Apparently I'm terrible at guessing the amount of time and effort it takes to get things done. Nevertheless, I've been working nearly full-time on System Recovery, and the people I've shown it to have noticed it.
I'm not out of the woods yet - there's a plethora of things left to add, polish and fix before I start whipping out the big guns: advertising. Meanwhile, I've been preparing the game for a friends-and-family beta test with the bar of quality set way higher than before.
I've set out to schedule the official beta release by the end of January.
Even though the game is still missing some of content (in the form of missions and other small things), it doesn't even compare to the quality of the alpha I've had lying around. I'll be updating the demo aswell, so keep an eye out for that.
I'd like to take this opportunity to go over all the changes and additions System Recovery has gone through since the last release:
- The wave-based invasion gamemode "DDOS" has been added, and supports user created levels (with a great deal of customization!)
- The Campaign gamemode has been fully reworked with a more-streamlined gameplay experience and now focuses on progression: each victory makes the next session harder.
- Currency has been introduced to the game, whether it's a new weapon you want, an upgrade for your base of operations in the campaign, or a boost to your firing speed, the various shops have got you covered.
- Dialogue has been added to the game, bringing about a lot of soul and personality to the ingame characters.
- There are now various prebuilt missions for System Recovery. Among others, there's going to be a story-driven mission pack aswell.
- Achievements have been added, acknowledging your ingame actions ranging from silly things through making progress, all the way to beating difficult challenges.
- The graphics have been slightly enhanced, and some great optimizations have been made, so if previously you had trouble running the game at a smooth framerate, the new version might just be your saviour.
I'm going to look into the possibility of multiplayer support if the game ends up having at least mild success once I start advertising it. It'd be really awesome.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
-Dan
