Alpha2 release
Well damn, this took longer than I hoped. There were a number of new issues coming up in the release candidates, and since I couldn’t make the May release I wanted I decided to hold it back to at least get some more content put in it.
Everyone with a LEWD account created before March 1st, but after the last batch of free keys that were given out with the Alpha1 release, (9,560 people) has been given a 2 use key for main server access, including those who already have a key from being a Patron. So you can use it for main server access to play this release and also give the other use to a friend or whoever.
I will give out a key with a bunch of uses like I did with the Alpha1 release in a few days. Can’t give out too much as I need to stagger the server load, and want to see if there are any new bugs reported by some of those thousands that were given a key first.
You can also get your own key, as well as access to the test server, and support the game by pledging to our
Patreon!
Please note: The game still requires a browser/computer that supports WebGL in order to travel to other planets/stations. I’m planning to add a more low-fi solar system display in the next update that will work on potato devices.
There also may be issues for those with spotty connections. That one is going to take a few months to fix, but yeah I’m aware of it, and sorry to those that have such issues for the time being.
There are hundreds of changes and additions since Alpha1, so I can’t list them all, but to summarize briefly:
- The mini android and goo container which you can find just from walking around now have some content. Like most everything, there is still yet a lot to be added. I’m especially happy where the goo one is going, though. There’s tons of things that weren’t possible before with how that one works, though still a long ways to go with it.
- New “relief station” in the Outpost, with art.
- Traveling long distances has been changed to use a public shuttle, with some narrative, instead of just poofing to different places.
- When you don’t meet the requirements for a dialog option that’s disabled for you, there is now generally a hint on hover/select as to what you are lacking.
- Many scenes which were large blocks of text all at once have been broken up.
- Lots of editing work, placeholders filled in, new options all around, including…
- A lot of the current content has been expanded, namely in the Wilderness Research area, including a number of NPCs having some conversations about what you’re currently doing. The Station and Outpost also have more content, but there is still a ways to go with them.
- Most content that’s too unfinished or pending a rework (Harpy, for example), is only on the test server for now, but there is still far more content than was previously in the Alpha1 release.
- Recoded movement entirely. You can now move diagonally and many issues with movement and interpolation were fixed by this.
- You can now create characters with non-unique names. Sorry to those that were getting an error trying to make “Slut” before~ Your account name must still be unique.
- Lots of little improvements and additions to the site.
- Improvements to the tools, such as being able to add/edit maps more easily.
- Character saves on the main server have been wiped. The save format has changed, hopefully to facilitate not needing to wipe them again, though I’m not 100% certain yet.
- Updated the writing team tryout application so that it’s easier to keep concurrent with the updates to our internal, private dev tools. That means the tryout application is back up, yes, and I’ve updated the jobs page related to it. There were some bugs with the previous application that have since been fixed on the internal dev tools and this brings it up to parity so those bugs are fixed on the tryout application as well.
The next update will come MUCH sooner than this last one has taken, though I don’t have a lot of game client enhancements and features planned for that next update before the lower end solar system display. It will largely just be new content and gameplay improvements. Larger changes like caching, precaching, a new UI/UX, and role playing features will be coming later and likely not with the Alpha3 release.
I’ll probably seem rather quiet from me over the next month as I need to work on the server that handles my httpd and a few other things, and have a lot of real life stuff to tend to, and some time to relax. But writers will still be working on content on the test server. As always, you can get an idea of what’s added/changed on the test server from the
Dev Tracker.
This release simply took a while for many reasons, such ironing out all the issues that came from porting the prototype to the new engine and making a better foundation for the game to follow. Now that things are largely stable, things should progress much more smoothly.
