How's it going, Jumpers?
Don't forget to drink water.
By the time you read this we will have closed the Demo, meaning it will no longer be playable.
We sincerely hope you've enjoyed this little taste of Jump Space over the last few weeks.
As we will get into below, there's a lot of improvements we will make between now and Early Access launch. We can deliver a much better experience, and we don't want you to burn out on just a handful of missions.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, after all.
So how did Next Fest go??
What funky little stats do we have from the Demo?
Check it out:
We are currently at over 950K wishlists which is a crazy number.
Getting 1 million before launching is something we never considered remotely feasible - but here we are maybe going to see it happen.
Landing at the Top #3 Demo spot during Next Fest made us very, very happy.
The hard work seems to have been worth it.
Responding to the most common feedback points of the demo!
First and foremost - thank you for leaving all your feedback and suggestions in Discord, our form or on Steam. We've tried to read as much of it as possible, and we feel we have a great grasp of what you like and what should be improved ASAP to make the best experience possible.
Shoutout to you who sent crash reports in Discord if you ran into a rare weird crash - hammering those out before launch is great, to ensure a smooth launch for 100% of players.
We wanted to jump into addressing the most common feedback topics right away, cause we're serious about improving the game, y'all!
So Groove and Filip Coulianos from the team sat down and went through the 20-or-so most feedback-iest points and give answers to how we're fixing those things specifically.
If you don't feel like watching the video above, we'll lay out each topic and answer here:
1. Roguelite elements / "Why don't we keep the stuff we find into the next mission?"
A: This is a big priority for us. Even though we will stick to our core of missions being Roguelite in design, we can certainly fix the frustration of not being rewarded for collecting things. Converting collected loot and unused items into Credits by mission end is the very least we can do, and that will be added to the main game.
Just for context of why we straight up don't let you keep things:
Keeping all gear between missions will have players quickly finding the best MK3 weapons and being permanently too powerful. That just makes every mission too easy and the challenge of the game falls apart.
We have a design solution that we are confident will make both the Roguelite enjoyers and Roguelite dislikers happy. We can't talk about it yet, as we have to implement and test it first.
It's okay for us to break the mold and try something in the middle-ground that makes the most sense for the game.
But as mentioned, we think this design fix will be super good and also enhance this "Space Fantasy" we are striving for with the game.
2. Aim-Assist is weird / Playing on controller has several issues, Keybinding etc.
A: First and foremost - sorry!
The controller experience has not been as prioritized as it should have been, but rest assured that all of these technical issues as well as keybinding struggles will be fixed.
Players will undoubtedly run into more problems that we haven't thought about, but we will fix these on the fly going forward - because we do care!
And regarding the magnetic, super strong aim-assist: We will add a slider for this and just make it behave normally.
Rest assured - we will fix ːsteamthumbsupː
3. Solo Play is difficulty / BuddyBot is unhelpful and wastes ammo
A: Absolutely true, we agree with this.
For context: BuddyBot was a feature we had on our roadmap, but were not planning on implementing this early.
During closed beta, WAY more players than we expected wanted to play at least partially solo, so we had to - in a short amount of time - jam BuddyBot in to start testing solo play.
He is a very new feature, so of course players have run into pain points.
We are working on BuddyBot right now to make sure he doesn't shoot into asteroids or spend your hard-earned Materia in stupid ways. We just finished making him able to craft repair kits!
We will improve Buddy over time, with the goal of eventually having him be able to do every task that a normal player can.
So as this happens, Solo play will get more stable and balanced, and we will of course look into any other difficulty scaling tweaks we need to make.
4. Upping Player Limit to 6-8 Players
A: It's not the highest priority. What limits us most is game design, rather than anything technical.
We've made everything with max 4 people in mind, so for larger crews we'd have to think about new, specific mission types that feel suitable, otherwise people will have nothing to do or things might get too easy - it's a fine line to walk.
We want to make sure the game runs great, feels good, has all the features we want before we can start thinking about 5+ players.
At some point in the future we will talk about it and see if the game can be adapted.
We're also curious to see going forward if a larger part of the playerbase will request this, or if it's only a vocal minority that want 5+ players.
