Hi brawlers!
Welcome to Behind the Brawl #4, in which we'll be looking back at our most recent Steam beta. The May 2020 beta ended just a few days ago, and we've spent the last couple of days combing through all the awesome feedback that we've received from all of you. This once again included both things we've nailed so far, as well as things we need to make even better. First, let's take a look at some of the key statistics from the beta.
Now let's dive into some of the key takeaways from the beta itself!
The Pros
- Players had a great time! Just like with the previous beta, everyone keeps telling us that the overall HyperBrawl experience is really fun, which is obviously essential for us!
- Our competitions ensured, well, competition! We ran a number of competitions during the beta and particularly the one that rewarded the top 3 players on our Most Online Wins leaderboard created quite a lot of heated competition! Find all the winners here!
- The new selection of heroes and weapons created new player strategies! With all weapons from the previous beta swapped out, players used a lot of new strategies, many of which were new to us. It'll be interesting to see which strategies prevail once players have access to everything at launch!
- We had a ton of new players enter the arena! It was awesome seeing so many new brawlers enter the arena and a lot of that was thanks to all of you bringing in family and friends alike. Spreading the word is key to an active player base at launch, so we really appreciate everyone's help with this!
- The player skill cap keeps going up! We keep being blown away by how good players are getting and we've already got several players in the community that bring both a challenge - and a beatdown - to the developers in the arena! Practice intensifies!
With great power comes great... double KO goals!
The cons
- We still have bugs to squash! Our last two Steam betas have both been running on several months old code, which means a lot of reported issues have already been fixed in the full version of the game. That being said, thanks to your detailed feedback - and even videos showing the exact issues - we've been able to identify additional things that need addressing. Some of these are bugs and others are gameplay adjustments that we're now investigating further. Thanks for your help on this!
- The Turbo Thruster became a must-use weapon! While this might not sound like an issue, we've seen the Turbo Thruster used in new ways, which means that we'll now be looking at whether it needs any adjustments for the full game, as all weapons have obviously been balanced with the full roster of weapons in mind, and not specifically for this beta where only three weapons were available.
Ricochet with great care, brawlers...
So, now what?
While we get ever closer to the game's full lunch later this year, we're currently working on additional opportunities for everyone to get in on the action, and show their friends who's boss. One of these opportunities is the Steam Game Festival taking place 16th-22nd June. We'll have more details on this soon, so keep an eye on our channels - like Twitter and Discord - for more information!
For now, if you've enjoyed what you've seen (and hopefully played) so far, make sure to add HyperBrawl to your Steam wishlist - it really helps more players discover the game. The more players, the more fun competition we'll all have at launch and beyond!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/591760/HyperBrawl_Tournament/
See you in the arena!