Development Blog

Hey guys, time for another update! I’ll try to be brief. If you want to read about the game’s production status, jump down to the “Development & Release Status” section.

Belated GDC Report! :D

We’ve been so immersed running the Private Demo stage and working on the game that we haven’t told you how amazing the trip to GDC was!

This was the first time the game had ever been shown in public, so I was a little anxious about how people would react to the game. This is a little baby I started making eight years ago, and it was about to take its first walk in public. The guys at PlayStation were super nice and gave a lot of positive feedback, and once people got a chance to play it, I was relieved to see the baby walking well :)

Overall it was amazing to be a part of the event, and it was really sweet to see how filled with good vibes people are at events like these.

HFA is going to E3!

Even more exciting is the fact that PlayStation’s taking the game to E3 expo next month! We spoke with a lot of gamers and developers at GDC, but not quite so to media people, so this will be a great opportunity for us to present the game to them. We’d heard PlayStation is super friendly to indies, they’ve really gone out of their way to help us. We’re super thankful to them, and by consequence to you guys since you brought us here, as these really are amazing opportunities to show the game to new crowds.

The game will be on display from the 16th till the 18th of June over at PlayStation’s kiosks.

Once E3 is over, it’s likely that we will pass on taking the game to any more venues this year so that we can concentrate on the game’s development. There’s a world of stuff to do and too little time!

Private Demo Reception!

Last month we released our first alpha and the Private Demo to our $50+ backers. It was personally an exciting time for me, as we were finally able to show you guys what we worked on so hard during the winter! The response was really positive and I was personally super glad to confirm you guys like the game, which means that we’re headed in the right direction. We also had only a handful of suggestions regarding gameplay changes, so that means our game design also worked well for you guys!

Some of you asked to include the option to change window zoom & screen mode during gameplay (as opposed to only via the main menu), as well as remapping your controls at any moment. Done! We also went ahead and added SDL controller support, so now the game uses that database to automap your controller so that you can dive right into it. We also modified a few smaller things to make it easier to know how much health you have.

Development & Release Status

To share an overview of how the game is coming along, I’m generally very pleased with what the whole team has done thus far and with what we’re currently working on. I’m also excited about some of the upcoming areas of development.

However, we’re still running with a delay. Earlier this year we mentioned that, before and after the Kickstarter campaign, this project was like night and day in terms of scope and goals, and that these new conditions would require additional development time for us to piece this game together the right way so that we can release it at the right time.

The vertical slice some of you guys played in the Private Demo shows the kind of game we’re targeting to make: something that plays & feels great throughout, tells an interesting story and has a lot of subtle details and secrets. In other words, a game made with a lot of love, attention and care.

Those of you who’ve played the Private Demo will agree it’ll be worth to wait. We hope we’ve proven to you that we can achieve that. To those of you who haven’t played the demo yet, I can assure you that we’re working as hard as we can to make a game you’ll be glad to have backed once it’s finished.

Like we’ve mentioned before, estimating release dates this far out is sensitive to the butterfly effect: simple tweaks can lead to big changes in the schedule later on. This doesn’t mean the tentative release dates we projected earlier will be pushed back radically, but we’ll be able to pinpoint our targeted release window more accurately once we draw nearer to completion.

We will keep you updated with our plans as we move closer to 2016.