Dev Diary - Issue #7 "Wrist Deep in Pandora's Box"
Greetings once again to our loyal backers! I'm happy to be bringing you the most important dev diary yet.
By the way, Fortune says hello.
We're delighted to announce the closed beta will begin for all Big Bang Theorists (backers that pledged £75 or more) on September 28th, 2019! Make sure you have your keys retrieved and activated in your Steam libraries so you can access it.
As previously mentioned, this first build will include the SHMUP tutorial and the first mission of the game. However, we're also adding an endless combat mode for testing purposes. If you're eligible, Make sure you drop by our Discord server and sign up for the Beta Oasis room so you can give us feedback and report any bugs there.
Here's an updated WIP of Taron Kraask's model, which includes her color scheme. We're putting the finishing touches on her fur textures to make sure she's extra fabulous before her first appearance on the cat walk.
For all you Studio 69 VIPs, we're pleased to reveal the club itself in all its glory! Now that it has had a final pass done on the lighting and assets, it's up to the quality we first envisioned for it. We hope you all look forward to chilling, having a drink and playing a few bar games with your favorite waifus here.
And now, at long last, we are proud to present our unique and powerful system of customized hand-holding in Subverse - PANDORA!
Pandora is a tech tree that allows you to send your lap rocket on a fucktacular journey into the black hole of your choice. Remember how we talked about the XP capsule system (aka PP/Pooter Points) last week? Every time your waifu levels up, you get one PP. You can insert your PP right here.
There are three pools of hand-holding from which you can unlock scenes:
CAPTAIN - 1v1 fun with the panty-faced protagonist, both in POV and cinematic poses.
CREW - The ladies of Subverse get to have futa fun with each other courtesy of Dr. Lillian Margaliss's insta-dick technology as well as some group poses involving other Mary Celeste denizens.
XENO - Big old sloppy 100% certified organic Manticore meat monster hogs for your waifus to enjoy. You can look forward to fiends of both the bi and quadrupedal variety to play with.
All of these options also contain categories hand-animated by our artisan fucksmiths, and our animations are tailored to each waifu's unique personality, i.e. Killi will be more dominant with her teases.
Here are the categories below:
TEASE - (Pre-meal Cocktail) Good old fashioned animated pinups.
FOREPLAY - (Appetizers) Basically any kind of lewd act ending with "-job."
SEX - (Entree) The meat and potatoes course of the night where you can enjoy a variety of orifices.
AFTERS - (Dessert) The creamy, cuddly icing on your waifu. A great way to end the night.
You can insert the scenes you've unlocked into their corresponding Pandora Player slots (e.g. unlock a TEASE with Lily, it goes into the TEASE slot). This allows you to essentially assemble your very own custom short movies. Different scenes from different trees can be mixed and matched to create a smorgasbord of depravity. You can even save presets of your favorite combinations or just hit randomize and go to town on whatever Pandora has in store for you!
While you will gain enough PP throughout the course of Subverse to unlock every single scene, you are free to specialize in just a single tree if you wish. This gives you unlimited power over your own fetishes.
- Spend PP to unlock scenes of your choice
- Assemble the scenes in Pandora
- Generate scene and hit play to enjoy!
We are so thrilled to announce that two full-time software engineers with AAA gaming experience have joined the Subverse team. They're already making a huge impact on production, and we couldn't be happier to have them here.
During the past few months, we've also been in contact with several world-renowned game producers that have been acting as mentors for us during this process.
Their advice, along with that of our new engineers, have caused us to audit the current release strategy and pipeline. This brought us to the conclusion that Early Access would not be beneficial for Subverse.
Please note: THIS DECISION WILL NOT EFFECT THE CLOSED BETA IN ANY WAY.
The other good news is that this decision will actually allow us to significantly speed up production of the full release because it won't be necessary to constantly update and maintain the numerous Early Access builds. We're currently ahead of our internal production schedule and we see no issue with maintaining this pace.
This decision wasn't taken lightly. Subverse is currently 13th global on the Steam Wishlist, We could've easily taken the cash grab route and put out the unpolished Early Access chapters, but Studio FOW has always been committed to creating products that we are proud of and we know the fans will thoroughly enjoy.
1) Single-player, story-driven RPGs don't tend to do early access. Early Access is typically utilized by FPS games, rogue-likes, and MMOs that have gameplay loops and dynamic online components that need to be thoroughly tested.
2) One of our advisers made the excellent point that we have almost 4,500 eligible closed beta testers. This is a huge pool that we can tap into to make gameplay tweaks, thus nullifying the whole point of Early Access for the general public.
3) Subverse is a story-driven game meant to be experienced as a whole, not in the stop/start fashion that is forced by Early Access. Having to wait potentially up to a month for the next chapter to be released will really hurt the momentum of the overall game.
4) Internally, we've seen the difference between a fully completed section of the game and an Early Access one, and it's night and day in terms of quality. We feel it would be a disservice to you guys and the project to release it before the quality you deserve can be achieved throughout the game.
We'll be releasing public gameplay footage following the start of the closed beta and keeping you guys in the loop with our Youtube channel, so please don't feel left out even if you don't have closed beta access. We'll make sure everyone has a ticket aboard the hype train for the duration of the project, and we're extremely excited to take the trip with you.
Sincerely,
Mr. Kristoff
Senior Producer
By the way, Fortune says hello.
