Heyo people! As you might have noticed we already have arrived in the last days of August and I've told you that it was my personal goal to bring you the playable alpha of Loot It! in these days. Sadly I am very very busy getting my Bachelor Project done what leaves us in a bit of a dilemma resulting in what follows:
We've decided to let you choose how our first alpha built will look like and when it will be released. For this we've prepared two options to choose from (they of course will have consequences on the release date of the alpha).
The first option is that the Loot It! alpha will release around the 3rd of September. This however will have some impact on the content of the alpha as the second level is far from finished, what actually is a very interesting story as this is a result of me having some problems reading our feature checklist. I actually thought that some features related to the second level were done which in reality weren't and well... Kinda overestimated our progress on the second level. So this will give you the tutorial level, and ONLY the tutorial level to play, which isn't very big and stuff but outlines most of the gameplay, and of course you can play around with the menu and stuff and help us by reporting bugs or telling us what is $#!tty about the game.
The second option is that we will delay the alpha again for, well, probably end of September or October as I really need to finish my bachelor project, but we'll of course add a bunch of new features and a second level in the meantime. (Please keep in mind that LootIt! is currently only a sparetime project I'm spending far too much time on in comparison to other things)
We let you decide because I think we've proven that we're not actually the sharpest people if it comes to making decisions in this general direction. Should this go by unnoticed we will release the first level on September the 3rd I guess...
Have a nice day and don't forget to participate in the decision making process!
I'd say if you need feedback, release it on Sep. 3rd, so that we can report back to you as soon as possible. If it's not that urgent, you could as well finish what you're up to and give us the bigger package later on (in the meantime, a gameplay video would be nice).
The best option would obviously be to combine the best of both worlds and release the first level on Sep. 3rd, as well as the second level as soon as it's done. But I don't know if that interferes with any plans of yours.
On a sidenote, thank you for supporting Linux. Since you use Unity, I guess we'll have to wait until Unity updates their engine to get our hands on this game, but it's nice to know the platform is supported.
Thank you, Actually I forgot to write that down but of course the second level would release as soon as it is done if we choose the first option.
We're in need for some feedback indeed as I have playtested the game myself already far to often and cannot tell good from bad anymore, so from this point of view, I think option 1 would be better. The only problem is that it just wouldn't outline what we've achieved in the last 8 months as there are lots of prototype- and WIP- Levels and some Features we haven't used in the Tutorial Level.
I personally love Linux and really can't wait for Unity4 to happen. I'm happy to see that bigger companies like Unity and ValvE start to officially support Linux with their products.
Thank you again for your quick feedback and have a nice day!