Hey everyone! Aaron here, Production Manager of Mane6.
In case you missed our most recent ManeCast stream, I made some major announcements that I'd like to get down in writing. Here we go:
First off, I am now President of Mane6. Previously this honor was held by Lauren Faust herself, but since she's more of an art director these days, the team elected to transfer legal responsibility of the company to me. Nothing changes about my job. I still manage the team and run the admin side of the company, but now... it's more official!
Second, we're releasing our February patch sometime next week. It will mostly contain bugfixes and a few animation/FX updates, but there are two major pieces of content going in with it:
Backer-Exclusive Palette: Tennis Shoes
At last, the inside joke 8 years in the making will finally be released unto the world.
Those who contributed $12+ to our crowdfund will receive a Steam product key via email from Backerkit as the patch drops. Activate that key in Steam to unlock your palettes.
Please understand that we'd like to keep these as backer-only exclusives to preserve how "special" they are.
That said...
Shadow Palettes: TFH's First Unlockable Content
The next patch will make it possible to unlock Shadow Palettes (originally intended just for CPU-controlled cast members encountered in the Salt Mines) via either of these two conditions:
- Win the "Apex Predator" bonus during a Salt Mines run (on an official Mane6 Pixel Lobby server) to unlock the shadow palette for the character you played during that run. "Apex Predator" is obtained when a player earns enough salt to become the boss bear, then manages to defeat all the other players during the Final Showdown.
- Purchase the "Shadow Palettes Pack" here on Steam, priced at $1.99 USD (subject to regional pricing) that instantly unlocks shadow palettes for all current and future characters.
So, there are two ways to get these palettes: ingame by completing our top Salt Mines challenge, or by paying a small fee for an instant unlock pack. We thought through how to do this one for awhile. We're well aware that releasing a DLC package during a game's Early Access period can cause a negative reaction. Here's some of our reasoning:
- A lot of players have been asking us to make Shadow Palettes playable and we want to honor that request, but they're too special to just give away.
- Unlockables are an important part of fighting games, and games in general, to give players a reason for playing, a meaningful goal to strive towards.
- We also wanted to offer players a convenient, affordable way to unlock the palettes without having to complete the ingame challenge.
- And, there is precedent for this type of unlock condition in many other fighting games.
We hope you'll see this as a fun new reason to play the game whichever way you choose to approach the unlock conditions.
Upcoming Story Mode Progress Stream
Lastly, we'd like to announce that we're preparing to present our current story mode progress to the world during our next stream. We are feeling things out some more before revealing the broadcast date, but be assured it will be soon: in a few weeks.
It will take us some deliberation to decide what to show and what to save for the actual release. We're not about to spoil certain surprises, but you gotta see some of this crazy stuff we're trying to put in our four-legged fighting game.
That's all for now, folks... until the patch next week!
Aaron Stavely
President, Mane6