I worked really hard to give you an experience you never had before. Have fun!
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my desktop appear black? When you launch the game, select "Choose this if your desktop doesn't show up"
My desktop used to work fine until I selected "Choose this if your desktop doesn't show up"? Choose the option that is not "Choose this if your desktop doesn't show up".
My Antivirus says Outcore is a virus It's a false positive. Whenever I release a new version of Outcore, I need to fill out false positive forms so antiviruses like Avast & AVG wouldn't flag the game as a virus. This process takes several days until the false positive report is confirmed and everyone's AVs are updated.
I wish there wasn't a suspicious way to say this, but the best workaround is to tell your antivirus to ignore Outcore.
If you have an antivirus that is not Avast or AVG and you're still getting false positives, then please contact me so I can fill out the form for that antivirus too.
Does Outcore run on my real desktop Yes
Why is the game free? Because I'm in love with this project. I don't think it's going to make enough money to sustain me, so I at least want as many people to play it as possible
Can I support you anyway? Buy one of the DLCs (which should be up soon) or show me pictures of your cute pets
Super duper secret release date reveal
September 26.
Now that this is out of the way, here's a short development update:
The game is playable from start to finish. These days I work to fix all the remaining bugs (and there are a LOT of them... this game is complex)
Outcore recently won its first Award! It received the Innovative Outlaw Award from BitSummit X-Roads
In order to participate in BitSummit, I had to fly to Japan. Outcore will also exhibit at Tokyo Game Show, so I'll stay here until then. After that, I'll return home just in time to release the full game.
Thank you for following the development of Outcore!
Release month, development news, and Tokyo Game Show participation
September
Outcore will be released during the second half of September. A more specific and final date will be revealed sometime during August
Development news Chapter 4 is done, which means Outcore is kinda content complete. It's still missing some music and sound effects; otherwise, the game can be played from start to finish.
Cool, now what? In a couple of days, I'll release chapter 4 to the internal testers. After that, I'll focus on stabilizing chapter 4 and the rest of the game. During whatever time remains I'll try to further polish the game, and put more effort into marketing it.
Tokyo Game Show Outcore will participate in Tokyo Game Show! This is one of the biggest gaming conventions in the WORLD! It's an honor to be able to present Outcore at such a big convention. It requires physical presence, so I'll attend TGS in person to showcase the game.
If you ever wanted to play Outcore on my greasy laptop's keyboard or just spit in my face, that's gonna be your only chance. Come say hi!
Another convention I lied about TGS being your only chance to spit in my face. Outcore has also been accepted into another physical gaming convention in Japan! I can't tell you what it is though because... Uhm... I was told not to. But that convention will post an announcement of its own in a couple of days. After that, I'll be able to announce Outcore's participation.
Pictures of my cats Have I ever shown you pictures of my cats? No??? Oh sorry about that, let's fix it.
This is Shaul, but nobody calls him that. We usually just call him Shulu. Sometimes, we go even further beyond and call him PATUTU. He's such a good boy, he's scared of his own shadow and loves to eat ropes, laces, strings, and poisonous house plants. Also if you try to lift him you'll quickly learn how it feels to hug an active chainsaw
And now, the next cat... is Jiji This is not a real cat. It's a 100% lump of fat that is shaped to resemble a cat. He likes suckling on a piece of cloth even though he's over 2 years old (which is about 70 billion in Outcore years). He's afraid of water guns for some reason too!
I love my cats.
Closing words? Thank you for following the development of Outcore: Desktop Adventure. See you again next month!
Nextfest participation
Hey! Outcore's last Nextfest spotlight is going to be on June 20th. It really is an unimportant announcement, which I announce because Steam requires me to announce it. Hope you all have a great day
Outcore's February + March update
Hey everyone, it's time for a new update.
February and March were all about finishing and stabilizing chapter 3. It's so big compared to the other chapters that I ended up spending the entirety of both months working on it. Here's a list of what's been worked on these past 2 months:
Finished implementing all graphics for chapter 3
Finished implementing almost all of the SFX in chapter 3
Several rounds of testing and bug fixing for a couple of weeks now, with only a few issues left to solve
Demo translations for Japanese, Russian, Indonesian, and Latin American Spanish are being worked on. Some of these will likely be available in a couple of days or weeks
Added some minor quality of life improvements to platforming
Development of chapter 4 (the final chapter!) begins today. Chapter 4 is extremely spoiler heavy, so it's very likely there won't be another progress update in 2 months. That said, chapter 4 should take less time to develop than chapter 3. So hopefully, it won't be too long before I can share development news again
That's all for now. Thanks for following the development of Outcore: Desktop Adventure
Outcore's December + January update
Hey Everyone! It's time for an update.
During December and January, I've been working hard on chapter 3. While I initially wanted to release the chapter for internal testing by the end of January, it turned out to be too much work for that deadline. I still managed to complete quite a lot of tasks. Here's what's been done in the past 2 months:
All primary pieces of content in chapter 3 are playable. This includes several mini-games, boss fights, and cutscenes.
Some of chapter 3's graphics have been created
Outcore participated in The Big Adventure Event
A New demo version was released, which fixes a couple of bugs and brings some quality of life improvement
New trailer!
Outcore's website was redesigned
Simplified Chinese was added to the demo
And this is what I need to complete during February before the chapter is ready to be playtested by the alpha testers:
Stitch together all the playable parts of chapter 3 so it can be played from the start to the end
Finish all the graphics, illustrations & animations. Most of the work comes down to creating graphics for the characters in this chapter, which there are a lot of.
Fix any remaining bugs
Add missing sound effects
I'd like to add an optional side content to chapter 3, but that will only happen if time allows it.
After that, I'll start working on chapter 4, the game's final chapter. It will be much shorter than chapter 3 and should take less time to develop, but it will still take some time since it's the finale. During that time, Outcore's alpha testers will proof-play chapter 3, and Aviv (Fez) Yeyni (Outcore's musician) will compose the music for chapter 3.
I'll make sure to write another update once I have some interesting progress to show.
Thanks for following Outcore's development.
Outcore's November progress update
Hey there.
November's been quite a productive month, so I thought it would be a good time to give you a little update about the game's progress. During this entire month (and some of October) I've been working daily on chapter 3 (out of 4). I got to finish more tasks than I thought I would, and some stuff to share
One of the things players will get to do in chapter 3 is use a new ability during the memory section of the chapter. This new ability lets you shoot a star in an arc, which can hurt enemies and help you traverse air obstacles.
About 50% of the chapter 3 is already playable, but without any graphics. This chapter is going to be the biggest & longest one in the entire game. It's going to contain 2 desktop mini games, multiple big cutscenes, multiple bosses, and an explorable (!) platforming section:
During December I hope to get 100% of the chapter to be playable. And by January, the entire chapter should be done, including graphics, sounds, music, bug fixing and polish.
After that only chapter 4 will remain to be developed. It's a rather short chapter, but would still require a lot of work since it's the game's finale. When that's done, I'll probably take another month or two to fix any remaining bugs and improve whatever I can before release.
That said, If everything goes according to schedule, Outcore will be released sometime in mid 2022!
Thank you for following the development of Outcore
Outcore is now 50% complete!
It's been a while since the last update about the development of Outcore. I've been working hard on chapter 2 and didn't have a lot of stuff I could share publicly.
I'm now happy to announce that development on chapter 2 (out of 4) is complete and that development has passed the 50% mark! It took a while to make the first two chapters. I had to build the entire game's infrastructure from the ground up, and that took some time to get right and stable. I believe making the next two chapters will likely be faster now that the infrastructure exists.
So what's next?
The story and events for chapters 3 & 4 are both planned, but I still need to take some time to write the fine details in each chapter.
I'm going to start developing chapter 3 right away. It's going to be the biggest chapter in terms of content, so it might take a while before I can announce it as completed.
There's going to be a mini-game in chapter 3 that I also want to integrate into chapter 1's desktop section. So expect a possibly new demo build in the coming months
I can't announce a release date at this point in development, but currently, I'm aiming to release Outcore in mid-2022. Don't take this as a promise as development times are hard to predict and delays are likely to happen. I want to make sure that I'll have enough time to polish the game and fix any major and minor bugs, so please be patient!
I usually post more frequent updates over at the game's Discord channel. So if you'd like to hear more about Outcore's development, you can join at https://discord.gg/CKSV49T
Thank you for following the development of Outcore.
