This update will be a short one. Holy cow we launched into early access. I hope you all will have fun with the game and please feel free to post feedback.
I will do my best to monitor as much as possible and try to fix any major bugs. Remember however, this is just the beginning.
I am going to focus on the first narrative content update while trying to fix bugs in between. I cannot estimate a proper release schedule for it at this point but I want to get it out asap. It'll be an important part in the game's story so I need to make sure it's a solid update. As always I will use a TBD approach.
For now I'm going to just be here as much as I can and tend to the forums and don't forget to try the demo first !!!
Have fun and take care.
Joure.
The Last Hurrah Before Launch
I would be lying if I didn't say I wasn't as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. (I didn't make this one up)
Last Minute Updates
Today will be the last major update before we launch into Early Access. I've made some last minute fixes and additions to the game. The new build will go live in a few minutes so by the time you read this, it most likely will be live. I will list the most recent changes/fixes,etc below.
Mouse Sensitivity Added: Yes the game now has a mouse sensitivity option. You'll be able to adjust it to your liking. You can find it over at the Game Options.
Chapter Titles Implemented: I have now added actual chapter titles to the game. This was on my list for a while now and finally had some time to get it implemented properly.
New music: Adam Halpin is our main composer and he;s been blowing my mind with his work. I've worked with him before and am so happy he joined the project. I genuinely think he has an amazing talent for writing a score. Tapping into the essence of the game and just running with it. His music has been silently replacing the old soundtrack and we will continue to replace and add new tracks throughout Early Access.
Demo Update
One last update for the Demo will be pushed out later today as well. Including the new additions I mentioned above.
For those who have played the demo and are planning to get the game then I have something for you. A save file that allows you to continue roughly where you left off.
You won't be able to simply continue with you current save file and in anticipation of that I am offering this file so you won't have to start all over.
You can get the link and instructions on where to put it over in the forum thread here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/552880/discussions/7/1290691308574047706/
Bugs
There are still a number of known bugs in the game. Some of them we have to yet reproduce ourselves but they are noted. I've spent the last week working on fixing the most notorious ones.
Thanks to a lot of feedback from the community I've been able to learn about a few ones we weren't aware of and fixed some of them as well.
I just watched a recorded livestream of the game and, well I don't think the game was for him. But my worries are when the game crashes and breaks the savegame resulting in a crash.
I've had one other report of this happening and I honestly have yet to figure out the reason for this. The thing that is always hurtful is when the game gets brushed aside with a snarky laugh. The fact remains that you get one chance to impress and when something like that happens it just hurts me in the guts.
I also don't think STARDROP is that fun to watch as a game and it's never meant to be. It's a game to experience by yourself. Though I enjoy seeing the reactions of some people.
In general I would say the game is fully playable. The cards on our Public Trello Board have been updated and I will be concentrating on these first.
What's next?
What's most important to me is that people realize there's a lot more in store for the future. When you buy the game you tell us that you have faith in us, in me. And the least I can do is to make sure I deliver. If you enjoyed the demo, or the main game then I truly believe you will love the rest.
There's a lot of work ahead, mostly in terms of story elements and I honestly cannot wait to finish the game and wrap up the main story.
I will continue to fix as many bugs as possible during the week. I will be here to try and help those with problems and I will continue to add in new content. I believe that focusing on what we currently have is the best route.
But I will also continue work on the next portion of the game's narrative. As I mentioned earlier, I will release new portions as episodic content and most likely will do these in the form of chapters.
With each new chapter I will make sure to offer a save game file so people can continue where they left off. Also don't forget that there's a publicdev branch available. Currently it's the same as the main branch but in time we will update this branch with an updated but not completed version of the game for those who want to take a peek at what's to come.
The first update on this branch will most likely come out during the first week of release. Giving players a chance to visit the STARDROP and see what's in the works.
I hope this update was helpful and I hope you guys will have as much fun playing the game as I have making it. Because of STARDROP's narrative nature I feel that this Early Access cycle will be very interesting and fun. New updates mean new content.
Now is the time to help spread the word, STARDROP will be out in Early Access in one day !!!
Take care everyone and see you on the other side.
