Open Development Week #86: What's Next for Alpha
Hey Hunters,
We hope you've been enjoying the Alpha of Relic Hunters Legend! We feel like the game is finally starting to take shape for the Early Access release next year, but there is still much to do.
After we released the Alpha, we made a change to our development process that was a long time coming. Our vision has always been to work in multiple small, independent teams. These teams will have full autonomy to work on what they think is important, and will communicate directly with the community to figure out what that is, instead of funneling everything through an internal leadership.
This is also how we plan to keep the game updated very frequently after launch!
Just imagine this: a big update comes out in, say, January. Three months later, in April, we have another big one. Then in July we have another one. That's a healthy rhythm for an online RPG, but having your team scramble to make stuff in under 3 months is very demanding and a lot of things can go wrong. We also have to fix bugs, run events, and do minor content drops in-between these updates, otherwise the game will feel dead and abandoned.
With multiple teams, we can achieve all of that! On the scenario described above, Team A delivers the January update, Team B delivers the April update, Team C delivers the July one, and then we're back to Team A - all while Team D is hotfixing the game, and doing small and fast content drops and events.
Working in such a way, each team has 9 months instead of 3 to really polish their updates and try out new and innovative things.
We have now started to prepare our studio for this live support! Next year we will have four teams, but for now we are still three. Let's meet them!
This "old school" team has all the OG Relic Hunters members: me (Mark), Betu, Müller, Caio and Roni.
Artemis is the "frontline" team that is currently responsible for fixing bugs and issues with the Alpha build, and we just deployed a hotfix on Steam.
We are next in line for a content update: the "Raff Update" coming in August (read more about it below).
Ace charging his Holo-Sandwich skill
We are now working on the Skill System, specifically on the Status effects, and you can see some of Betu's new animations for Ace and Raff's skills on our Twitter account.
Voyager is our "story" team, and they are our sweethearts Gabriel, Eli, Mari, Rayk and Pedro.
They are working on two big, big things. The first one is the Secret Market, our city hub where you will be able to meet other Hunters, talk to NPCs, and just chill.
Layout sketch of the Secret Market
We'll be posting a lot of concept art and some preview models and textures for the Secret Market on our social media, it's starting to look super cool :)
The second big thing they're working on is the story tools and content! We have wrapped up the the script for the first Act of the story, and Gabriel and Pedro are working on implementing all of it. We are very proud of the story and we hope it will surprise and delight all of you Hunters out there when it comes out!
Our newest team has been with us for only about 6 months now, but it already feels like they have always been here. Maíra, Chu, Gus and Eli* are working on a different project for now.
(*yes, she is doubling as producer on both Juno and Voyager)
Funded by the Brazilian government, the mobile-exclusive "Relic Hunters Blitz" is coming out next year for iOS and Android and it is already looking and playing the part.
Pew! Take that, pixel Ducans!
As soon as Team Juno is done with Blitz, they will come over to help on Legend! What will they work on? You decide ;)
Hopefully we will soon have a playable Alpha build of Blitz for all our Kickstarter backers and Founders to play on their phones!
Team Artemis is hard at work on the next update for you! the Raff Update will bring:
This update will drop in August! On the next development update we will talk at length about Raff's skills and how they'll work in the game, so keep following us ;)
See you soon!
Cheers,
~Mark
We hope you've been enjoying the Alpha of Relic Hunters Legend! We feel like the game is finally starting to take shape for the Early Access release next year, but there is still much to do.
Divide and Conquer: Meet the Dev Teams
After we released the Alpha, we made a change to our development process that was a long time coming. Our vision has always been to work in multiple small, independent teams. These teams will have full autonomy to work on what they think is important, and will communicate directly with the community to figure out what that is, instead of funneling everything through an internal leadership.
This is also how we plan to keep the game updated very frequently after launch!
Just imagine this: a big update comes out in, say, January. Three months later, in April, we have another big one. Then in July we have another one. That's a healthy rhythm for an online RPG, but having your team scramble to make stuff in under 3 months is very demanding and a lot of things can go wrong. We also have to fix bugs, run events, and do minor content drops in-between these updates, otherwise the game will feel dead and abandoned.
With multiple teams, we can achieve all of that! On the scenario described above, Team A delivers the January update, Team B delivers the April update, Team C delivers the July one, and then we're back to Team A - all while Team D is hotfixing the game, and doing small and fast content drops and events.
Working in such a way, each team has 9 months instead of 3 to really polish their updates and try out new and innovative things.
We have now started to prepare our studio for this live support! Next year we will have four teams, but for now we are still three. Let's meet them!
Team Artemis
This "old school" team has all the OG Relic Hunters members: me (Mark), Betu, Müller, Caio and Roni.
Artemis is the "frontline" team that is currently responsible for fixing bugs and issues with the Alpha build, and we just deployed a hotfix on Steam.
We are next in line for a content update: the "Raff Update" coming in August (read more about it below).
Ace charging his Holo-Sandwich skillWe are now working on the Skill System, specifically on the Status effects, and you can see some of Betu's new animations for Ace and Raff's skills on our Twitter account.
Team Voyager
Voyager is our "story" team, and they are our sweethearts Gabriel, Eli, Mari, Rayk and Pedro.
They are working on two big, big things. The first one is the Secret Market, our city hub where you will be able to meet other Hunters, talk to NPCs, and just chill.
Layout sketch of the Secret MarketWe'll be posting a lot of concept art and some preview models and textures for the Secret Market on our social media, it's starting to look super cool :)
The second big thing they're working on is the story tools and content! We have wrapped up the the script for the first Act of the story, and Gabriel and Pedro are working on implementing all of it. We are very proud of the story and we hope it will surprise and delight all of you Hunters out there when it comes out!
Team Juno
Our newest team has been with us for only about 6 months now, but it already feels like they have always been here. Maíra, Chu, Gus and Eli* are working on a different project for now.
(*yes, she is doubling as producer on both Juno and Voyager)
Funded by the Brazilian government, the mobile-exclusive "Relic Hunters Blitz" is coming out next year for iOS and Android and it is already looking and playing the part.
Pew! Take that, pixel Ducans!As soon as Team Juno is done with Blitz, they will come over to help on Legend! What will they work on? You decide ;)
Hopefully we will soon have a playable Alpha build of Blitz for all our Kickstarter backers and Founders to play on their phones!
Announcing the Next Content Patch: The Raff Update
Team Artemis is hard at work on the next update for you! the Raff Update will bring:
- Our robust Skill system, with revamps of existing Skills;
- New visual effects;
- New animations;
- New Skills for Ace: Holo-Sadwich and Improvised Plan
- And, most importantly, Raff will have all of her skills!
This update will drop in August! On the next development update we will talk at length about Raff's skills and how they'll work in the game, so keep following us ;)
See you soon!
Cheers,
~Mark