Greetings, Captain.
A highly productive Closed Beta, thanks to both our efforts and those of our Beta testers, has ended and Early Access is finally upon us. As Boat Crew enters a new era of even higher development tempo and maturation, we're glad to have you aboard and think it is only fair that you should know our course if we are to ask you to join us in our journey. To this end, we would like to share our roadmap for Early Access with you, and discuss our goals and progress in as much detail and transparency as possible. We find it effective and manageable to split development into two-week periods, with focused development being followed by a developer diary on what has been accomplished in these two weeks and on what our goals are for the following two. These diaries will be going into as much detail as possible, hopefully without being too drawn out, and we ourselves will be available on our Discord channel (https://discord.gg/ZgbuKrge8K) for discussions, suggestions and bug reports. Before we begin our first developer diary, here is a brief overview of our current roadmap, with the current week marked (*):
The Roadmap has been updated and replaced by a version-based Roadmap as discussed in Developer's Diaries discussing the setbacks and the subsequent decision to re-boot the Developer's Diary series. The Legacy Roadmap can still be seen in the older Diaries, while the one you see here is up-to-date.
Roadmap:
Gathering Storm - Pre-Campaign Work
- Tutorial
- Challenges
- Fleet Endurance and Basic Customization
v1.4 | Campaign Preview v1
Features:
- Campaign game mode
- Permadeath of boats and characters in Fleet Endurance and Campaign
- Crew enlistment management
- Crew traits
- Crew gear customization
- Crew skill rebalance
- Crew animation additions
- Steam cloud save
v1.4.1 | Fire Support
- Focus on Call-ins and Call-in customization
v1.4.2 | Home Improvement
- Focus on Tech Tree fundamentals for usage on all sorts of upgrades and unlocks.
v1.4.3 | Thunder
- Rework and expansion of artillery based weapons
- Weather mechanics on world map
- Weather visual improvements in gameplay
- Wind effect on crafts
v1.4.4 | Armory
- Implementation of variant and improvement systems for existing arms
v1.4.5 | Fleet Endurance Preview v2
- PC-461 playable
- Fleet Endurance map selection
- Fleet Endurance friendly positioning management
v1.5.0 | Campaign Preview v2
- Campaign extension to New Britain and Eastern Papua New Guinea
- Improved area presets for engagements to better resemble the world map
- Squadron management
- Replay system
- Special Missions
v1.5.1 | Coordinated
- New AI features for units
- Public level editor support
- Workshop Integration
v1.6.x | Vast Distances
- Possible sidegrade to custom ocean from Crest
- Public craft creation tools
- Various reworks on unsatisfactory implementations
v1.7.x | Classified
- Classified
0th Developer's Diary - Launch!
Current Situation:
Boat Crew slips anchor with three playable PT boats, several friendly and enemy unit types, complete mechanics, and action-packed combat to be found among the several Challenges available. Challenges are individual missions with pre-set loadouts of boats, as well as a time and score system. They're meant to provide bite-sized pieces of the Boat Crew experience and are great for getting acclimated to the game, trying different things our or just some fighting when you aren't feeling like committing to a full Campaign.
Challenges are balanced with the provided loadout in mind, and each Challenge is assigned a difficulty rating. Challenge difficulties range from pleasant cruises to pitched engagements that will put your skills to the test, so we recommend going through them all! Even if you think a challenge might be too easy for you, you might end up finding an interesting scenario or a unit you thought was cool to encounter.
Several Challenges were already in the Closed Beta, with even more being added on Launch. On the whole, Challenges are not meant to be all or even a large part of the Boat Crew experience; they're only the first step in a great journey, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of fun (and learning) to be had!
