Roadmap to Beta

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Hi everyone,

Finally – it’s time to show you what’s coming to the game over the next 3 months as we walk you through the roadmap!

We’ve already started work on it, but hadn’t been ready to present it until now while it remained a work in progress. There’s been a ton of feedback in the forums and player surveys which we’ve had to condense into pill form, chew up, and spit back out in the shape of a coherent plan… An old adage is likely to apply 😉

When does Beta start and what’s been going on?

If you haven’t seen our post from a couple of days ago, give it a quick once-over before reading on. It lays out key dates including when Beta starts and some of what’s been going on behind the scenes (and may shed some light on parts of this roadmap). That the game was developed by just two developers (until recently) seems to have shocked a lot of you – and we guess something we should be proud of 🙂

The Roadmap

If this post is ‘too long, not gonna read’, at the end you’ll be able to find details of the chart version of the roadmap.

Please keep in mind that this is our roadmap for the next 3 months to get us to Beta – there are a gazillion features we have planned and will start on right after these. Think of the features listed here as a slice of a much grander vision – rather than the whole pie 🙂 But without any further ado:

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When does Beta start and what’s been going on?

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Hi everyone,

Wondering when you’ll be able to play Beyond Dark, what’s going on, or where the latest roadmap is? Then this post is for you. If not, ummmm, keep reading and we’ll tell you anyway… And we’ll also throw in some behind-the-scenes details for good measure!

Before we get to when Beta will start and when you’ll be able to play – there’s a couple of things we wanted to share with you first…

Growing the team

Number of developers and time available for bugs/maintenance vs gameplay and new features

Until very recently, the game was entirely built and maintained by just two developers! But over the last couple of months, we’ve added two more and are still actively hiring.

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Release: Alpha update [v.0.70]

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Hi everyone,

Earlier this afternoon, we pushed out the latest Alpha release (0.70). Check out the release notes below for the full list of changes. We’re particularly excited about the introduction of PvE pirates!

PvE pirates

Sparrow pirate hull
Fantasma pirate hull

Up until now, the only danger to players came from other players. The introduction of PvE pirates changes that…

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Release: Alpha update [v.0.69]

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Hi everyone,

The latest update to Alpha has just gone out and should already be available on Steam to Alpha players.

There are a few bug fixes and a couple of new features included in this update. One of which, is one of the most frequently requested features players have been asking for in the forum.

Last known state of a planet

Up til now, detailed real-time info about a planet was only possible while a ship was within its orbit. As soon as the ship left orbit, it was no longer possible to see its resources or whether it was colonized by another player or not.

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Alpha Enters Final Stage

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Today, Alpha was relaunched to the current Alpha players, many of whom have already joined the freshly minted test galaxy and began laying the foundations of their empires!

This is the final stage of Alpha, which will shortly transition into the start of Early Beta! More details at the end of this post 🙂

All future posts will be made to this blog (as well as to Facebook, Twitter and the forum), we’re retiring the Alpha blog.

Steam

The game client distribution is now managed via Steam. All Alpha players should have received their Steam key via email by now (any Alpha player that hasn’t received theirs yet, please let us know).

Players that signed up for the Beta (Early and General) will start to receive their personal Steam keys once Alpha has finished and Beta is underway.

Game updates

Since the last version of Alpha, a lot of improvements and features have been introduced to the game. For those that haven’t been following the Alpha blog, we’ll go over some of these now. You can also check out the full release notes for this update at the end of this post.

Improved UI

Parts of the UI have had a significant overhaul and we hope you can agree with us when we say that the results are impressive 🙂

New planet management screen
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Alpha Released!

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Hi everyone,

On Friday last week, an Alpha version of Beyond Dark was privately released to a small number of testers! You can find out more about Alpha on our release overview.

Releasing this Alpha enables us to:

  • Collect vital player feedback in preparation for Beta, including what we need to prioritize to make the game as enjoyable as possible for future players.
  • Test the game for bugs and discrepancies.
  • Make gameplay balancing adjustments.
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Help Bring Beyond Dark to Steam!

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Hey everyone, you may have already seen, but we have recently launched our campaign to get pre-approved on Steam via their Greenlight process! If you haven’t yet seen our page, be sure to do so to check out our new preview trailer.

For anyone that doesn’t know, Greenlight is Valve’s way of determining which games should be accepted for release on the Steam store. Once Greenlit, developers are free to release their game on Steam as soon as they are ready.

We stated a while ago Beyond Dark would be available on Steam, and so wanted to get it pre-approved on there, to avoid any possible delays when the time for release comes. Some games never get Greenlit, while for others it can take a number of months, so fingers crossed it doesn’t take too long!

Please note that we do plan to make the full release of Beyond Dark available outside of Steam – including directly from us. The Beta software though, when released, will be available exclusively from us (we’ll let everyone know when this will be when we can).

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