Offsprings of the first men!
Now that TFM: The First Men’s pre-release features are pretty much finished, we’re starting to focus on testing and bug hunting.
We’ve decided to run the playtest on Steam, using its new feature Steam Playtest, which is a new way for developers to test their games without having to worry about the mess of key management.
To join the playtest please consider visiting us on the official TFM Discord server, if you are an active member you will be rewarded with a Fighter role, eventually will be upgraded to a Hunter, those with whom we will share the Steam Playtest keys!
What has been changed?
- Characters & Paths: After trying a couple of different approaches to the character progression systems, we've finally finished this part of the game with an outcome-focused feature, can't wait to find out what you all will think about it!
- Constructions, Doodads & Items: We now have all of our map objects fully interactable, lootable, collectible. They’ll unlock numerous activities for the characters, allowing them to focus on their goals and contribute to their settlements more efficiently.
- Relations: Another fully finished feature. All of the world entities are listed here, either it is a Settlement just like the entity you control, a Raid for late-game fun, a Dungeon for you to explore with your party and get sweet loot, or a simple Dwelling to be exploited in the wilderness! The relations panel also shows the quests of each entity, which are collective or individual goals of a settlement, derived from its members’ traits.
- Traditions & Bragging Rights: New ways of presenting so-called technology trees, splitting traditions, and bragging rights as two entirely different systems.
- Character Inventory, Equipment & Skills: Removed all of the previous attempts to improve character management, combat tactics, and overall feeling of battle. Each character now has 5 equipment slots; weapon, head, chest, hand, and trinket. They bind items to these slots that they have found around the world, or crafted at the settlement, and obtain skills, stats, and ongoing or triggered effects.
- Improved Editor: New databases to enrich and manipulate content, smoother character editing screen, and much more.
- Various quality of life changes, character stats, character traits, UI improvements, and identifiers, with a ton of art and content additions all around the game.
What is next?
The next Update is called: Early Days
We still can't tell an exact date right now, but with the completion of these tasks listed below, we will be releasing TFM: The First Men on Steam!
- Some small changes for the current features and implementation of release features like Tutorial, Main Menu, Options, Localization systems, Bug report & feedback tools, etc.
- Content overhaul for balancing and progression, we plan to have 2 campaigns; Armonia and Lindaris, both offer different gameplay elements.
- Playtesting the game with our community for bug fixing and optimization.
- Marketing efforts, updating positioning texts and communication plans. Stay tuned for the new trailer which will be released soon!
What else?
So, fingers crossed, TFM is becoming a release candidate for Early Access on Steam, we will start sharing in-game footage on a regular basis after the gameplay trailer is released.
In addition to the things we’ve discussed above, these are some high-level questions we are frequently asked;
When is the game gonna be released?
Making an indie game is really hard, but making a financially successful one is way harder. To become a solid game development studio, we believe we must make a game we absolutely love.
We always set goals for ourselves, and even name those goals as game updates to excite ourselves even more. We were hoping to finish the Bloodmoon update before the summer, but some unexpected issues and some of the features we don't feel good about encouraged us to do several iterations to make it more fun.
Feeling happy about the current state of the game, we plan to finish the goals listed above and hope to get the game ready for release sometime around the first half of 2022, if nothing goes wrong.
We will announce an exact release date after we finish the content overhaul.
How can I play the game before the release?
Your feedback and thoughts are very important for us. So, we've designed a mini-game in TFM Discord Server by using roles, and it is up to you to earn new roles, unlock special channels, and eventually gain access to the game before the release.
Those who have access will be expected to use an in-game bug reporting and feedback sharing tool.
Why does it take too long for you to finish the game?
We've started to develop TFM in January of 2020.
Yes, the Steam page goes way before, but as we've shared before, all of them was to discover a concept for a strategy game, and all we had at the end of 2019 was a plan and a playable build that we've called "The Vision Demo".
We believe sharing your vision, and talking about your goals, even if they are just dreams, is very important, and we are super happy to start talking about TFM from day one because right now there are thousands of people with us who share their feedback since day one. We made this game together.
How is Gathering Tree? Still alive?
YES! Growing every day, the tree looks like it really loves the environment. 2 years have passed and she looks super happy, and there are a lot of new fries joining under it every passing month.
Ask your own questions down below or on our Discord channel! Much love from Gathering Tree, stay tuned for the gameplay trailer!