run?
Well then, let Bob cook something up for you!
This mini-game will allow you to spend some of your money to get some (hopefully) delicious meals that will improve the stats across your entire team.
However, quality of said meals will rely on your own abilities to follow Bob's instructions... he's not about to cut those vegetables all by himself after all.
I will be posting more about Bob's cooking minigame once we get closer to the release of the patch!
And more ??
Of course there are some extra things I'm keeping under wraps. Adjustments, combat tweaks, maybe some encounters... but I don't want to unveil everything just yet.
As for 1.2, I will stay rather coy on that too.
What I can say is that while 1.1 will focus more on individual characters, items and fluff, 1.2 will focus more on "Summons and encounters".
I'll leave it at that for now ~
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In any case, hope you enjoyed this little sneak peek! And I hope you will enjoy the release of Helvetii as well. I am very excited to finally get this game into everyone's hands.
Don't hesitate to post here if you have any questions regarding release or the game itself!
In the meantime, hooting doooown.