Greetings from Broken Hammer!
My does time fly. March for us was a time of testing and as March came in, along with it came the bugs. No, not the little gnats that seem to be everywhere right now, but our own game bugs for our upcoming Demo.
Thankfully most of our bugs were not horribly game ending as our own internal testing rooted many of those out. But there was a few. The most prominent being the one pictured above.
Overall response was good with only a few notes here and there regarding the characters and story. Thanks to our wonderful testers, we also were able to get a time frame down for the demo, which accounts to about one day out of four days in our initial story.
Granted it isn't super accurate as content on each day varies, but it helps. Currently we're in the 1-2hr mark on day one, which is about what we estimated.
In other news, our art team has been continuing to roll out more models for day two and also the remaining story. One red shirt character (no name NPC), and one supporting cast member were finished in March alongside one of our main heroines entering into production.
Sofia Aliyev is that heroine.
Sofia has a sorted history with the project, similar to Abigail in her undergoing a nationality change.
Originally she was cast as more of an Asian character due to the Asian elements that are seen within the Guild. Some of their city names are very Japanese.
However, as production continued, it was revealed that the Mercantile Guild has more of a Russian element. So her nationality shifted.
But, there was one thing we couldn't give up. Her trademark fan. It was too iconic with her character and the scenes where she uses it.
Look forward to seeing the full color version added to our site later.
The one we have is in color, but it is an early rendition. The coloring may or may not change by the time her model is finished. But it will likely be updated in April and we will notify via our Facebook page when it does.
Moving on from art, our music team had a busy month as well. Our team member from Ireland was at Pax East on a job. He got to hang out with Muse a bit while there.
Production on the music has been delayed a little, but what is getting done is sounding exceptional. So the delay is benefiting their efforts.
As with anything in gaming, the longer you have to work on it, the better. Just look at Guns of Icarus Alliance. Those of you that have played GOIO since launch will remember how buggy GOIO was. It felt like a beta game for years. But Alliance...this is work Muse should be proud of. It isn't without faults but, it actually feels like a full game, not a beta. In our off time, our team has been plugging away at the war efforts since launch (FOR THE FJORDLANDS!!).
We're very proud of the work Muse did. I've spoken to Bubbles personally on this and I want to assure people myself. I know some have been griping and jumping to conclusions about Alliance. But, you really got to take the big box publisher ideas out of the equation. They won't talk to you, or listen. Muse will.
As someone who had been critical of Muse as well in the past, I had to come to this realization that much of my criticism was based on preconceptions based on behavior by EA, Activision, Ubisoft/etc. Not from an Indie developer standpoint. Once I did that, my whole outlook of Muse changed and now I'm very glad to be able to share both positive notes and concerns with Muse.
They are great people, a real inspiration not only to Broken Hammer, but also to others.
We hope as always that if you like our game, you'll like their game. This goes both ways.
So with that said, all our best to you for the month of April! All our fans who join the Baronies get an extra bonus...just kidding! I wouldn't do that...really...JOIN THE FJORDLANDERS! Heh...
Oh and lastly as I close, our crowd funding campaign is growing closer. Just not there yet! Apologies but we are getting closer!!
Till next time!