If you didn't hear yet, Hero Team is now out in Early Access(!!!) Check out the release announcement post for details about the new features, and please go play it if you haven't already.
Obviously, the main point of doing an Early Access release is that you get to see the game in an early state, and your feedback can help guide and shape how it continues to develop. I have a zillion ideas of things I'd like to do, and I thought I'd lay them out here so you can see what's planned, let me what your priorities are, and give me ideas of anything you want that's missing:
A: More Maps: You've probably already noticed that the first version just has the one map, and I'd like to expand on that as soon as possible.
B: More Weapons: The first one I'm planning to try out is a grenade launcher which fires in a parabolic arc, so with skill you can hit people hiding behind cover. It'd have big damage, but a slow firing rate. (It might be a familiar experience for anyone who played Hero Team's spiritual ancestor Stick 'Em Up 1!)
C: More Characters: More robots of all shapes and sizes
D: More Modes: As much as I love a classic Team Deathmatch, I think some different modes would keep things interesting. One idea that I'm looking forward to trying out is what I'm calling a "Mini Royale". It'd be like a Battle Royale, with elimination and a shrinking play area, but without the resource scavenging part that (controversy incoming!) can make the first half of BR matches a bit dull in my opinion.
E: XP and Progression Rewards: I want to recognize the time that you spend playing the game and the quality of your performance by awarding XP depending on how you did. As you progress up the levels you'd unlock exclusive cosmetics that aren't available to buy (perhaps different weapon effects and weapon skins, and badges for your in-game name label) to show off.
F: Special Abilities: Perhaps the ability to heal other players, perhaps more movement options like hovering, or sliding, or long jumping. Maybe a shield you can deploy temporarily.
G: Loadout Customization: When there is a decent selection of weapons and abilities available I'd like to make a system where you can pick and choose which ones you have equipped so that you can "build your own hero" and play exactly the way you want to. You'd get a certain number of "loadout points" and be able to allocate them to whatever weapons and abilities you like, and even customize your basic stats like running speed. The points "cost" of everything would be balanced to try and prevent any particular loadout from being too dominatingly powerful.
H: More Single-Player Content: Right now the single-player content in the game is the speedrun practice mode. I'd like to expand that with more interesting things to shoot at (including things that shoot back!) and hopefully have a robust set of training missions (with optional co-op, of course!) to complement the online versus modes.
I: Bots: For when you can't find an online game, or just want to get some practice without the pressure of playing with other people.
J: More Visual Polish and "Juice": For example a splashing visual effect when your energy bolts hit things, a boosting effect when you double jump, and a little screen shake when things explode.
K: An In-game Match Scheduling System: Finding people to play with on Discord is fine, but perhaps it would be better to have an in-game calendar where you can indicate that you'd be up for playing at a specific time slot, and see how many people have also indicated the same.
What do you think??
Phew! Those items were vaguely in order of their priority for me. Which ones are most important to you? (Just post the letters for your top 3 or top 5 if you like.) Do you have any thoughts or ideas about any of them? Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments, and thanks again!
- Jon
Early Access Release and New Features
Hello!
I'm very happy to announce that Hero Team is releasing today in Early Access.
New Features
There are some major new features in this version compared with the last public demo version that you might have played during Steam Next Fest:
Double Jumping: Who doesn't love double jumping?? It makes getting around feel much faster and nicer
Auto Healing: Now, if you've taken damage but can escape and avoid damage for 5 seconds your health will start to automatically recover. This might sound like a small thing, but it actually makes fights much more interesting. Previously, once you were low on health there wasn't much you could do except make a last-ditch attack and hope for the best. Now you can weigh up whether you can escape for long enough to recover (perhaps throwing out some covering fire to make your enemy retreat while they reload.)
Speedrun Practice Mode: The practice map now has a timer, and you can earn Bronze, Silver, and Gold stars depending on how fast you can destroy all the target dummies. I think I set the target times to be pretty tough, and I'll be curious to see if you agree. (Please post your score screenshots/videos here on the Steam Community or on the Discord!)
and there are also the boring-but-necessary quality of life features that you'd expect from a quality indie PC game:
Graphics Settings: Gaming on a potato? You're now covered with Low, Medium, High, and Epic graphics quality presets, and a "Rendering Resolution Scale" option that renders fewer pixels and upscales to get more frames per second while keeping the UI looking perfectly sharp at your monitor's native resolution. If you're interested in graphics tech give this option a try even if you don't need it. The upscaling is done with Epic's new "Temporal Super Resolution" technology, which gives shockingly good results imho.
