Welcome back Pioneers to a new installment of Weekly Apart. The last post was actually two weeks apart from today but now we're back from the Easter hiatus and have some exciting news to share. Ever since the announcement we have established the backbone of the game but now we're now laser focusing on building a demo - and want you to be a part (or rather Apart, hehe) of the process!
To be among the first mortals to get their hands on a playable build, please join our Discord server if you haven't already (and also check out our other social media channels). Since we value feedback from our first adopters, everyone on that server will get the chance to play the demo before it officially hits Steam. We're aiming for a demo release in mid-summer, because there are a few online festivals in Summer (including the Steam Strategy Fest) that would be the ideal framework to let fans of the genre build their first factories on Aurora.
Features in our assembly line
To be fully transparent and in line with our Glass Factory approach: There are still a ton of features that we have to work on, specifically the implementation and creation of music, sound effects and the Graphical User Interface. The latter is the most time consuming, since we are currently designing a bunch of sub elements such as various view modes of machines and characters to properly display crafting recipes and personal needs of the pioneers. Then there is the colony aspect of the game which involves selecting multiple characters, automated fulfillment of tasks and creating randomized movement pathways.
Also there are some major (and minor) improvements to the gameplay that we want to tackle in the upcoming months, namely creating basic but satisfying combat and tower defense mechanics as well as giving Aurora a much-needed visual update (if we find the time that is, as of right now all gameplay-related matters take precedence).
What you can expect from the demo
Finally there will be a round of polishing that involves enhancing the framerate, adding animations to machines, pioneers and vehicles as well as localizing the demo into English, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and Polish (the EA version will feature far more languages, but the most wishlists so far have been from those five language regions). Given that the first public build will feature a relatively modest amount of text we're going to translate it ourselves but may reach out to the community to have a look, so if you’re a native speaker and interested in minor translation work give us a holler.
Oh and by the way, while not a full prologue the demo will be structured as one, telling the story of the first pioneers to set foot on Aurora to build a landing pad which then acts as the base for the Kobayashi-Schwarz Corporation to send more colonists and materials to the planet.
As you can see we have our plates full and the demo is still a few months away. But we wanted to let you know early so you can have something to look forward to - and we have a way of saying thank you for being down from day one and championing Dawn Apart! See you next week here or any time on Discord!