The Past
I began developing CrossOver in May 2021, though I’d been designing it for a while beforehand. For my last (and first) game, Ampersat, I also did all the art and music myself but I knew for CrossOver I wanted to vastly improve those aspects, so my wife (the non-developer half of Gaterooze, Ink) and I engaged a group of amazing artists (particularly for the pixel and color/B&W art) and licensed fantastic music from an incredibly talented folk group. After signing up with MicroProse (and being a fan from back in the day, what a thrill!), their awesome in-house 3D modellers and UI artist contributed massively to the look of CrossOver. The entire team has really surpassed my expectations for how this nutty game could look and sound, and I thank them so much.
Let’s compare the first playable prototype with my quick, crappy placeholders to where it stands today:
The Present
In CrossOver, the tabletop RPG gamebooks on your shelf are the game modules you play in the game. The plan is to ship the core game with two entire game modules, one fantasy and one sci-fi. Each one has 7 full campaigns, their own endless mode, and their own coop scenarios and coop endless mode. That’s a lot of content per module - each one has about 7-10 hours of solo play, plus an hour or so of coop scenarios, and then potentially hundreds of hours of endless mode with online leaderboards (both solo and coop). A certain addicted person at MicroProse has already played literally hundreds of hours of endless!
More game modules will be added in the future as DLC, though as you can imagine they take some time to develop - these won’t be throwaway DLC, they will be entirely new genres such as World War 2, Cthulhian, Modern Warfare, etc. eventually the gamebook shelves will fill up, but here’s how they stand now with the two core modules:
Why is the sci-fi module gamebook red? Well, that’s explained by running down the current status of development:
- Coding - functionally complete barring bugs and future tweaks or unplanned additions.
- UI - functionally complete apart from inevitable tweaking and a notable exception of the Coop Lobby, where I plan some improvements after I get feedback on the actual functionality (that’s a big part of what the Playest is for!).
- Fantasy Game Module - functionally complete, along with all artwork and content for all 7 campaigns and endless mode, however I’ll constantly be tweaking and balancing everything.
- Sci-fi Game Module - the campaigns have been designed, the weapons made, the sprites/animations are underway, and the music has been created by a BAFTA award winning composer - but here is where the bulk of the remaining effort is needed as everything else is yet to do. Tons of artwork to make, creating the levels, enemies, mercenaries and so on. Everything down to the character sheets, dice and tray is new for this module - only the desk remains the same. It’s like making a whole new game’s content, so it will take time.
- Localization - framework completed, but the actual translations won’t be done until near the end. The text is basically still a first draft so my wife, who is a much better writer, is likely to edit.
- QA - no formal QA has yet been performed, though plenty of informal playing by several people. It will undergo formal QA by a professional “test to destruction” team once everything is ready. The Playtest is not intended to be a QA session (I’ll explain what I’m hoping to get out of the Playtest later in this diary).
The Future
Here’s the rough plan:
The first Playtest begins June 28th and will run for two weeks.
We intend to put a playable demo into the Steam Next Fest in October, likely a couple of solo levels.
A second Playtest for when the sci-fi game module is completed, probably early in 2023.
Release “sometime” in 2023. I don’t mean to be so vague, but the date has not yet been set. We originally planned to launch about a year after announcing the game, so take that as a rough guide - but scheduling conflicts and endless finishing tweaks can always happen.
And with that, let’s get stuck into what this first Playtest will involve…
The Playtest
The Why?
Well, apart from allowing you fine folk to actually experience what is admittedly a very bizarre looking game, I’m at the point where I need a wider pool of feedback. MicroProse, friends and a couple of awesome Twitch streamers (RadioSanchezz and TalpTheScot, who have been helping test coop - look them up!) have provided great feedback over a long period and helped immeasurably. But I really need some more help in two areas:
- Campaign Difficulty/Balance - “Spreadsheet” balancing can only go so far, sometimes you need a wide variety of skill levels to actually play the thing to work out if the difficulty is suitable, rises appropriately and everything is balanced sufficiently. It’s so hard to get this right in games…
- Online Coop - Testing this has only been very limited so far as it’s the hardest thing for me to arrange personal testing, and testing by myself is, uh, not so helpful for difficulty/balance discovery. I’d also really love some feedback on the functionality of the Lobby. I tried to include helpful things such as friend invites, filtering lobbies by game module, setting and filtering lobbies by friends-only or public, voice and text chat… but full disclosure, I pretty much never play online games so I don’t really know what’s expected or desired.
And hopefully you get to have fun playing this weirdo game :D
The What?
Keeping in mind the reasons for the playtest, this is what we’ve included (for the fantasy game module only):
- 3 x Full Campaigns (7 x stages in each) - it’s actually campaign #1 (Raise The Alarum), #3 (The Waiting Sands) and #5 (The Devouring Tides). You unlock #3 and #5 by reaching a certain XP level in previous campaigns, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to do this unless you have a very XP-handicapped character or monsters hack away at your XP too much (evil buggers!).
- All Coop Content - 7 x Coop Scenarios plus Coop Endless Mode, which has an online leaderboard.
- Tutorial - just the basics.
- Something Secret - It has its own hidden leaderboard so I’ll know how many find it ;) This is just for fun, it will be in the final game but no feedback is actually sought. Mysterious…
The campaigns that are not included are shaded Red and the books can’t be opened.
Note that the Solo Endless Mode is not included in the Playtest because we’re pretty solid on feedback there, it has been playtested extensively and feels great. The internal leaderboards are hotly contested! We might open that up in the second playtest, however for this first one there was some good advice to not distract from the areas I really need the feedback on.
The How?
To sign up for the playtest simply go to the CrossOver: Roll For Initiative store page on Steam and click “Join the Crossover: Roll For Initiative Playtest”.
Once the Playtest begins on June 28th, you’ll be able to start playing the game! Two weeks later, the Playtest will end and we would very, very gratefully appreciate it if you could please fill out the Playtest Questionnaire that will be provided in an update when the test goes live.
As for how you play the game itself, there’s a little interactive tutorial included. I’ve also made a video of playing through one solo stage and setting up a Coop Lobby (well, it’s only two clicks really):
Developer Playtest Video (Youtube)
Thanks for reading this ramble, and hop onto the MicroProse Discord #corfi-general-chat channel to ask any other questions!
