Greetings Wielders!
We’ve been in Early Access for just a little more than one year now. To all who've played, joined our community, or given feedback: a heartfelt thank you from the Lavapotion dev team! Initially, we aimed for a full release this quarter, but after careful thought, we've decided to move it forward. Please allow us to clarify the decision.
Nearly half a million people have wishlisted our game, which is to be honest both unexpected and humbling. The Adventure Strategy genre isn't the largest anymore, yet you've demonstrated that the demand endures. But to put it simply: if the game isn't 1.0-ready, we have to acknowledge it and persevere through ongoing development. So let's check out the new roadmap, upcoming changes and the reasons for them.
A version with better resolution, or simple text format, can be found on our webpage!
The AI
First of all, we want to acknowledge that we are not satisfied with the current state of the AI for a full release. We have a solid development plan for it and we know what to do, it just has taken longer than we had planned. It takes a lot of time to get all the basic systems working and we are close to that point right now. With nine out of ten play sessions being single player it is obvious that the AI is of utmost importance.
The new region system features natural borders and minimizes changes to it over time, in order to better guide the AI in navigating and expanding across the map.
Randomly generated maps
Around a fourth of all game sessions are played on random maps. We want to make sure that the experience is varied, exciting and perfect each time. We are currently collecting feedback regarding the random maps in order to refine and improve the code and design elements behind it all. For the game to stay relevant long term it is important that the randomly generated maps feels and plays just right.
Iteration, testing and improvements, that’s the recipe for success they say! So, we’ll iterate this some more and then improve it with the help of your feedback.
New user experience
Since we released into Early Access, we have created a lot of new features. We need to make sure that new players get to try out these new features and get the best possible experience when trying the game for the first time. This means taking a look in the rearview mirror and coming back to things (like campaign maps) that were designed years ago and making sure that they use all the new cool stuff. Similarly the UI needs to be adapted in order to best present all the new features, as well as highlighting the wonderfully handcrafted maps that you've created.
In March 2017 the game looked like this. Sometimes it is good to take a step back and remind ourselves just how far we have come…
Steam Deck release
This one might come a bit out of the blue, but a lot of you guys want to play on your Steam Deck. Let me be clear that the addition of Steam Deck support has not impacted the decision to delay the release. It is an added bonus, rather than an obstacle in our development process. It is a lot of work, mainly because our UI needs a lot of re-scaling in order to work well on smaller screens. Fortunately we are helped by a great studio called Bitwave, so the time required on Lavapotions end is minimal. Bitwave are currently working with us to ensure that playing on the Steam Deck will feel like a native experience, not a sloppy port. The added benefit is that this will also enable us to have full gamepad support.
The game is running well on the Steam Deck, but UI elements and fonts still needs to be scaled up.
To sum it up
In the words of Shigeru Miyamoto: a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad. We are here for the long haul and we want to make this the best game it can be. The best days are still ahead of us and you can expect more exciting news in the coming months!
With utmost respect and gratitude,
/Team Lavapotion