Hello Everyone,
After a somewhat lenghty wait, the scouts are finally back on duty! As some of you probably know, the financial situation in the PC-VR sector is a bit difficult at the moment. In respect to Snow Scout, it's even harder, as I simply made my VR "dream game" without minding too much what most people actually want to play. To me as the game designer, VR means as much immersion as possible, so I pretty much play everything in a standing position. On top of that, I really love movment-intense VR games, which are a great way to burn calories while playing. Turns out though, most players prefer playing VR sitting down and being relaxed instead of active. So I probably should have known that Snow Scout would not sell too well - but it turned out not to sell at all, more or less.
So after we worked on the game full-time for 9 month with 3 freelancers, I had spent about $135,000 and the income from the game was pretty much zero. Up until now, the Steam payout from the game is pretty much exactly $1,000 in total. You don't have to be a math genius to figure out that continuing work on the game in this vein was impossible. Instead, I had to focus on making money through paid jobs for a couple of months, while the rest of the team left. I was limited to working on Snow Scout on the side, as I definitely want to improve the game itself, but also make it more accessible to all those players (aka pretty much everyone) who do not share my idea of what a great VR game should be like ;)
So finally, Build 109 is here. It's kind of a launch pad for new features which are still under development. When starting a new game, you will now get a somewhat lengthy explanation about calorie-crushing standing vs relaxing seated gameplay and a chance to choose from the different options. However, the alternative control methods to move your skier with button presses instead of body motions has not been implemented yet. What's there though is some help against motion sickness in the form of vignettes and snap turning.
In the same vein, the game now has an actual "AR overlay" that is visible whenever you are outside, wearing your Snow Scout AR goggles. This orange HUD is supposed to help reduce motion sickness, but also, it's a starting point for player-guiding graphic overlays which I'll add in the coming weeks.
So these are the two main directions I'm going to expand the game towards in the future. Of course, on the way there are lots of visual and acoustic improvements as well as added polish, which will hopefully reduce the jankiness the game still has in a number of areas. A good showcase for improvements in this build is the "avalanche cannon" task, which has been completely revamped.
Aside from all that, the game is of course still playable from start to finish. If you come across any issue, please don't hestitate to post it here in the discussion threads for the game, or join or Discord:
https://discord.gg/tr2TtKEyqr
So keep on scoutin',
Kalle from Tunermaxx
*[EDIT]: I just upgraded to Build 110. Now, you can choose seated mode in the beginning or turn "Stick Pushoff" on in the tablet computer's settings menu. Now, you are able to simply push off by moving the joystick forward. This motion basically replicates pushing off with the ski stick on that side. So in order to do cross-country skiing, it's best to push up on the left and then the right controller alternatingly. And don't forget that in order to steer, you'll have to tilt the controllers a bit forward, so the end of the sticks comfortably clear the ground.