We assume people majorly want max 4 players, but if we are wrong then we have to make sure we can start working on that sooner.
5. Sliding while on-foot, more movement
A: Yes, it's coming.
Might not be in exactly at Early Access launch but very soon after.
We wanna make it a BIG DEAL lol, and send it off with flying colors.
6. Matchingmaking or Lobby Browser?
A: Lobby Browser is coming to Early Access.
This was another thing was de-prioritized a little bit because testers actually didn't seem to mind, and lobbied up by inviting through Steam Friends.
We will let you have a Public or Private lobby, where you can name it something funny and hope people join or specify what kind of players you want to play with (tryhards or casuals).
We think this is a better allocation of our resources than doing an algorithm-matchmaking thingy.
7. Endless Mode
A: Short answer is Yes!
Maybe not included right at Early Access launch but coming soon after.
There will be several ways of playing Endless (we're not confident enough to share all the details yet)
Maybe Challenge Rating above 5? It just keeps going? Who knows...
We haven't decided on whether we want a save feature in Endless, so you can leave and continue that run later. Or if we want it to be a non-stop gauntlet and you have to commit to several hours of HARDCORE in one sitting to beat the record.
Maybe both?
8. Smart-Pings?
A: It's not on our immediate roadmap.
There are other, easier aspects we can improve, like coloring pings to player colors to see who pinged what.
Hopefully you can supplement all your communication needs with the text chat.
9. 1st Person Pilot View / Free Look
A: That's been a requested feature for maybe a year now, and something we want as well.
We're just about getting to it on the to-do list, so if it's not in for Early Access launch, it will come shortly after. We're very excited to have it, we want that IMMERSION, BABY.
10. More for Pilots and Scanner users to do
A: We absolutely recognize that since dodging things isn't super consistent, sometimes the pilot only points and shoots, and the Scanner is extremely basic right now.
The Pilot dogfighting gameplay is quite a high priority. Allowing players to avoid and dodge things is something we're working on right now. A new engine component in Early Access will give the Pilot flares that you can drop, to counter homing missiles for example.
A silent engine for more sneaking, engines that might have much more Boost - stuff like that is coming!
The Scanner will receive other components in Early Access that will make it much more interesting. You can call in Supply Beacons every X amount of jumps from the Scanner. Another will be able to mark enemy ships which will increase damage dealt to them.
The basic Scanner functionality in itself will receive a design rework at some point, to make it more immersive and interesting. Have more hidden things that forces you to use the Scanner and stuff like that.
11. FPS Combat feels a little basic
A: We have a lot of ideas floating around for adding further spice to this (grenades, turrets etc.)
A common request has been a dedicated melee weapon, which we will add!
We have a wrench model that we're just about to put in, but we definitely want to make melee a more viable strategy and maybe even necessary for some enemy types.
Another aspect of this is enemy variety.
We have a few enemies right now that do more than just stand and shoot, but we want to explore and widen up the types of enemies you're facing and how they force you as players to play differently to overcome them.
Internally, the team has always been like "We need something like the Left4Dead Witch, that'd be so coool!"
So we might take some inspiration there, but cooler enemy variety is definitely coming as well.
12. Official Flight Stick / HOTAS support
A: Short answer is maybe!
We'll have to follow the statistics on this one.
We've heard many, many requests for this, but in the grand scheme of things perhaps this is a vocal minority and we are better of prioritizing it further into the future (but hey if you're a HOTAS enjoyer reading this - we want it just as much as you do, we just gotta prioritize <3)
At some point we will do it, unless modders add super good support for it before we can.
13. Text Chat and Voice Chat
A: We are working on text chat right now, because it's a must-have.
With voice chat, we have our great Discord server and we'd like as many of you as possible to use that or other reliable way to have voice comms.
So voice is not something for the immediate future. At some point later we'll probably add it, but for now it doesn't feel as critical as text chat.
Maybe by then we have an idea for a cool proximity filter effect to add more immersion! ːsteamthumbsupː
14. More Graphics Options
A: Absolutely!
This was just one of those things that didn't make it into the demo, but of course we want even potato PCs to run the game as well as possible.
More options will come, whole bunch of boxes to uncheck and Gamma sliders, don't you worry.
