Hello everyone.
Alot has happened since the last Letter from the Producer. While these letters will come at the last day of every month, I wanted to make an official one for January. All of January was mostly focused on getting the VR Missions as polished as we could. Several key bugs, and fixes to the AI were done, as well as polishing the levels themselves. While my last Letter of the Producer described the difficulties and set backs non funded indie teams face and despite we have come forward, that's not to say we aren't still effected by it. Unfortunately due to health issues our lead animator had to drop out, and our co-lead was hired at 2k Games. This has rendered us down to only 1 animator on the team, who at the moment does not have alot of time to commit, a situation which we will quickly remedy to the best of our ability no doubt. She has however agreed to continue working on a few animations up till February, and has been an angel for the short time she was on the team. So congratulations and a friendly farewell and thank you.
The VR Missions is set to release in a public test on February 5th. You will be able to play both the old and new versions of the VR. The VR Missions are not as polished as we'd of liked by any means, and further updates should be expected either every week, or every 2 weeks depending on what the team is currently working on. We would appreciate any and all feedback in regards to the VR Missions in terms of aesthetics and gameplay, and we will be upating the VR with new game mechanics, AI changes, and the like to get more feedback as the development of the main game continues. Keep in mind the AI is on their most basic level, and we understand this. We have many goals and idea's already in mind and being worked on. Unfortunately, due to changes in the Unreal 4 engine, we are currently having issues with the Mac version of the build. We are working on fixing this though, and hopefully should have a fix soon.
On another note, the progress of the Single Player Dark Storm: Ascension is still coming along. The levels are coming to fruitation and the basic level layouts are finished. The modelers are beginning to create the models of everything that will populate the levels, and the final passes of the modular pieces are nearing completion. As the VR comes closer to completion, more of the team will be transfered over to help speed up development in the single player.
Our writer has also been burning the midnight oil finishing up the Dark Storm Novel. A book parrelleling the games storyline, giving insight more into what the characters were thinking at the particular moments, allowing players to get a better understanding of the main characters they will meet, and who they are. So keep a lookout for this in the near future, as well as further Letters from the Producer at the end of each month!