Hello everyone. Today we’re finally announcing what we call our “Starmap to Launch”!
Let’s discuss really quickly what each of these things means.
First, Early Access. We have been revamping our UI since about January and it’s been a ton of work. I’ve had to make all new UI assets from scratch, something I’ve never done before, and Cameron has been adding animations and flair that we previously didn’t have. Overall, everything looks way better, but it hasn’t been a simple job of just replacing one set of assets with another. This unfortunately meant we had to push back the release of The Chaser’s Voyage. In addition, we’ve been busy playtesting the game with every insignia on our Twitch (every Thursday at 4:30 PST) and would really like to get the game into more hands for feedback before properly launching the game. That’s why, since most of our UI has been updated, we’ve decided to put the game into Early Access as soon as we’ve checked off a few more things.
Keep your eyes on our Steam store page for when the game becomes available.
When we put the game up, there will be some big features missing that we will be steadily adding to the game. The biggest thing that’ll be missing is the Crew Journal. In case you don’t know what that is, it’s a collection of in-universe lore that we use to paint a bigger picture of the galaxy you find yourself in. Your crew will also comment on these entries, slowly revealing more and more of their backstories and personalities. It’s a really big part of what we would call the overall experience, but at the same time, not as important as actually getting the game up and running.
In addition, we also won’t have any of the surrounding story stuff, like opening or ending cutscenes, or the proper tutorial ready at the beginning of Early Access. The tutorial is always something we planned to make last, as we didn’t want to commit to any game mechanics that might change over the course of development or constantly be remaking the tutorial. As a temporary replacement, we have a video planned that will be in the Early Access build to explain how to play the game and will be removed once the the tutorial is in place.
Next, let’s talk about Discord. Since we’re finally ready to get this game into people’s hands, we thought it was best to create a central hub for discussions about The Chaser’s Voyage and to create a community around the game. Our goal with creating a Discord server will primarily be for receiving feedback, but we’d also like to chat and get to know people who are interested in the game. It will also be a hub for any future projects we begin after The Chaser’s Voyage.
Lastly, “Test Pilots“. We want streamers, Let’s Players, etc. We want to give those people copies of our game to help spread the word about it. If you are such a person looking to become a test pilot, send us an email at
br**************@gm***.com
(or DM us on Twitter) with some information about yourself as well as a link to your channel, so we can see what kind of work you do. We’re really interested in channels of all sizes and only ask that if we give you a copy of the game, that you do play the game to an audience (stream or Let’s play) in some fashion.
Well, that’s it for this update. We’ll be sure to let everyone know when the Discord server is created and when the game becomes available for Early Access. This is going to be such a major milestone for us and we’re both very excited and very nervous!
