Salutations Industrialists,
We are excited to share the progress we've made over the last month and update you on our Alpha Roadmap.
Pre-Alpha Testing
As many of you are already aware, we have launched the Pre-Alpha of Gilded Destiny to a small group of about 100 testers chosen from our Kickstarter and Modian backers at random. So far, we have received lots of constructive feedback, suggestions, and bug reports. As we continue to develop certain systems for Gilded Destiny, we are also now beginning to transition to a more feedback-based approach to development.
We decided to do a small closed Pre-Alpha test to gather initial feedback so that experience of the Alpha is enjoyable and meaningful, and to streamline the process of administrating keys, feedback collection, and bug reporting on our end. Of course, as many of you know, both the pre-Alpha and Alpha builds of the game will likely have limited content and systems may not be fully implemented into the game.
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We decided to do a small closed Pre-Alpha test to gather initial feedback so that experience of the Alpha is enjoyable and meaningful, and to streamline the process of administrating keys, feedback collection, and bug reporting on our end. Of course, as many of you know, both the pre-Alpha and Alpha builds of the game will likely have limited content and systems may not be fully implemented into the game.
Finally, we are excited to announce that we have shipped physical merch to our Kickstarter backers. There are still a few who have not yet completed the backer survey. If you are reading this and have not done so yet, be sure to fill out the backer survey!
Without further ado, let's take a look at what we accomplished in November and what is planned for December and January.
Completed in November
Collect feedback from pre-Alpha testers and address issues raised
- We have been collecting feedback and bug reports from the testers via an in-game Bug Report tool and via a Discord. Our dev and programming teams have fixed several bugs, and issued new versions of the game. This process in ongoing, and our team is starting to optimize the workflow for integrating player feedback.
Continue inputting and testing major Prussian Events and Decisions
- We recently published a Dev Diary about our Events System and Editor. We are making progress on inputting and updating major Prussian events.
- New features for the Event Editor are planned and being designed currently. In the meantime, we are continuing to add conditions and effects for use in the Events we create.
Input and test more Qualities for Cultures and Religions
- Delayed, while we prioritize more urgent tasks. We will return to this early next year.
Continue refining the Global Economy at game start
- This is an ongoing project that will require continuous refinement.
- At this point, we have made sure that different countries have different starting techs.
New UI designs for Navy, the HUD, and Settings menu
- These new UI designs have been delayed, and will move to December.
Continue inputting historical data for European countries at game start
- Ongoing.
Finish first draft of terrain, including mountains, lakes, and rivers
- First draft of Europe is now complete. Next regions will be North America and East Asia.
Finish Designing Construction UI and begin implementation
- The new Construction UI is complete. Input into the game has begun and will continue.
Refine and update the mechanics design for profession promotion/demotion and migration
- We have begun working on this and will continue.
Refine and update the mechanics underlying the Economy and global trade
- As part of the refinement of the Global Economy at game start, we identified areas where the economic system required improvement. We are currently working on updating and optimizing the economic system to make it both more realistic and less processing-intensive.
Draft new design for Bug Report UI
- Based on feedback from Alpha Testers, we redesigned the Bug Report UI
End of December
Since some of the team will be absent over the holiday period, we anticipate slightly slower progress for December. However, there are still several important features we will continue to work on.
- Continue inputting Prussian events, and testing new Event Editor systems
- Input more Leader portraits and backgrounds
- Continue refining Global Economy systems
- Continue inputting and refining historical population data for European countries at game start
- Finish implementing Construction UI
- New supplementary UI designs for other features (load game, main menu, etc.)
- New design for the game HUD
- Finalize design for Rebellions
- Add new flags into the game
- Begin implementation of the new Bug Report UI into the game
- Continue refining terrain (such as mountains, lakes, and rivers) for North America and East Asia
- Map View Function has designed, and programmer developing now.
- Adjust Diplomacy and design and expand new functions
- Start adjustment of AI performance
End of January
- Begin implementing new UI designs for the HUD and Settings menus
- Complete inputting Prussian events, and testing new Event Editor systems
- Complete input of new Bug Report feature and update UI
- Continue updating and refining Global Economy systems
- Complete refining and updating design for POP promotion and migration
- Continue refining terrain (such as mountains, lakes, and rivers) for Central Asia, Middle East, and South Asia
- Finalize design for Bureaucracy
- Refine and update technology tree, and design UI for in-game technology tree visualization. Since our technology system includes some element of randomness (See our Dev Diary), we are planning to include a visualization of the technology tree so that players can have a clearer sense of technological progression.
- We also intend for the visualization of the technology tree to be moddable in the editor.
Thanks for your support and for reading!
As our goals and expectations evolve, and as these milestones are reached, we will keep you updated!
Also, as a reminder—we have assigned Discord roles to our backers who are already part of our server. If you are not a member of our server, please join via the link below to ensure that you claim your role! We'll be checking back weekly to assign roles to new followers. Of course, if you join and would like to get your role sooner, just say hello in the main channel and mention that you'd like your role. If you're not yet a member of our Discord server, please use this link to join!
Join the Gilded Destiny Discord Server
Thanks for your support and for reading!
May your day be a gilded one!