Well this is it. Escape from Mandrillia is no longer an Early Access title. While I will always think there is room for improvement, I'm quite happy with how the game turned out.
When Early Access started, there was a list of things that I knew had to be in the final game, and another list of things that I wanted to implement but was less hopeful about. Looking back, I'm quite proud of getting most of them (NPC Mandrillians, the dreaded Split Audio system) -even the ones that didn't quite make it like the different Mandrillian Characters ended up somewhat implemented in the form of the Upgrade system.
Pictured: early concept of the Mandrillian Mech, which ended up as the base for the Armor Upgrade.
There's also been pleasant surprises: the Coop Mode, which I initially thought as something too crazy to try for the base game (originally it would have been post-release or DLC) ended up being one of my favorite ways to play Escape from Mandrillia. Other stuff, like the Arcade Arena Mode and the Virtual Training scenarios, had to be scrapped.
All in all, working on this silly monkey game has been worth it. It started as a learning project because I felt local asymmetric was an under-explored genre in VR (I still think this) and wanted something different to play with my friends. The fact that it's found its niche was not something I expected.
Now let's talk about MONEY
SUPPORTER UPGRADE: OUT NOW!
As I mentioned on the last update, this is a small gold-themed cosmetic pack for the few of you who feel like giving me a fiver for the trouble. Of course, it's just a cosmetic pack -and if you don't feel like getting it, there will be no mention of it at all within the base game.
Get your Supporter Upgrade pack by clicking here!
Finally, before I go I want to say thanks to the entire Escape from Mandrillia Discord community, and to everyone who helped make this adventure more manageable. This includes all of you who for some reason have kept reading these news posts. Every kind comment really helped to keep going!
And now, I will ride into the sunset, until tomorrow, when I'll inevitably have to come back to hotfix some embarrassing bug that I surely missed. Oh, and there will be trading cards, coming soon™!
Have a nice day everyone!
FULL CHANGELOG
- Released the game out of Early Access
- Released the Supporter Upgrade DLC: you get some gaudy golden cosmetics and I get 5 bucks (minus tax and Steam's cut)
- Released myself from the unending suffering that is game development