Midnight Oil-Schmoil (and new build!)

Hey there!

You'll have to forgive me if this is a somewhat short update - I've been up for about 24 hours at this point, but it's been worth it! The shiny new alpha demo is up and ready for you to break!

New Playable Alpha Demo

You can download it here: http://gamejolt.com/games/savage-the-shard-of-gosen-alpha/16310

Things are still rough, broken, unfinished and unbalanced, but this is FAR more indicative of what the final game will look and feel like.

On offer is the first section of the overworld map. I've artificially constrained the gameplay to that area (boo!) because venturing beyond this zone will quickly cause things to fall apart (yay!) since all of that stuff is lying in pieces in front of me on my monitor.

What Didn't Make it?!

There's also a TON of stuff that I wanted to have ready for this demo that didn't quite make it and would require another week of play testing, chief among them being the save system, unfortunately (or what would eventually turn into the rock solid save system). But that's next on my list.

An early form of persistence is intact, though, and will keep track during a play session of (most) pertinent things, like which doorways have been unlocked, gates opened, etc.

I've also been digging around in Steam's backend (that sounds super wrong... or right, depending) to figure out the Steam key delivery system, and it looks like I'll have that figured out soon, too.

Keys Update

I want to also give backers (Kickstarter and Groupees Greenlight) "beta" keys that allow you to circumvent the release status of the game. In other words, I would be giving you access to live development builds as progress is made, and Steam would automatically (I think) update the game for you.

Anyhow, have a gander at the new build and feel free to tell me what you think so far!

Have a great rest of your weekend! 'Til next update!

-Matt