Hello, KitHackers!
We are happy to announce that we are officially taxiing for take-off! KitHack Model Club will launch on 15th April into Early Access. We’re incredibly excited to put the game into the hands of the community, giving you the opportunity to help shape our next steps.
Early Access
The journey from Balsa Model Flight Club to KitHack Model Club has been ever-expanding. The project is an ambitious undertaking for a very small team, and while we could continue to reiterate and improve internally, we realise there’s only so far this approach will take us. To propel the game to the next level - we need you.
With that being said, KitHack will be launching into Early Access in just under two weeks, allowing players a true hands-on experience. An Early Access launch will open the ability for players to help carve out the path of the game as we look ahead to a 1.0 release. During this time, our goal is to create a friendly and reactive environment where you, the community, can inform us on the most important improvements and iterations you'd like to see. You’ll be able to find more about how this will work, the scheduled progression of the game and the road to 1.0 in the Content Roadmap section below.
Why Early Access?
We are a three-person development team, and KitHack is a very big project.
Manpower is our most precious and limited resource. At any given time, there’s an infinite number of things we could be focusing on. We need help from our players now, to make sure we are making the best of our available time and effort.
Should we add more parts? New Missions? Do we expand the map, or focus on Multiplayer features? The array of possibilities is vast, so an Early Access Community is essential to ensure that we are putting our very limited manpower towards the best possible use every day.
Our intention has always been for the game to really be a platform, which developers and community creators can build on for a very long time. The foundations for KitHack are already very stable, and we feel that all the essentials are in place for this next phase, where we can put all our efforts into making meaningful updates with the help of our community.
Wasn’t this game already in Early Access?
Sort of. Its predecessor, Balsa Model Flight Sim was in Early Access some years ago. We chose to pull it back as we focused on what is now KitHack Model Club. This was the right decision to make at the time, because it allowed us the freedom we needed to do deeper changes, which we wouldn’t have been able to do while supporting a live game.
The Balsa/KitHack transition allowed us to completely rethink things, like for instance, which vehicle parts are your fundamental building blocks, how missions made with the scenario editor work, even how the basic game loop flows. Changes like those are very difficult to make in a published project, as they can be very destructive.
Thanks to that decision, the game has been transformed by the addition of fully procedural fuselages, car parts and drive train components, boat parts and buoyancy physics, internal stress simulation, new atmospherics, a completely rebuilt and expanded Wirraway Bay, NPC traffic and pedestrians, Scripting support in the editor, and so many more features.
What can the community do between now and launch?
We would love for the community to join our Discord channel, share their playing experience and provide their feedback on what is going well and what needs our attention.
We also encourage everyone to tweak and tinker with the game itself. KitHack was designed from the very start to be as open to modding as we could make it, and we are really excited to see what the community comes up with. Feel free to come talk to us over on Discord about anything related to modding.
We will put up a poll asking players to help us prioritise which features we should focus on ahead of 1.0 - ranging from parts and missions to multiplayer and optimisation.
What does the content roadmap look like between now and launch?
We’ve created a graphic to visualise what the roadmap looks like between the Early Access launch and 1.0 release. Phase #1 will see the launch of the game in Early Access. Phase #2 will be spent focusing on bug fixing and Quality of Life updates, as determined by player feedback. Phase #3 will be spent implementing community suggestions, and finally Phase #4 will mark a complete 1.0 launch of KitHack Model Club.
Beta
The Beta is available now! If you signed up to our email list in advance of the 4th April, you should have received your Steam key to your email inbox. If for any reason you haven’t received your key and have previously signed up to the email list, please message us on Discord and we’ll do our best to help you resolve any issues.
Please note, if you have signed up to the previous Alphas you will not require a new key. You will be able to load the application and start playing right away.
Beta Steam Workshop Capabilities
As mentioned in our previous newspost, we have opened the ability to upload to the Steam Workshop during the Beta. This means you can upload your designs ahead of the EA release and be some of the first people to showcase your extraordinary vehicles.
How do I upload content to the Steam Workshop during the Beta?
- Finish creating your masterpiece.
- Name your craft and write a short description inside the drop-down text box.
- Hit the blue ‘Save’ icon in the top right of your screen.
- Once saved, click the publish icon located at the bottom right of drop-down text box.
- Review your submission on Steam and set it to Publicly Visible.
If you haven’t already, make sure you join the Discord channel where you can speak directly to the developers, provide feedback, report bugs and help us improve the game.
Thank you again for taking the time to check out KitHack. We really appreciate all the support. We can’t wait to continue the journey with you!