Hey all,
First of all, thanks so much to everyone supporting the Early Access of Astronarch. I'm seeing a lot of positive feedback coming in already, and it is very encouraging.
Upcoming Features
There's no rest for the wicked as they say, so let's go over what the first few updates will contain. Aside from any bugs that pop up, there are 3 key features I'm working on alongside Act 2:
- A special feature which will give the heroes a buff or item at the start of each act. This feature will also give context on who the Astronarch are, and your quest.
- Choosing from the full hero pool in the tavern. Right now you get a random draft of 5 out of the 10 current heroes, which means you need to restart if you want to play with one in particular. There will be at least twice as many heroes in the full release, so a custom selection is really needed.
- Saving and resuming the game. Right now the only thing the game saves is your preferences in the settings. A run of Astronarch currently only takes 10-15 minutes, but in future it will be much longer, so this feature is needed going forward.
On Act 2
After the 3 features mentioned above have been implemented, Act 2 won't be far behind.
Upon completing Act 1, you will recruit an additional hero to your party before heading out in to a grimy city, where something has gone very wrong. Act 2 will have 3 subareas, same as Act 1, and also add 5 more playable heroes.
At the release of Act 2, the price of the game will increase slightly, however this won't affect anyone who already owns the game.
Timeline
The feature updates will begin rolling out in the next 2 weeks. Act 2 will take at least a month of dedication, very likely to be released in June. All of the background, character, and enemy art I am doing myself, so it is quite time consuming on top of the coding.
Astronarch will be going in to full release at the same time Act 3 is added. I won't make any hard dates on that just yet, but definitely this year. There will also be a difficulty progression system releasing with Act 3, but more on that at a later date.
Thanks again everyone for the support, it is greatly appreciated.
~ Dale.