Closed Beta Release Date
We're delighted to announce the closed beta will begin for all Big Bang Theorists (backers that pledged £75 or more) on September 28th, 2019! Make sure you have your keys retrieved and activated in your Steam libraries so you can access it.
As previously mentioned, this first build will include the SHMUP tutorial and the first mission of the game. However, we're also adding an endless combat mode for testing purposes. If you're eligible, Make sure you drop by our Discord server and sign up for the Beta Oasis room so you can give us feedback and report any bugs there.
Model Teases
Here's an updated WIP of Taron Kraask's model, which includes her color scheme. We're putting the finishing touches on her fur textures to make sure she's extra fabulous before her first appearance on the cat walk.
For all you Studio 69 VIPs, we're pleased to reveal the club itself in all its glory! Now that it has had a final pass done on the lighting and assets, it's up to the quality we first envisioned for it. We hope you all look forward to chilling, having a drink and playing a few bar games with your favorite waifus here.
WELCOME TO PANDORA!
And now, at long last, we are proud to present our unique and powerful system of customized hand-holding in Subverse - PANDORA!
Pandora is a tech tree that allows you to send your lap rocket on a fucktacular journey into the black hole of your choice. Remember how we talked about the XP capsule system (aka PP/Pooter Points) last week? Every time your waifu levels up, you get one PP. You can insert your PP right here.
There are three pools of hand-holding from which you can unlock scenes:
CAPTAIN - 1v1 fun with the panty-faced protagonist, both in POV and cinematic poses.
CREW - The ladies of Subverse get to have futa fun with each other courtesy of Dr. Lillian Margaliss's insta-dick technology as well as some group poses involving other Mary Celeste denizens.
XENO - Big old sloppy 100% certified organic Manticore meat monster hogs for your waifus to enjoy. You can look forward to fiends of both the bi and quadrupedal variety to play with.
All of these options also contain categories hand-animated by our artisan fucksmiths, and our animations are tailored to each waifu's unique personality, i.e. Killi will be more dominant with her teases.
Here are the categories below:
TEASE - (Pre-meal Cocktail) Good old fashioned animated pinups.
FOREPLAY - (Appetizers) Basically any kind of lewd act ending with "-job."
SEX - (Entree) The meat and potatoes course of the night where you can enjoy a variety of orifices.
AFTERS - (Dessert) The creamy, cuddly icing on your waifu. A great way to end the night.
You can insert the scenes you've unlocked into their corresponding Pandora Player slots (e.g. unlock a TEASE with Lily, it goes into the TEASE slot). This allows you to essentially assemble your very own custom short movies. Different scenes from different trees can be mixed and matched to create a smorgasbord of depravity. You can even save presets of your favorite combinations or just hit randomize and go to town on whatever Pandora has in store for you!
While you will gain enough PP throughout the course of Subverse to unlock every single scene, you are free to specialize in just a single tree if you wish. This gives you unlimited power over your own fetishes.
TL/DR:
- Spend PP to unlock scenes of your choice
- Assemble the scenes in Pandora
- Generate scene and hit play to enjoy!
New Roadmap, New Strategy
We are so thrilled to announce that two full-time software engineers with AAA gaming experience have joined the Subverse team. They're already making a huge impact on production, and we couldn't be happier to have them here.
During the past few months, we've also been in contact with several world-renowned game producers that have been acting as mentors for us during this process.
Their advice, along with that of our new engineers, have caused us to audit the current release strategy and pipeline. This brought us to the conclusion that Early Access would not be beneficial for Subverse.
Please note: THIS DECISION WILL NOT EFFECT THE CLOSED BETA IN ANY WAY.
The other good news is that this decision will actually allow us to significantly speed up production of the full release because it won't be necessary to constantly update and maintain the numerous Early Access builds. We're currently ahead of our internal production schedule and we see no issue with maintaining this pace.
This decision wasn't taken lightly. Subverse is currently 13th global on the Steam Wishlist, We could've easily taken the cash grab route and put out the unpolished Early Access chapters, but Studio FOW has always been committed to creating products that we are proud of and we know the fans will thoroughly enjoy.
Why is Early Access not viable for Subverse?
1) Single-player, story-driven RPGs don't tend to do early access. Early Access is typically utilized by FPS games, rogue-likes, and MMOs that have gameplay loops and dynamic online components that need to be thoroughly tested.
2) One of our advisers made the excellent point that we have almost 4,500 eligible closed beta testers. This is a huge pool that we can tap into to make gameplay tweaks, thus nullifying the whole point of Early Access for the general public.
3) Subverse is a story-driven game meant to be experienced as a whole, not in the stop/start fashion that is forced by Early Access. Having to wait potentially up to a month for the next chapter to be released will really hurt the momentum of the overall game.
4) Internally, we've seen the difference between a fully completed section of the game and an Early Access one, and it's night and day in terms of quality. We feel it would be a disservice to you guys and the project to release it before the quality you deserve can be achieved throughout the game.
SO WHAT'S NEXT?
We'll be releasing public gameplay footage following the start of the closed beta and keeping you guys in the loop with our Youtube channel, so please don't feel left out even if you don't have closed beta access. We'll make sure everyone has a ticket aboard the hype train for the duration of the project, and we're extremely excited to take the trip with you.
Sincerely,
Mr. Kristoff
Senior Producer