Regular danger? No, this is Advanced Danger
Look at me, posting an update just under a month after the last dev blog post!
No pats on the back for that today though, as this message comes with a bit of a heavy heart and sweaty brow.
When I first started these blog posts I promised something very important to me: transparency. And I aim to keep that promise. To those of you within the video game industry (and any that follow it closely), it isn’t new-news that times are tough for many of us. With tens of thousands of layoffs and dozens of full-studio closures this year alone, bad news is getting painfully common.
After many months of effort to secure a publisher and the final funding required for the intended release of INFESTSTATION, we are now making an emergency pivot to a much earlier, self published release instead.
And when I say much earlier, I mean it. Midway or near the end of this very July 2024, mean it.
While I am still actively pursuing any and all opportunities to extend that timeline, the reality is that we now have to act and execute on the assumption that it will not happen in time.
What is this, an Early Access for ants?
What exactly does it mean to chop 6 months out of development, on top of a reduced overall pace for going over a year under the original budgetary needs?
You could call it “Even Earlier Access”, but the facts-over-fluff of it is that it will be a very raw, indie release at a lower price point and content level than we had originally planned for.
We will be fully transparent on what made it in, what didn’t, what works and what’s broken, and what’s coming next with updated roadmapping as we get closer to that launch date.
Playtesting Meets Speedrun
I mentioned in the last post that we’d be widening our playtesting net, and that is still true.
The time we have before release is painfully limited, but the more eyeballs we can get on the game and the more feedback that comes from it, the stronger the game’s launch will be.
For those interested in helping out, we have a quick signup survey you can fill out here.
I’d still like to get playtest signups working through Steam if it can be done in time, but for now we’ve got the tried-and-true playtest steam key setup to start with.
Wishlist INFESTSTATION on Steam & Community Discord!
If you haven’t yet, wishlisting INFESTSTATION on Steam would be a HUGE help.
We’ve also got an Atom Switch Official Community Discord server up that you can join that is the current home of official playtests, and will be the best way to stay in touch with the dev team, get updates, and more!
Announcing our Community Discord Server, which you can JOIN HERE!
Come hang out with us, get updates, and if you’re a part of the playtesting group – playtest alongside the rest of the INFESTSTATION community!
This was a bit of a long one, so for those of you that made it to the end I have one last thing:
An early look at the first public gameplay video for INFESTSTATION!
