Just Random Squares
Ready!
If there are any problems (hopefully not!), there are 3 ways to reach me:
Community discussions
Release date
This one will be short - game will be released this friday, Aug 23, 2019 @ 1:00pm PDT (22:00 CEST)
As a reminder from random update #1, the base price (the one before regional price adjustments) is going to be $6.99. There will also be a launch discount of -15%
Gameplay video #2
Another gameplay video has just appeared. This one features first boss fight of the game, two different player weapons and gamemode that is called "stable normal". It's normal difficulty mode where randomly generated elements like enemies (with their behaviors and weapons) stay the same each time player is defeated, which means the playthrough is deterministic for given rng seed (to some extent, since enemy spawn points or their actual AI that decides when to shoot or where to move is still random).
Random update #2
It's time for another update about current state of development.
Current build
Current build of the game was approved by Steam, so at this point there is virtually nothing that prevents me from releasing the game. That said, I still want to spend next couple of days on playtesting to find potential problems/crashes/bugs, so no release for now, but I am almost certain I will be able to provide specific release date by the end of this week. (which should be within next 2 weeks range anyway)
Controller support
There won't be controller support, but also there will be. What ?
First of all, I feel that this type of game is less than ideal to play with controller, so I didn't plan to add controller support of any sort. Second thing is technical aspect of adding controller support. In short, the game is made in Unity and it's default input solution makes it impossible to rebind keys during the game, so I had to wrap it with my custom solution which makes it possible to rebind keys, but was made without any controller support in mind, so it would be somewhat problematic to work around it right now.
However, this is where Steam Input comes into play, which makes it possible to control every game using controller. To test this feature, I dug up my 15+ years old 5$ controller manufactured by an unknown asian company (I personally dislike using anything but keyboard + mouse for gaming). After a bit of tinkering with controller settings in Steam big screen I was able to bind all keys used by game to controller buttons, which allowed me to successfully launch the game and even beat few waves of squares with it. I also made a somewhat usable default preset so controller is somewhat usable just out of the box.
TL;DR: No controller support built into the game, but it's possible to play the game using controller thanks to Steam Input
Why no early access ?
There are couple of reasons for releasing the game as a final product instead of as an early access title. First, I personally dislike it when games hide behind early access tag for months/years when they are feature rich and good enough to be treated as a fully released product. Second, I might continue expanding the game with content patches, but no guarantee there. Of course I will do my best to fix any bugs/problems that might show up after the release, but new content depends on game performance and player engagement. Third reason is just my overall feeling about whole idea of early access. Nowadays, it feels like early access tag is just a way to say "we want your money right now but our game is unfinished and bugged, so please don't mind that, it might get better some day", which doesn't sit right with me. When I buy a product, I get it in a state it is at this point of time, no matter if it's early access / beta / full release or whatever else, so slapping tag like that doesn't really matter for me.
Cinematic trailer
I thought about it and decided I won't be doing one. This is just a little game and time spent creating hype up video can be allocated to more useful things. Also I personally never watch cinematic trailers because they give me no information about the game whatsoever. I would rather watch a few minutes of gameplay to get a general idea what the game is about than 30 seconds of video to build up hype that tells me nothing. That said I plan to record another short gameplay video which includes first boss fight and upload it by the end of this week or early next week.
Gameplay video
8.5 minute video with just raw gameplay was added few moments ago - check it out!
Random update #1
Work on the game continues and release comes closer and closer. I have vague date in mind, but I don't want to reveal it before I'm sure the game is actually ready.
Here are some of the things I'm working on right now:
- Steamworks integration - achievements and cloud saves (right now these features are mainly done, but still need testing)
- Playtesting to make sure the game is stable and is as bug free as possible
- Balancing stuff so you can actually beat the game (I've actually beaten the game once already on normal difficulty. It took me 178 defeats which is kind of high number, but then I'm not very skilled when it comes to bullet hell games)
- Finding typos in texts
- Finishing background music
- Adding random features that require not-that-much effort, but I suddenly feel like adding (such as recently added option to disable scaling of in-game ui on higher resolutions, so it's not stretched to fill the window and instead black bars appear)
There are also things I consider implementing before release, but I might aswell patch them in at some point in the future, or even entirely skip them:
- Some kind of system to save/share custom game presets so they can be easily reused later. Right now there are "hardcoded" game modes that differ in difficulty and other settings + there is custom game mode that lets you tweak all available settings. Right now if you want to start another playthrough using custom mode similar to the one you used before, you have to tweak all the options all over again remembering all the values, which isn't very convenient, but does the job.
- More mechanics when it comes to bullets/weapons
- Maybe some kind of randomized player unit - right now there are 5 "classes" of units you can choose from, each one has predetermined skills and stats. I'm thinking here about adding some kind of "wildcard" unit which has randomized stats/skills each time it is available.
I've put a fair amount of hours into developing this project, but I realise it's not AAA high production value game. It's just my first game (and I am mainly a programmer), so I had to acknowledge it will be rough around the edges, especially when it comes to art and graphics. Asking $50 for the game may be fine for AAA studios, but not for some random guy making his first game. I believe in fair (and square) pricing, so I think cost of this game should be around $6.99 before applying steam regional pricing suggestions.
If there are any questions, feel free to make a post in discussions section here https://steamcommunity.com/app/1109880/discussions/, tweet me at https://twitter.com/JRSGame, or just make a comment below - I will try my best to answer.