MADNESS: Project Nexus News

Our testers have just been given access to the latest version of the Madness: Project Nexus Closed Beta (v1.13.a), which means we're now counting down toward only a couple of checkpoints before full release of the game!

The new update includes a ton of balancing fixes and cleanup for Story Campaign, but primarily focuses on the new Arena Combat game mode. Arena was completely gutted and rebuilt from the ground up, and as it stands is mostly complete and only lacks the inclusion of four more stages, which are already nearly done. Barring setbacks, expect that update to reach closed beta in two weeks. After that, we move onto final cleanup before releasing the game to the public.

In addition to cleaning up endless bugs, tightening up CPU/GPU performance, and balancing gameplay, the final cleanup portion of development is also going to include a number of features we've put off until the very end:

* A tutorial stage that teaches basic to advance combat moves.
* Short, playable cutscenes between Story Campaign sectors that explore the history of Project Nexus.
* Multiplayer for Arena mode.
* Introductory video for Story Campaign
* Arena Hireling personalities and base interactions
* Face Picker for Arena Combat
* Story Campaign squadmate swapper
* Make The Playground (aka Interactive Mode) playable

I'm positive there are more, but these are the big ones. We hope to have all of this content in before March, leaving us a solid month of focused testing before we reassess and determine where we are on a final release date. There are other things to be done outside of game development (such as advertising and promotional content) that won't be discussed in this post, which will further occupy us. We're hopeful for this timeline though, and hope to hit you guys with a new set of release notes in two weeks!

-Swain

We whipped up a brief little survey to gather some more feedback and data regarding you guys' experience with the Demo. It only takes about a minute or two to fill out and we'd love to hear what you all think (as well as continue to hear from you all on Twitter, Steam and the Forums!)


TAKE THE SURVEY!



Thank you to everyone who has given us feedback so far as well as the rest of the OVER 15,000 OF YOU who've checked out the demo in the past 12 days! We appreciate all of it sincerely, and hope to deliver the best possible version of this game to you guys as soon as possible.

In the interest of Whetting all you lads and lasses' appetites, we present to you the official demo for Project Nexus! (Just in time for the Autumn Festival!)

The demo contains the first two levels of the Industrial Sector for Story mode, pitting you as Sanford and Deimos in their quest to have a little chat with the Sheriff (seriously, they just wanna talk.) So get yer negotiatin' boots on and go engage in some good old fashioned Nevadan DIPLOMACY!

The Demo is live right now over on the store page of the game. Scroll down to the info sidebar on the right side of the store page and click 'Download PC Demo' to download the PC demo!

We'll be back soon with more info on the Arena update for our beta holders as well as release updates for the rest of you fine folks. Until then enjoy the demo and keep on truckin!

It's that time of year again, folks! Time to celebrate those little gray rascals who refuse to mind their own business.

To help celebrate we have, of course, our usual roundup of killer 'toons, killer tunes, killer art and killer games for you all to feast your collective senses on. You can find all that juicy goodness over on the Madness Day page on Newgrounds.

https://www.newgrounds.com/collection/madnessday2020

As for Project Nexus, we're still trucking along with the arena rework. Expect to see a beta for the new and fully revamped arena very, very soon. This sucker's been completely retooled with new systems, new progression, new locales, new baddies and more.

Have yourself a lovely Madness Day, and stay tuned for more news in the very near future.

Hey there folks! Today we've shipped a major update to the game that also marks a major landmark in development.



At long last, we're done with story mode. Every single stage is complete and fully playable. There are still bugs (and we'd love to hear about them!) but the entirety of Story mode is complete and in the current build of the game.



The other main thing Swain's been slaving away at for the past several months is a general combat overhaul. Hundreds of little tweaks and changes have been made to the core gameplay to make it alot more refined and a lot snappier. Unfortunately at the moment, none of these changes have been tested in Arena Mode. Things WILL be broken! Playground mode (formerly Interactive mode) is also currently broken, but will be addressed in a hotfix in the coming days.





So, where does all this leave us for release? Well, we have two main things left to do before we're ready to unleash this thing to the public: a slight Arena revamp and a final bugfix pass. As well as adapting arena to the new combat engine, we wanna take another pass at the core gameplay. Our plan was always to go back and touch up arena mode after we were done with the Story and that's exactly where we're at right now. We've had a few ideas kicking around on how to spice up the main gameplay loop of Arena Mode as well as there still being a few small features that are still currently missing or unfinished from the mode in general (weapon modding, anyone?) We promise this wont take NEARLY as long as finishing up Story Mode. In fact, Swain says he wants to try and get this revamp done and ready for testing in one month.

Of course, these plans along with today's update will result in a lot of BUGS. Bugs that will need time to hunt and fix before launch. If you have access to the beta, be sure to report any bugs you find to the Steam discussions and we'll squash 'em ASAP. The more you guys find on your own, the less time we need to spend finding them ourselves and we greatly appreciate it.



Finally, once Arena's been touched up and all the bugs have been fixed... Thats it! We'll be all set to finally launch this thing to the public! It's been a hell of a ride for everyone and a hell of a long road, But we truly are at the end here. All the main content of the game is DONE and all we have left are some tune-ups under the hood and some little details to the paint job; we're almost there. Thank you to everyone who's stuck with us on this long and wild journey. Through thick and thin, through delays and silence, you all have continued to believe in us and we don't plan on letting you guys down. From the bottom of all our hearts, thank you.

Just a little bit further.