Hello Reclaimers,
Time for the third monthly update on how things are going over here at Rogue Core Ranch. We’ve got news on the next playtest, and we’ll take a closer look at a couple features we’ve been working on. Plus, it's time to meet the fifth dwarf to join the Reclaimers.
IN THIS ISSUE:
- Our plans for Playtest 03
- A reworked mission end screen (now with more data)
- Spicy solution for abandoned comrades at the elevator
- Fifth class reveal ːsteamhappyː
Next month most of us will be off on summer holiday, so this is gonna be the last big bulletin until August. We might do a short one in July though. And as usual, a quick disclaimer that everything below is a work in progress and subject to change.
If you’ve got more questions about Rogue Core’s development, you can tune into our
weekly dev streams to ask us directly, ping us on Discord, or ask us on Reddit.
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[h2]
When’s the next round of playtest invites?[/h2]
We’re aiming to launch Playtest 03 in the first week of July. We’ve still got a few loose ends to tie up, so there’s a small risk of a delay. But fingers crossed for next week.
This will be when we’ll send out another batch of invites to the Closed Alpha. We’re still not at a point where we need high-volume playtesting, so we’ll likely invite another limited batch of several thousand more. As usual, all new playtesters will be picked at random. So if you clicked the ‘Request Access’ button on the Steam store page, there’s nothing more you need to (or can) do.
If you’ve got questions about the Closed Alpha, you might find your answers here:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2605790/view/574879683755115309
We basically shut down the office for most of July because everybody goes on vacation, so this third playtest will be the only noteworthy development update on Rogue Core for the month. We’ll pick back up once we’re back in the office in August.
[h2]
Crunching the numbers at the end of a run[/h2]
At the end of a run, we want you to be able to go nerd mode on all the numbers and statistics behind each game. What upgrades and artifacts did you pick up along the way? How much DPS did your full-auto incendiary Warthog end up doing? Who’s to blame for all the friendly fire? Stuff like that.
We’re trying to build a good end-of-run interface for presenting all that data so it’s easy to understand. But we’ve also got to make sure the game collects and calculates all your run data correctly, which is a technical challenge by itself to implement. We can’t just show you a bunch of made-up numbers. This isn’t the stock market.
Up above is a mockup of what we've got so far. This is just a start, so it’ll eventually get more polished, probably with pop-out sections to look at specific weapons and such. We want to strike the right balance of proper complexity, while also presenting it in a way that’s pretty quick to digest.
[h2]
Rescuing abandoned teammates[/h2]
At the very start of the Closed Alpha, we noticed an issue if players got downed during the “wait for the elevator” phase at the end of each level. It’s hard to revive your friends then, as you’re usually getting swarmed with enemies. And if you simply abandoned them and got on the elevator, they’d be magically teleported to the next level, right outside the elevator, where you could revive them in peace.
This was a simple, stress-free solution, so obviously we had to make it complex and difficult.
Our solution is a new sequence where abandoned dwarves still get transported to the next level but become ‘trapped’ in a nasty Core Spawn cocoon jail (cooler name pending), requiring the rest of the team to breach the defenses and free them. We wanted this to be a ‘punishment’ for not reviving teammates during extraction, and a sequence that costs you time and ammo in the subsequent level.
[h2]
New playable class under development [/h2]
[h3](Not in time for Update 03 though)[/h3]
Unlike DRG, Rogue Core was designed from the start to have room for more than four classes. We’re already working on the fifth one, who’s able to pause their state in space-time and phase out for a few seconds of consequence-free mayhem before resetting to where they were before. A tactical time traveler, if you will.
This class will
not be ready in time for the next Closed Alpha playtest. We’re also not quite sure what to call this class yet. But here is some concept art and early renders:
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As we mentioned earlier, most of the office is off on summer holidays in July, so it’ll be pretty quiet from our end. Hopefully I’ll have time to put together a short Dev Diary for the month anyway.
Anything specific you want to read about for a future Dev Diary? Any features you really want, or would love to get a closer look at? Let me know in the comments.
Hope everyone’s having a good summer so far.
Rock and Stone!With love,
-Aaron / Ghost Ship Games
