One year ago today we hatched our brain-child; Starcross Arena. Since then we have learned much about what it means to be game developers. One of those things we had to learn a bit suddenly, but it's all valuable experience. The most important thing we learned is that there is indeed some interest in our game. That's a good thing to learn.
The initial hit of having our game turned out by the pirate scene before it could even earn enough to pay for a loaf of bread was jarring. We got over it. We're glad there's interest. It's important to us. So, now what?
Now we forgive this. It's that simple. Nobody got hurt, and we got some free unexpected advertising. Certain large companies might call it a "surprise discount". Yeah. Sure. Let's go with that.
So, moving forward, we're recommitting to the cause of making our game so good you'll want to buy it just to keep us making games.
Pirate copies. Not exactly cool that it happened with the very first copy, but we can understand. We're not swimming in money like a certain cartoon duck either. We won't try to prevent it. We won't go out of our way to add DRM. We won't over-complicate it with some sort of authentication system.
We ask that if you do play our game, from whatever source you acquired it, please do buy it if you really enjoy it. If we sell enough copies to at least cover better development equipment, we will look at putting up a torrent to keep players that cannot afford the game a bit more safe.
On the subject of buying it vs torrenting: Please don't use key reseller sites. You can purchase the game legitimately here or on our website. If you can't afford it or don't think the game is worth the listed price but still feel you must play, please be safe about it.
Now then. On to the future! We have much in store for Alpha 0.2. During our discussion about our project we've decided to push Alpha 0.2 sooner. This will mean that some features we're a bit proud of will not make it into the next update, but what is going to make it into the next update is a significant improvement.
Alpha 0.1k Was a proof of concept. We've taken that concept and refined the functionality. Alpha 0.2 will provide a far superior visual and competitive experience to Alpha 0.1k, while maintaining similar flow and gameplay.
Major changes are being implemented:
- Continuous trails rather than blocks.
- Physics based movement and handling.
- Total UI overhaul.
- Accurate collision.
- More usable pop-up items.
- Cool things that would only sound like technical mumbo-jumbo unless you were a programmer.
- More. We're not tellin' everything yet.
Some things we'll be implementing in 0.3 that unfortunately just won't be ready for release soon:
- The beginnings of the single player story.
- Large space stations / Arena locations for both multiplayer and single player purposes.
- Multiplayer ships (these totally work already, but we have to create somewhere to go with them).
Okay! Still reading? We hope that some of this persuades you to join us in continuing the development of Starcross Arena. We weren't expecting to move any copies yet, but since we are, let's have some fun. We'll be stepping up our timetable, and doing our best to release Starcross Arena Alpha 0.2 as soon as we can.
If you didn't acquire the game from our website or Steam, don't worry. You're welcome in the community hub like everyone else. Tell us what you like, dislike, love, hate, or anything in between (about the game).