The original intention was to release the Campaign in the beginning of Early Access, but as the scope of the Campaign increased, we realized that a barebones launch would take away from the excitement of the finalized Campaign. In the current stage of development, the Campaign, for lack of a better word, is "playable" with a few minor adjustments. However, we thought that, with many of the core mechanics of the Campaign yet to be added, it would be an underwhelming experience next to our Challenges, and figured that the Campaign should be released not in a "playable" state but in an "almost complete" state with most of its core features established. This is something we hope and expect to accomplish within the month of August, with the rest of the Early Access period dedicated to iterating on the Campaign. We will be discussing the details of this throughout our Developer Diaries, but for now, the Campaign is only available as a Spectator Mode; a sort of teaser where you can see engagements unfold between IJN and USN forces over the course of a grand campaign for the control of Solomon Islands.
Goals for the Next Cycle:
First of all, we're looking to add preliminary customization. As customization is a huge part of our vision for Boat Crew, if we hope for it to be expansive, we had to start quite early at it; and so we have. Many customization related steps have already been taken; the UIs are mostly complete, different camouflage patterns are available at colors of your choosing and we even have multiple options for crews to wear. In fact, some of our work on customization predates the Closed Beta period. However, we currently only have Challenges as a matured combat mode, which don't lend themselves well to customization due to their independent nature, so we're looking to introduce a new mode: Wave Survival.
As the name implies, Wave Survival is meant to be a mode where the player fights off waves of increasingly stronger enemies, with replenishment provided in between waves. Each wave will be allotted a certain amount of points to spawn units with, increasing between waves. Points will be adjustable to allow for custom difficulty settings. The player will be able to enter this mode with their custom boat, making it the perfect test environment for a given loadout as well as the player's mettle. Wave Survival will also have a Fleet Manager, where the player will be able to purchase allied units to support them with the resources accrued through successful engagements.
In the meantime, new units will be added routinely over the Early Access period. We intend these to be done in batches and in short, irregular intervals, and so they won't always be specifically mentioned in Developer Diaries. Mentions will be made where possible and each new unit will be testable on Wave Survival, and new additions will also filter back to the existing challenges every now and then.
Work on the Campaign will also continue behind the scenes.
Pricing Policy:
We'd also like to talk about our intended pricing policy for Boat Crew and most likely future Tabbing Tabby games. Boat Crew will be priced at $20 for the first half of the Early Access period, with the price being increased to $25 at the second half. During the first week of Early Access, there will be a 20% discount to show our appreciation for our very early followers, meaning Boat Crew will be available at $16 for a short time.
Regional prices may vary; but in general, the first week will have a 20% discount and after the week ends, the price will remain constant until the second half of Early Access for a 25% increase in price to $25. Release will see Boat Crew reach its final price, most likely of $30, from which point onward there will be no further increases or discounts unless there are exceptional and unpredictable circumstances.
This is to say that as a studio of gamers looking to make games that we ourselves would like to play, we're adopting a no discount beyond the first week policy. The reasoning for this is two-fold; the first is that we want to be upfront with what our players can expect from us and match those expectations. Boat Crew is a niche game, and we would rather try and ensure everybody who puts their faith in our work feels the game is worth the asking price than to cast the net for more customers with sales.
The second is that we feel that discounts, while increasing sales in the short run, end up doing so by getting the game to people who may not be very invested and get the game on a lark, diluting the player base. As a fledgling indie studio, building a tightly knit community who has an earned trust in us that they will get their money's worth from our projects, Boat Crew and future, is more important to us than the short term boosts in revenue sales would bring us. And in all honesty; sales just feel bad if you narrowly missed them! Nobody wants to pay something for a game only to find out they would have gotten it for a fourth of the price if they had waited a couple weeks, and being avid gamers, we can say we've been there!
A no discount policy is an uncommon (though not unprecedented) policy, particularly for an indie studio. Nevertheless, for the reasons we outlined above, after due consideration, we believe it is a strongly justified stance.
Closing Remarks:
Thanks for being with us so far, Captain! We've come far, and we still have a ways to go. If you find it within you, join us in our journey, and be on the lookout for regular updates.
We'll see you on the battlefield,
T.T.