Hello all Fly Guys, Gals, and Pals!
We hope you all are having a great start to your summer. In this update, we are going to go over our upcoming Summer Kickstarter/Steam beta, as well as other important development updates for our game here!
Upcoming Kickstarter/Steam Beta!
For all backers who backed Gamer Pal or higher, you will be messaged here on Kickstarter for us to get your Steam account. Once the build is released, backers will be able to have access to the full game's beta so far! Now that we have all of the core game and systems set up, we as a team want to show our backers our current beta.
This beta build will include:
Village Spire (as it currently exists within the demo)
Bone Dry Desert
FrostBelly
Phoenix Jungle
Birdhatten
Roosthill Farms
These islands include challenges, feathers, fish to collect, and NPC's.
With this beta, it's important for players to remember that we are still working on the final product, even on our earliest islands. There still might be a gray boxed asset here or there, or a challenge type that might need some work.
For example, Village Spire is fully content complete in terms of cutscenes, but we are still working on the remaining cutscenes and some environment models for the other 7 islands. The others are still fully playable, but they will have scripted events that will take place that are connected with the island's special characters that will be completed on the game's final launch date.
With this Steam/Kickstarter beta, we will be creating a Google Form for feedback from this beta. This will help us connect to all the backers to get valuable feedback from their experience playing the beta!
Our goal is to have this Kickstarter/Steam beta build out by Tuesday, July 14th. We tried to get it out earlier in June, but had to push it back until July.This is because we experienced a few hurdles getting the opening tutorial area ready, specifically about the cutscene system and the tutorial input being deactivated at start, then activated once you get to that point. (Such as walking, jumping, flying, ground pound, and spinning.) We wanna make sure this Steam beta is prepared for all of you guys to play and enjoy, and we appreciate your patience!
Keep on the lookout for a future update when the beta is ready on Tuesday, July 14th!
Backers on Kickstarter who have backed Gamer Pal (150$) or higher will be messaged with their Steam key code they will use in order to access the beta on Steam.
BIG shoutout to our programmer Allen for working hard on making the tutorial system working!
At the same time we will be launching the Steam/Kickstarter Beta, will we also be updating the demo on Steam with all the bugs fixes we outlined out here in this update, so stay tuned!
Opening Tutorial Island
In the full FLY GUYS game, the player will open up in a cozy grassland forest area that introduces you to the game and it's controls. This opening section will be hosted by Mallow, the matriarch of The Archipelago. She will be going through with you as you walk through this area, telling you all about how to do all the major movements in this game.
We hoped that this opening area will help newcomers understand the core controls of FLY GUYS, the flying mechanics, as well as provide a calmer, softer landing for the beginning of this cozy adventure.
BIG shoutouts to Shari for modeling this opening Tutorial Island, as well as Nick S for creating the cutscenes that will take place here!
Islands being Retextured
We have been going back to our previous islands, so far the Village Spire, and Bone Dry Desert, and giving them much more detailed textures. These retextures on our large assets will really make these islands come to life!
Village Spire Before:
Village Spire After:
Bone Dry Desert Before:
Bone Dry Desert After:
We plan to also retexture Phoenix Jungle and FrostBelly to make all of our islands have that consistency in texture detail. It's gonna look great. :)
HUGE shoutout to Shari for the island retexturing!
New Environment Models!
Our environment modelers have been working hard on creating new assets for Elemental Isles and Meadowroot Glen, and the game's final world.
Shoutout to Nick F, and Austen for their awesome work here!
Meadowroot Glen tree homes exterior.
Meadowroot Glen tree homes interior.
Cloud Kingdom Homes interior.
Elemental Isles tower interior.
New Customization Items!
We have been having one of our awesome 3D modelers (Kam) make a few customization items for the various island across The Archipelago. Here are a few he has made:
New Characters!
Woodpecker Guy and Woodpecker Gal from Meadowroot Glen designs and models are almost complete!
These hippie, free spirit, peace loving woodpeckers will inhabitat the flower garden island in The Archipelago.
Say hello to Woodpecker Guy and Woodpecker Gal! Shoutout to Kam for his awesome 3D models!
Mayor Eagleton's 3D model is now complete too! Birdhatten now has their elected official! Shoutout to Shari for her amazing work here!!
The Elemental Brothers are the spiritual leaders of the island of Elemental Isles. When you first arrive to the island, you find out that the elements are unbalanced now, and the brothers are arguing. It's up to you to find out how to open the Elemental Caverns, and reunite these brothers together! Look forward to their 3D models in a future update.
Big Focus: Bug Fixing
During these past few sprints, we have been focusing on polishing and bug fixing for the game, taking feedback we have gotten from players, as well as doing a team-wide playtest.
Here is a list of just a FEW of the bugs that have been fixed:
Adjusted flying to allow for quicker turns and movement.
Game's UI now works in 4:3, 16:9, and Ultrawide resolutions.
Green Assist Arrow now works for every challenge.
Bonking against the wall now is a lot more forgiving, giving you time to adjust where you take off.
Cutscene music now doesn't overlap with game's music.
File Select Menu now shows playtime, as well as percentage of game completed.
Challenges that require unique input(Such as spinning, shooting targets) now pops up with controls in the UI.
VSync enabled in Unity builds for better performance.
Autosave now properly works when you complete a challenge in the game, overwriting your last save file.
Turning on/off rumble in settings now doesn't require resetting game for changes to take affect.
Dialogue now has conditional branching if you completed all eggs on the island, as well as if you collected all fish on an island.
Fruit Push Challenge is a lot more polished.
Completing all challenges on an island now gives you a short cutscene.
Glowing white outline for collectible feathers.
Pressing the Escape Key now opens and closes the pause menu, not just opening it.
Cutscene System now fully works in builds, can be implemented in Steam Beta.
Walking NPC's shouldn't glitch out or fall in the water anymore.
Pressing B on the Keyboard or clicking the left stick on your controller does a 'Hoot' move, which points you in the direction of where the nearest collectible feather is.
Any many, many more adjustments and fixes to make the game as good as it can be!
Future Plans
After we release the Steam/Kickstarter Beta, and get feedback from everyone, it is going to be full steam ahead to finish all the game's content for release!
In the future updates, we are going to be focusing on the remaining islands in the game, doing our best to be content complete. Roosthill Farms, Elemental Isles, and Meadowroot Glen will be a big focus for our team moving forward. Such as final NPC's and characters, the islands will have their environment assets made as well.
We also are planning on going to Granite State Comic Con 2026, and BostonFIG 2026 as well later this year!
Thank you all so much for all of your support, and look forward to the future Steam/Kickstarter beta as soon as it's ready!
As always, fly high everyone! See you real soon on Tuesday, July 14th!
-Ryan Ziegler & The FLY GUYS Game Studio
