COMMUNITY NEWSLETTER JUNE 2020
Its been quite a while since our last major update back in March and the world has changed quite a bit since then.
With the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic still affecting much of our daily lives coupled with the ongoing fight for justice, equal rights and an end to police brutality and racism fought by the BLM movement and it’s supporters, something we at Dream Harvest also support completely. It does feel at times we’re living in a cyberpunk dystopia.
Before I move onto what we’ve been up to at Dream Harvest I’d like to share a link to ways in which you can support the movement here.
//A MESSAGE FROM THE CORPORATE OVERLORD
Like many companies around the world, the team has been working from home for the past few months – we’re lucky as a team as we started life as a completely remote studio so things haven’t changed all that much other than missing each other’s faces and the general communication improvements you get from being in the same room together.
The last few months have been, as you can imagine, focussed of building something resembling an MVP (Minimum viable product) / Verticle Slice of the game in the hope of securing the rest of our production budget from either Investors, Publishers or a combination of both.
I think one of the tough things about raising money for a game like NeuroSlicers is that innovation is risky and those of you that have had a chance to try out the game would probably agree that what we’re doing with NeuroSlicers is pretty innovative and doesn’t conform to the traditions of the genre. We’re also a tiny team at the moment, with only 5 people working full time on the project and an additional 4 freelancers working part-time.
But as you hopefully know, we don’t like making our lives easy at Dream Harvest, we want to push the envelope and give everyone new experiences that challenge you in new ways and offer you new ways to play.
That’s why I’m super proud of the progress the team has made and why without further adieu I can share the following updates on our progress:
//SYSTEMS ONLINE
One of the biggest things we’ve been working on is our meta progression systems for our Solo, PVPVE and Co-Op content. As a Slicer in the world of NeuroSlicers, you’re going to be meeting a whole cast of interesting characters, that at first will want nothing to do with you. You’re going to need to build up your relationship and trust with them by completing a variety of Contracts for them which will eventually lead to them providing favours and supplying you with new gear to take into battle.
Every character in NeuroSlicers has their own wants, needs and personality traits and you’ll really need to get to know them if they’re going to help you on your journey.
What’s a Slicer without their Deck of Scripts?
Another big change we’ve been working through is the Deck builder that’s gone through a total redesign in order to accommodate some of the new features we’re getting into the game for the Solo, PVPVE and Co-Op. This includes the new Script types; Hardwired, Compiled and Volatile Scripts.
Hardwired Scripts are given to you by NPC’s and are generally made up of Tier 1 complexity abilities such as the Bit, Outpost, Tesla Bomb and Brute. These Scripts can level up as you use them and take no damage from use.
Compiled Scripts are scripts that you’ve built using our Compiler Crafting system. These Scripts are generally Tier 2 and above, however you can also compile duplicates of Tier 1 Hardwired Scripts in order to take more than 1 of a type into battle. Compiled Scripts take damage from use and have to be maintained in order to keep using them – They’ll never get destroyed, but once they reach a certain damage percentage you won’t be able to take them into battle any more. These Scripts earn XP through use and can be upgraded with new abilities, stat boosts and more.
Volatile Scripts are super-powered Scripts that you can purchase from certain Characters. They come pre-levelled, modded and upgraded. They take damage over time and can’t be repaired or levelled up, but they give you a chance to try out some of the higher power stuff before committing to Compiling your version of the Script.
The Compiler and Compiled Scripts, Mods and Volatile Scripts will be coming down the line in a future public test; however, during the upcoming test, we’ll have the Hardwired Scripts, as well as upgrade trees for all Scripts in place which you can see a preview of below.
/THE PRE-ALPHA PHASE 2 LAUNCH
We’ve been working on a whole load of other cool stuff including overall better visual feedback systems, improvements to the Node Tech systems, Contracts from Characters, Story stuff and more, but rather than share it all here in the newsletter we’re going to invite you all to try it out when we launch the next test round.
So when exactly is the next test round going to be happening????
Well, we’re super happy to announce that the
Pre-Alpha Phase 2 will be launching on the 30th of July 2020!
We’ll be sharing more details next Friday along with a Q&A Livestream at 6PM UTC where we’ll dig into some of the bigger details of what you can expect from the test and where you can all ask us as many questions as you want 🙂
Over the coming month, we’re also going to be doing some deep dives into the systems, characters, game modes and more across a series of videos, live streams and other posts.
Anyway, thanks for sticking around putting up with our silence over the past few months. We can’t wait to get this build into your hands and for you to get a taste of what we’re building with NeuroSlicers. But most importantly, we’re looking forward to hearing your feedback and using it to shape the experience into something extraordinary!