Joure & Team V
STARDROP - 7 Days To Go
Hi everyone.
7 Days left O_O'
That's right, 7 days left to go before the game will launch into Early Access. I felt like just rambling a short bit about how much of a rollercoaster ride this has been so far.
The people I've met and the feedback I've gotten from all corners of the internet has been truly amazing. I believe in the game and that once it's finished it'll be a really special experience full of laughter and a bit of seriousness.
Thank you all for your support so far, it's been so incredibly motivating. Making a game big or small is so much work. Even more so if you put your heart and soul into it because you want it to succeed. You don't want to let down your fans and also because in a lot of ways it's an extension of who you are.
This week I have was able to fix a number of bugs. Some of them been in the game far too long but thanks to Sensi, one of our PT's, I was able to acuratly determine where they came from/ He spent a lot of time finding out exactly how to reproduce them and I used that info.
Some of these bugs include certain panels becoming unresponsive, and an invert axis bug that would revert itself back during level change.
Orphanage has been incredibly helpful with helping me manage community stuff.
This week we released two guides which will both be updated.
The first guide is our official play guide. I go over a umber of useful tips and will continue to update it as development progresses.
Our second guide is a troubleshooting guide. In here we have gathered all the issues people have ran into with STARDROP. Almost all of them are issues that are out of our hands. So in order to fix them we had to dig around. Some community members were able to fix them on their own and share it with us. Thank you for that guys!
I will continue to try and polish soe more areas before release
Now that that's out of the way I will leave you guys with a few more screenshots showing off some of the areas in the game that have received some more polish.
All I can ask from anyone at this point is to help spread the word. STARDROP is coming and I have a lot of cool stuff planned for you all in the near future. :)
Joure & Team V
STARDROP - Options Menu Overhaul
For the past few days I have been working on a complete Options Menu overhaul.
I have been able to implement pretty much all of the scalability options that UE4 offers without external programs/code. We have been able to get the game to run on Orphanage's super crappy old laptop with around 25 to 30 FPS.
This probably doesn't sound that well, but we're talking about a AMD A4-4300m APU With Radeon HD Graphics - 2.5 GHz 4 GB RAM and a AMD Radeon HD7420g Video card.
Considering all that, we're very happy with the new scalability results. Yes the game doesn't look as good. (We had to turn down the resolution scale to about 30/40) but it's playable.
We wanted to test IF we could get the game to run in a playable state on an incredibly outdated system and we're happy with the current results.
That said the new Options Menu behaves slightly different from before. The "APPLY" button is gone except for the resolutions menu.
Below are some examples of how the game looks at Epic, Medium and Low settings:
Epic:
Medium/High:
Low:
All changes are instantly applied on the fly. However I still want/need to add a "Revert To Default" button on the menu screens just in case. I'll try to implement this asap.
The new changes are LIVE right now but before you update make sure you delete your old options save files (SD_Options_SaveGameData.sav)
Just head over to your AppData/Local folder and locate the STARDROP folder. The save files can be found under:
AppData\Local\STARDROP\Saved\SaveGames
Demo Update Incoming
I am currently finishing up the last demo update before Early Access. The new demo will reflect the current build of the full game, alongside with the overhauled Options Menu.
Other then that I think this will be it for the most part. We will do our best and try to get some more stuff ready for launch but with roughly 8 days left it's going to be tight.
The demo will be updated in one or two hours from now if all goes well.
Final Thoughts
We're almost there with just over a week left to go. I'm excited, nervous and hopeful the game will be received in kind. A lot of work has gone into it already and I still have a whole lot more to do.
It's been a lot of fun so far and a huge milestone for everyone over at Team V. We're all looking forward to how the community will react.
Thank you all for your support once again so far and I can't wait to show you guys what we'll be releasing next.
Joure
STARDROP Update. May 20
Today we updated our public build for STARDROP once again.
Almost every single map has been given yet another thorough visual polish as well as more optimization. I feel that the content in this current build is highly representative of the final product. However, there's still room for improvements.
That said, I have spoken with the VA's and we all agree that we'll need to re-record a lot of the earlier dialogues. Minor quality inconsistencies are audible and I feel that the dialogues themselves can be improved upon.
