Hey all it’s been a little while since our last update due to the holidays but we wanted to take the time to say happy new year and give you an idea of what we’re doing to kick off 2016. The current plan is to have 5 people working full-time on the game which will consist of Keith (me), Flavien, Kristian, Jan, and we’ll be hiring an additional programmer.
For those of you who missed our Kickstarter campaign you can still pledge Infinity: Battlescape through our ongoing crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/infinity-battlescape/). Eventually we’ll support pledging and upgrading pledges through our website however IndieGoGo provides us with a great interim solution.
I just started working full-time on Wednesday, January 6th and our artists will begin working full-time over the next couple of weeks as they quit their jobs with the goal of having everybody full-time by early February. Our primary focus for the month of January is getting the prototype into the hands of everybody who pledged Developer Access or higher. To do this we need to integrate patching, I-Novae account login, server browsing of some sort, error reporting, and merge the Kickstarter backer database into our own.
Come February Flavien will resume work on gameplay, the art team will begin the concept work for our new ships and other game related assets, while I start making some significant improvements to our website such as adding the ability to upgrade pledges, getting all of you your forums titles/badges, and allowing bug reports to be filed by those of you who have Developer Access.
Our long-term plan is to have Flavien focus on gameplay while I’m working on the engine, tools, and website. There will of course be some overlap between us and once we hire an additional programmer we’ll likely reshuffle some responsibilities. After everyone is working full-time and development stabilizes a bit we want to begin having weekly or bi-weekly livestreams. These will consist of Flavien and/or myself talking about the progress we’re making while playing the latest build of the game with other members of the dev team.
Overall we’re very excited for 2016 and we’re looking forward to getting into the game with all of you!
Awesome! I’m super excited and it still feels unreal that this is finally happening.
The live streams are a great idea as well and I look forward to watching them. Will Dev Tier players be featured in live streams or will it be a developer only sort of stream for updates on new features/ships/etc.
That will probably depend on whatever it is we’re trying to show on any given livestream. The problem with the Dev Access players is that they may not necessarily follow the script ;).
Excellent, I’m happy to see things taking off! Good luck to you all as things pick up speed and I’m looking forward to following the developments!
Good move, from a team perspective. Infinity has always been Flavien’s brainchild and I really hope he keeps aiming for a game he wants to play. That way the rest of the team also has a vision to follow, while supporting him with technical work and alternative viewpoints.
Edit: btw, I’m not intending to belittle any of the rest of you for your contributions! I admire every single one of you for sticking with the project and being good at what you do
As the first official update of 2016, I declare this a success! A live-stream every week or 2? Woop! Just don’t be afraid to tell us if there are any problems. Better to be up front than to wait a year before telling us (for example) that there won’t be an offline sandbox mode.
Easter eggs here we come! I sincerely hope they continue to add them onto the offline mode for a long time to come. Just think about the awesomeness of exploration over time.
Sounds like a good plan and a great team to be working full time. Particularly glad that Flavien is working primarily on the gameplay. How are you planning to recruit your new programmer and will that be the same web developer post that’s already advertised here on the forums as an unpaid position?
HYPE!
Can’t wait to try the dev access prototype. Regular updates combined with footage streamed and recorded by players will hopefully help give I:B more limelight.
I totally miss the prototype and can’t wait to jump back in! Having so many more players online will be awesome! I think the devs will continue to do amazing work, and I can’t wait to see it all happening!
Amen, bro.
That’s quite what I miss sorely in ED. Playing “space truck sim” and “shoot the immobile spinning NPC” is all fine and relaxing, but it doesn’t give much life to the game ^^