Hello!
Welcome to the 10th and last edition of AM Devlog prior to launch! AM Devlogs are weekly updates on the development progress of Adventurer Manager. These Devlogs highlight our philosophy of the importance of development transparency and player feedback.
The time is nigh! Adventurer Manager releases in just over two weeks! It's been a long and sometimes bumpy journey to get here but we're incredibly excited to release out of Early Access. Sometime later this week there will be our final content patch that will put us very close to v1.0. After this patch, we will be only updating with small hotfixes to address any outstanding issues before launch on December 4th.
Upcoming Patch
In the upcoming patch you can expect a brand new Tutorial! It will outline most of the game's basic functions and include many one-off Tutorials to explain menus. There will still be some things you will have to figure out on your own, but that's part of the fun! In addition to the Tutorial, all storyline quests have been moved to their respective NPCs in each town. The mission boards will only be used for Clear Adventures and possibly future DLC Adventures. We also are introducing a sortable Adventurer List to make managing many Adventurers a little easier.
Even more exciting is that you will finally be able to finish the game's story by facing and hopefully defeating Miraj in his Castle in the sky. The final dungeon has many mini-boss encounters and a tough final battle! Miraj also drops a lot more loot than a normal Boss so I would encourage you to try and fight him a few times!
With this final content patch, I'd like to humbly request that, if you have purchased the game in Early Access and are able, that you come back and play AM for a little while to help us catch any last-minute and glaring issues. We are a small team and you are our QA department! We are looking for any significant game breaking issues or freezes as well as minor things like typos and odd oversights. Thank you in advance!
Special Thanks
Since this will be the last Devlog before launch I want to take a moment to do some shout-outs and thanks. Firstly, a huge thank you to all of our Greenlight voters. We would never have been able to even release in Early Access if it weren't for you all. Secondly, another huge thank you to our Early Access purchasers. You all were and are our crowd-funding since we opted out of more traditional methods. Even more important than that, your tireless efforts in helping us fix and improve the game through your suggestions have been paramount to getting to the point where we are now. Thirdly, I'd like to thank our family and friends who have supported the project and our dreams while suffering late night, weekend, and even holiday meetings and work. Finally, I'd like to thank the team and mention everyone by name here along with how they've been invaluable to this project.
Tyler Sabos (MajicPanda) - As most of you know, he is the main and only programmer on this project. His commitment to you all is tireless and he somehow manages to balance responding to almost all of your Steam Discussion posts and then patch every other week. That doesn't even include all the times I've kept him up late and away from his family to work on the game. He is truly player committed with an astounding work ethic and skill level.
Amy Martins - Almost everything in the game has Amy's artistic hand in it. She drew most of the wonderful Dungeon backgrounds and interesting monsters. She is also responsible for many of the towns, skill icons, adventurer equipment, and all of the forthcoming Achievement icons. Having worked with us on our first project, Gobbo, she continues to be a great and adaptable artist and I believe her work speaks for itself.
Alannah Linkhorn - Alannah joined the team a few months into the project due to the intense art demands that arose. Alannah provided essentially every animation in the game along with concepting and drawing the UI for nearly all of the menus. I would call her our Utility team members as she is always quickly able and willing to fix minor issues or draw an entire town in just a few days. Alannah helped fill holes on dungeon background art, monsters, towns, skill icons, and many, many other things. Like Amy, if you're seeing art on the screen, Alannah's hand is there. She is also responsible for the entire University appearance and layout.
Daniel Lopatka - Dan was featured a few months ago on our featured team member section on an earlier Devlog but he deserves mentioning again. All of the music in the game is original and created by Dan. In my opinion we have one of the best retro soundtracks among any recent indie game due to Dan's passion and expertise. He has risen to the occasion after our first musician departed in the middle of development and creates lengthy and compelling tracks for all of our Dungeons.
A special mention goes to Ray Legg. While not officially a team member, he has been our main QA for almost the entirety of the project. A supporter from early Alpha, Ray has been instrumental in making sure that the game is stable and bug-free. Without his feedback and testing, the game would not be in such a good shape today.
Other persons worth mentioning are Studio Director Kelin Webb (VAStrikes), Assistant Design & Artist Michael Walker, and Website Developer Michael Melssen. While these three were less involved in the day-to-day of AM, their work and efforts are no less vital to the game's current state and success.
Just a reminder that our Release Date is December 4th! So tell everyone you know to come out and play Adventurer Manager! Thanks as always for your support of our project and us!
Happy Adventuring
Thomas Spradling
Game Designer & Producer
VA Studios