Also one of the more important parts of today's update are the update Scalability options. I've tweaked the post processing option and it no longer makes the game too dark when choosing low or medium settings.
On top of that I have added a Detail Mode option that lowers the detail on meshes and other objects in the game.
The next scalability feature I want to add in is Anti Aliasing but still need time to implement it.
I will continue to try and smooth out as much as possible before launch day, which is now less than 2 weeks away.
Tomorrow I will also be updating the Demo, most likely for the last time before launch day. After that I will focus on PR and working on polishing some more existing content as well as planning ahead for new content.
Thank you for reading and all the support we have gotten from all you guys !!!
STARDROP - Preview by SidAlpha (Diamond Devs)
Hi everyone.
Just a small update that I figured would be nice to share with everyone. I contacted SidAlpha and at the time had my concerns regarding the use of premade assets and a certain tension I felt as a dev using them regarding the ever more prevalent misuse by asset flippers.
SidAlpha responded in kind and actually had a lot of very nice things to say, along with some very useful feedback and criticism which I have been taking notes of.
So I figured I wanted to share his coverage with you guys. You can watch his video right here:
Some of you guys must have already seen it by now, but in case you haven't we are running a social media campaign.
The gist of it is that through thunderclap people can lend their social media reach through Facebook, Twitter and/or Tumblr and we could really use all the support we can get!
Also I've added a number of stickies on our Early Access forums with some useful information so it might be worth it to check those out.
We have a blog post that goes into a bit more detail and explains what Thunderclap is:
Thunderclap Hooooo
STARDROP Public Build Updated
There's so much going on right now trying to get the game as polished up before lanching into Early Access I keep forgetting what I actually have reported on. I'll do my best to not repeat or leave out anything but here's the gist.
The main menu has gotten a little bit of lovin again where I added three new buttons that links to our website, our Facebook page and our Twitter page. This should make it a lot easier for our community to contact us for any reason.
STARDROP Official Main Theme
STARDROP has it's own original main theme. I've been waiting to finally reveal Adam Halpin as our on-board composer and he's done an amazing job.
He will continue to work on new songs for the game but I felt that now is the time to introduce him proper. With this introduction I would like to also give you guys a glimpse into some of the new visual updates regarding the game's introduction sequence.
The video quality is a bit lacking this time round and I couldn't pinpoint why. However you'll be able to listen to the new soundtrack and hopefully starting to get more excited.
The storepage has also been updated with new screenshots. Updated the "About this game" section and tweaked/updated the Early Access descriptions as well.
Demo Updated Again
The demo has also been updated again (Don't worry, I actually uploaded the demo this time) to reflect the new public build and the updated visuals as well as the new theme song.
I will continue updating the demo when possible to keep it relevant.
What's next?
Well, besides doing PR and marketing I will do my very best to get some new narrative content into the game. I hope I can make it before lanch day but I cannot promise I will be able to.
But I can say that it'll be an interesting update, even if it's a little bit after we release.
I hope this information has been helpful, we're all looking forward to June 1st.
Joure & Team V
Important Demo Announcement
Hello everyone.
I made a boo boo.
In short: Because of all the things going on I actually uploaded our dev build as the demo with our last update. This means that you, yes you, who has played the old demo have a chance to play a closer version of what our EA build will be like.
That said, this version of the demo will remain live for a few hours longer as an apology. I don't feel like sneakily updating the demo again and not saying anything.
So take this chance to get a good look of the game and determine if you want to support us during our Early Access launch and if this game is something for you.
I sincerely apologize but hope you guys can understand that I will have to revert the build in a while. I am not sure yet when but at least for the next 4 to 5 hours or so it will remain live.
Again my, sincere apologies and thank you for your support. Another announcement will follow with new information very soon.
Thank you, Joure.
*UPDATE*
The demo build has been updated once again with the actual demo content.
STARDROP Heading to Early Access in June
Hello everyone.
Quite a big announcement today. I've created a blog post that will go over all the important bits of information regarding Early Access and our overall plans. Make sure to go over all the information presented in the post.
I have also updated the DEMO so head over the new blog post and find out for yourself:
