Hello once again, dear Protectors! After so many of you jumped in to get your hooves dirty, Lee and Jae from the Lifuel team wanted to give you an update on how this will look for STAND-ALONE moving forwards. This of course begins with a huge thank you to all of those who joined the recent STAND-ALONE playtest. We are truly grateful for your support and passion, and the time you took to jump into the playtest and leave feedback.
During the test and in the days following, we received a lot of great, constructive feedback from you Protectors, as well as loads of helpful suggestions. Though there were various languages and styles, many of you highlighted key issues related to the core of the game, and our team have carefully reviewed every single one.
After removing duplicated and already-updated items (including the two hot fixes deployed during the playtest), we ended up with 109 unique focus points. All of these have been carefully sorted and added to our internal development database, to allow close tracking and resolution.
Here, we wanted to chare with you a summary of the feedback, alongside out plans for future development of STAND-ALONE. Please note, the order of items here simply represents our development workflow, and does not equal importance of each point. We consider each point to be equally valid and have meaning for you, as players.
First Priority
Our top priority is to fix critical bugs and crashes which seriously affect your gameplay experience. We recognise that stability issues which were revealed during the playtest, and are working to fix these issues as soon as we can. In addition, there are several key features which we believe will resolve issues and provide meaningful impact for players:
- Fixing controller input iossues (across all device controllers)
- Fixing keyboard mapping stability to stop resetting during gameplay
- Fixing crashes and forced shutdowns caused by various issues
- Fixing game freezes and looping
- Fixing inputs not responding following wall climbing
- Addition of confirmation prompts when creating or overwriting a save
- Addition of a skill preview feature when selecting skills
- Fixing an issue where rewards did not reset after restarting the game
- Changes to skill cooldown (refunding cooldown when cancelling skills due to dodging)
- Various minor fixes and improvements
High Priority
Our second focus will be on addressing issues which may prevent players from fully understanding systems or game content. This can potentially lead to gameplay which doesn’t align with our intention during design, and could cause confusion or restrict progression. Ultimately, it can lead to a worse experience for players. These fixes will centre around UX improvements:
- Addition of D-pad control support
- Adding a WASD + Mouse control preset
- Adding a stats and attributes user interface
- Adding the ability to remove and / or reset skills
- Include unskippable tutorials (including for passive skills and combos)
- Other, related improvements
Standard Changes
We then plan to move on to core development. This includes areas such as repetition, controls, balance and pacing, aiming to improve these over time. We aim to continue refining and optimising these areas wherever possible, delivering this initially through:
- Addition of standard difficulty levels (Easy, Normal and Hard)
- Redesigning of under-performing skills, and addition of new ones
- Optimisation of mouse control features
- Addition of a tutorial for Stun status
- Addition of jump functionality during dodge animations
- New game content
Low Priority
Our low-priority considerations aim to further improve STAND-ALONE’s polish and overall fun factor. This includes new content to add depth and variety, and enhanve the overall player experience. This also includes minor bugs which don’t affect gameplay, with planned improvements including:
- Addition of a blocking tutorial (while this mechanic is currently implemented, it lacks guidance and many players missed it)
- Fixing of awkward mech skill controls on jump pads
- Addition of secondary key bind functionality
- Fixing text overflow within NPD dialogue boxes
- Reducing visual fatigue within desert background areas
- Addition of a combo-building training room and Bestiary
- Replacement of the fake computer crash screen which can mislead players
- Fixing of enemy behaviour within infinite lightening builds (where they may get stuck in the air)
The Future is in Our Hooves
There are so many pieces of additional feedback which we can’t list individually here. Many of these issues have already been addressed within hot fixes during the playtest (including addition of a downward strike, reduced lightning delay and other bug fixes).
Once again, a heartfelt thank you to everybody who has taken part in the test and to those who’ve provided feedback through the in-game function or through Discord. STAND-ALONE is still taking shape at this early stage of development, but all of your feedback has been incredibly valuable and we will continue to consider this during development.
We were especially moved by how thoughtful and consistent everybody’s comments were. All of the messages we’ve received were clearly written with care and a passion for improving STAND-ALONE. Many of you even expressed concern that your feedback may discourage our team and this kindness has meant a great deal to us. We are sincerely grateful for your support and understanding.
We’ll be returning again soon with a more polished and mature version of STAND-ALONE. Implementation of the areas above may take time, but we hope to be able to tell you and show you more of what we’re working on, along the way. Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts, we cannot wait to continue this journey with you, our dear Protectors, as we shape STAND-ALONE into something special.