Hey folks!
It's Dante here again! Sorry for all the silence on our end.
In the interest of transparency, we'd like to shed some light on a few things that have been going on behind the scenes and give you all an update on the roadmap for ExtraGalactica moving forward. We'll start with where we've been and then we'll talk about where we're going but before we get started I just want to say a heartfelt "Thank you" to everyone who has supported this project in large and small ways. We wouldn't have made it this far without you.
Where We've Been
Since day one, we have been very open about the fact that we are a small team with no financial backing. It's one of the first things listed on our Steam store page. To keep this in perspective, while Dave and Nate do excellent work on Audio and 3D models whenever we reach out to them for stuff, the remainder of the contributions that make up ExtraGalactica come from Matt and myself (Dante). That is how it has been since we started working on rebuilding and reimagining ExtraGalactica in early 2019 and there is no sign of that changing any time soon.
Matt and I have always worked full time jobs throughout development, often times with regular overtime. Every hour we put back into ExtraGalactica is simply because we want this game to exist and to share it with anyone who might like it. Unfortunately, this puts us in a position where major life events for Matt and I have a very big impact on development. Every job change, busy season, sickness, breakup, demotivating technical problem, loss of development hardware, you name it. The loss of both my mom and Matt's mom in the last year and a half... It all adds up to a heavy toll. And when our development time comes from the 1-3 unpaid hours we can squeeze out at the end of a work day or the odd weekend lockout when the stars align, that's the first time to get stolen away for life's problems. But please do not mistake this for excuses. All of us involved with this game wish it was already complete and available to share with you.
Out of all of this, a very unhealthy pattern was forming where the biggest pushes towards updates/releases for ExtraGalactica were overlapping with very heavy times in our lives. While we'd make it across these shorter goal lines, one or more of us would burn out for a bit as a result. This cycle of burnout/rest/rally showed that every time we got to the rally phase it was harder than the time before. That has been a big hurdle for us. But today, we have more time and resources available to us than we ever have.
In our most recent development cycles, we explored both local multiplayer (with Remote Play support) and online multiplayer modes. This meant handling a lot of large technical hurdles that took time for us to work out but we never got either mode to a point where we were happy to release it. Behind the scenes, we've always worked on the platformer portion of Campaign trying to build up a preview to share with the community. So while there has been work ongoing where possible, nothing hit a point where we felt it could be released.
Where We're Going
Matt and I reconvened over the summer and set up a plan to use August and September to do everything we needed to get back on the horse. This included redesigning large portions of what we consider ExtraGalactica to be. This also meant cutting Multiplayer, local or online. Our previous designs were much more linear than our new plan which also means a lot (if not all) of our levels need to be reworked or scrapped entirely. But this is ok. Matt and I have had a long time working with the bits of platformer that we already have and this gives us a very good plan for how this work will be done.
Our redesign for campaign will lean more into roguelike territory in how we will transition between space shooter and platformer sections of gameplay. It will also change how we approach boss fights in both sections. Our goal is to make a whole playthrough of the campaign take less time than before but the results should be much more interesting from run to run. We are exploring possibilities with this new design that will hopefully allow us to make the campaign mode available to the public at a quicker pace. Then with further updates we will expand the content within the mode until we feel the game is ready for a full release.
As of now, we have also updated our Steam Store page to reflect our new designs and roadmap expectations. This includes lowering the price until more content is available. Even once we have a first version of campaign mode available, we will not be going back up to full price until we fully release the game. While we likely won't be very active on Twitter or Facebook, we will be committing to releasing a blog post here on Steam at least once a month. We are hoping this will prevent communication droughts but set realistic expectations as we no longer stream game development sessions and would like to focus our attention on getting the most out of our development time.
Again, thank you to those who have stuck with us this far! Matt and I are feeling really good about ramping back up on this!