15. "Please add a Big Player Ship with Smaller Fighter Ships inside"
A: We had something similar in the earliest prototype of the game!
(Search "HyperSpace : Pirates of Atira - Flying Hauler Drone" on YouTube to find it)
That drone was kinda slow, so it was removed from the core design of Jump Ship, but the fantasy is still alive!
What we are looking into is maybe making a component that can spawn a remote-controlled device or tiny ship. So that you can act out that fantasy not just in a big ship with a cargo bay but in any ship.
Much designing on that is still left to do but TLDR; Before we are done with Jump Ship, we will add small fighter ships somehow.
16. Power Grid layout resetting after every mission
A: We have made that change now, so in Early Access the power grid will NOT keep resetting!
We will also add a Power Grid representation in the hangar itself a bit later, so that you can preview the layout and fix it before you even start a mission.
17. "Let us enter the Ship while it's sitting in the Hangar!"
A: We knooow! It's so tempting but we force you to jump to your doom just to get close to it!
Entering the ship in the hangar is purely a technical issue.
For example, the host can cycle between ships in the hangar once you've unlocked more than 1 ship.
If another player is already inside the ship while it's being swapped out, what happens then?
Stuff like that. The ship is basically a level by itself.
We want that fantasy as well, but it's a big technical thing to solve.
We'll leave it for later in the future, since it's more of a "cool to have" and the game is great even without that feature.
18. More opportunities to join missions / be able to rejoin immediately after a disconnect
A: Trust us - forcing players to wait until the next jump in the mission happens for you to be able to join the session is NOT a design choice - it's another technical limitation.
The game is technically complicated, with our large map sizes and players being able to spread out kilometers apart. Syncing all that data to a new player that's just joining has proven to be a big challenge.
Which is why currently it's way easier for us to only allow players to join when a jump happens, since then we only need to sync all player positions inside the ship and make sure all that is the same across all connections in the session.
We can probably solve this piece-by-piece going forward.
Meaning that later on we can allow players to join mid-bubble but only when all players are inside the ship and not in combat for example. Later we can increase that "okay when X or Y isn't happening, then players can join regardless of where everyone else is on the map."
Give us time to overcome the technical obstacles and we'll improve the mid-mission joining.
19. Ship Shields are confusing and so are some components
A: We've heard a lot about players not understanding how the Shield Generator or "Protected Power" mechanic works, and that's totally valid.
We've reworked the ship shield system many times, and we're STILL not happy with how it works right now. It will be reworked yet again between now and Early Access.
Can't talk about it too much, but shields will be more of a Pilot responsibility and not just another flat, dull health bar.
Many components that you haven't seen yet also lack clear descriptions, so that's something we will work on. Helpful tooltips for how everything works, which includes explaining protected power.
20. Tutorial Improvements
A: This goes hand-in-hand with the above topic of not explaining everything clearly.
We sort of want players to figure some stuff out themselves outside of the prologue tutorial. For example, the prologue doesn't talk to you about the gunner seat, but eventually most players jump into it and figure out it's intended use.
We also strongly keep in mind that most people probably don't want to sit in a 30-minute tutorial in a co-op game when their friends are waiting. So keeping the tutorial as brief as possible while explaining the critical, very core concepts is a fine line to walk.
When it comes to the issue of players not feeling like they understand mechanics or systems, that's something we can solve with UI or UX improvements, better tooltips rather than making the tutorial needlessly THICK with explaining that you might not even remember.
21. Iris and Buddy talk way too much
A: Believe us - they used to talk way more.
I think we just default to a lot of voice lines to confirm that voice events trigger when they're supposed to, and then we just leave it like that lol.
We can definitely look into that, maybe by adding a slider for Buddy and Iris, or by just cutting their chatter by half in general.
Phew!
I hope that's put your concerns to rest and gotten you even more excited about the looming Early Access launch of Jump Ship.
That's all for now!
Stay tuned for an announcement regarding launch date - it won't be long now!
After that we'll post a detailed Roadmap to let you know what features that will make it into the launch build of the game, and what will be added during "Year 1" and in what order.
Fly safe during summer, Jumpers.
- The Keepsake Crew
(INCREDIBLE fanart by @mattdezine from our Discord)