Alpha of the Alpha

‘Hoy all!


Huzzah! We survived our first big test!


Just a friendly game, no need for stabbing
    Wanted to give a big thank you to our team of developers and all of you following us and sending us your words of encouragement, they mean a lot. We have recently completed our first alpha test of Project Airbags! While a little past my very ambitious deadline, it went surprisingly smooth. Players were able to login, enter names, explore the docks, tavern and ships together and play all the puzzles. 

Alpha Results


    Our two primary goals were to have a larger number than ever on the servers to test things out, and to have the puzzles reporting to the server which then reported to the ship! On those two parts we succeeded without errors. It did however bring up some bugs. We had a weird occurrence where a part of the screen was unclickable. At one point people couldn’t immediately jump from ship to tavern. Turns out someone forgot to up the player limit from the default of 4 whoops! We also had an enemy ship, but it appeared and disappeared too rapidly to effectively combat, I chalked it up to cowardice on their part. 

Just blowing some ships up, nothing big


    Overall the play-testers reported positive experiences for an alpha test! Our two biggest trouble spots are the sailing game (things not clearing correctly) and gunnery objects getting stuck. While these aren’t the end of the world, we do want to clean them up to make the games not only playable, but enjoyable.

Newly updated tavern interior!

Below decks with the new icons


New skybox and clouds

   NEW GOALS


    Our next alpha test will be in a few months. Our primary goals will be:
  • Have all ship puzzles fully functional during play-testing (zero bugs that stop gameplay)
  • Engage in ship to ship combat
  • New main page
    Have the ships continue or ‘sink’ due to damage

    Some bonus stretch goals for us
  • Update art for puzzles
  • Redesign the island
  • Add sounds to all puzzles
  • Add particle effects to all puzzles
  • Create a standard menu for all puzzles
  • Add power ups to puzzles
  • Change the player movement to more mobile friendly and camera free movement
  • Add brawling to the combat options

    If you notice I have put all of my art, UI, design and sound effects into the bonus category. Even I will be focusing on smashing the few remaining bugs (that I made) and changing ship combat to make it something players can enjoy. Pray for me.

NEW TEAMMATES


    We have two new additions to the team. One being an excellent artist (and generally very talented person), the other being a skilled game maker who whipped together a brawling setup in just a few weeks!


    HotNoob has been heading up the brawling project. Since joining just recently he’s already gone from zero to a working game! See his work below:
    


     It ain’t pretty yet (prettiness is my job after all!), but it's working well. We hope to add multiplayer to it by our next alpha to let players, virtually, beat the shit out of each other.

I think somebody has a task for you


    We also have some real rock-star power coming to us from Kalie Wolfe (@KalieWolfe)! Also a very important female perspective we’ve desperately needed. Her art talents are already excellent, but she has many other talents from the musical to the business and the social media sides of our operation. 



    Going to be head down in the project so there may not be any big posts soon. Also going to make a video of the Alpha status shortly, plus a few short videos with the various puzzles in their current states too. Maybe I'll tease out some world-building that we’ve solidified if I can get it all together.

Join our discord, check out our site, or drop a comment below!

https://discord.gg/HedS4wrBFn


See our site:


https://www.potentialgamestudios.com/


Or drop a comment here!


Till then Fair Winds! More alpha pictures below:




A nice place to eat

Quality bar

New load screen


Captainin'

Showing off that rating meter

Maximum rating (no cheating required)




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