Hello Lords of Rigel,
Here we are in 2023! Before we jump into what to expect in the next few weeks of 2023, let's talk about 2022. It has been a big year for Lord of Rigel. For those of you who have followed us from the beginning, you know that this has been a long journey started by two gamers who enjoyed Master of Orion 2 growing up. We have learned a lot about game development and here we are with a product in Early Access. Below is an image that shows the first main menu of Lord of Rigel in Unity engine.
Our Early Access journey has been a bumpy one and we appreciate the support and great conversations from all of you as we continue to refine and improve LoR. Since our Early Access launch in October, we have released 25 patches and closed 342 tickets. Many systems in the game have been refactored including research, ground combat, orbital bombardment, build queue, random events, auto-resolve, and parts of ship designer.
The last few weeks of 2022 were quiet on the patch front, but we have been busy working on numerous fixes to player bugs and refactoring several main game systems, including game settings and hotkeys. We intend to have a patch ready later this week that will let players enjoy these updates.
In terms of what to expect in the more immediate future, we want to finish up the refactoring of ship designer and then begin focusing on AI diplomacy as well as the tutorial. Our goal is to improve the player experience in the first hour of gameplay and to have a new and greatly improved demo.
After this, we will continue down to our prior focus list of refactoring turn and basic economy code, as well as implementing some quality of life features requested by players. This will most certainly push back our next EA release date, but we believe getting these core systems improved will give us a better foundation to continue to add additional planned features and adjust other systems in the game based on player feedback.
As always, we really appreciate the feedback and support from all of you. Until next time!