Input Remapping: You don't wanna know how much time and effort it took me to make this part of the game, but the important thing is it exists now, and you can set up the controls however you'd like. Keyboard and mouse, and Xbox controllers work natively, of course, and you can use PS4, PS5, and Switch controllers through Steam's great support for them. It's enabled by default for a seamless experience.
Ultrawide Monitor Support: The game now takes advantage of every pixel on your monitor, while the UI stays neatly in the central part. I don't actually even have an ultrawide myself, but I tested this out using the NVIDIA Surround feature to make a pretend ultrawide out of my side-by-side monitors and even that looked sick, so I'm very jealous of everyone who gets to play the game on a real ultrawide beauty (send me pics!)
More Content Coming Soon!
Obviously this is day one of the Hero Team Early Access era. I know that you need more content to play, and I can't wait to get started on it. I've got a zillion ideas, but this post is too long already so I'll make another post laying out the roadmap.
Thank You
Thank you so much for your interest in the game, and for your patience waiting for today. I hope you enjoy playing it, and I hope you'll stick around as it develops more! Please don't be shy about sharing your feedback, because I truly want this to be a game that you love.
- Jon
Hero Team Steam Deck Compatibility
If you're looking to play Hero Team on your Steam Deck then I've got good news, and slightly less good news:
The good news is that the game works great, and it detects when it's running on a Steam Deck and automatically configures default graphics settings to give beautiful 60 fps performance.
The slightly less good news is that it currently takes a little bit of manual setup to get it working, but it's not too bad at all:
You have to set Steam to use the 'Hotfix' version of Proton (the software that makes Windows games work on the Deck). Hero Team is built with the latest version of Unreal Engine, which is currently only supported by this patched version of Proton. To set it up:
Go to Hero Team in your Steam library on your Deck
Select the cog icon to open the extra actions menu and select "Properties…"
On the left, go to the "Compatibility" page
Turn on the option "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool"
In the new dropdown box that just appeared select "Proton Hotfix" (at the bottom of the list)
You're done! Go back to the game in your library and hit the "Play" button
As mentioned above, the game detects that it's running on a Steam Deck and automatically configures appropriate default graphics settings, which are:
Quality Level: Medium
Rendering Resolution Scale: 45%
The resolution scale might sound low, but trust me that it looks great on the Deck screen, and gives you smooth 60 fps performance, while only using around 12W of power. That means the Deck will stay quiet and cool, and the battery will last for a long time.
If you want a different balance of graphics quality and power usage then you can try different settings, of course. With the quality set to 'Low', resolution scale set to 45% and the Deck's Refresh Rate set to 45 Hz (in the Performance overlay) I was able to get the power down to 8.6W(!) while still having a very good, playable experience.
Thanks very much for playing Hero Team on your Steam Deck!
Play with the Dev
Hero Team is a multiplayer 2.5D platformer/shooter about robots shooting each other to bits. Come download the Next Fest demo and play with the developer (me!) The controls are super-easy to pick up on keyboard/mouse or controller.
Play with the Dev
Hero Team is a multiplayer 2.5D platformer/shooter about robots shooting each other to bits. Come download the Next Fest demo and play with the developer (me!) The controls are super-easy to pick up on keyboard/mouse or controller.
Hero Team: Kill the devs
We'll be showing off Hero Team gameplay, and playing on the live servers so you can download the free Steam Game Festival preview of the game and join us in game. We'll be bouncing around each region's servers so hopefully everyone will have a chance to come and kill us.
We're also very interested to hear your feedback about the game so far, and to hear what kind of weapons, modes, and maps you'd like to see next.
Looking forward to seeing you in the game and/or stream chat!
Hero Team: Kill the devs
We'll be showing off Hero Team gameplay, and playing on the live servers so you can download the free Steam Game Festival preview of the game and join us in game. We'll be bouncing around each region's servers so hopefully everyone will have a chance to come and kill us.
We're also very interested to hear your feedback about the game so far, and to hear what kind of weapons, modes, and maps you'd like to see next.
Looking forward to seeing you in the game and/or stream chat!
