Once long ago, in that bygone era we now call 2012, we set out to create a simple game. It would involve turn-based combat in a dungeon-like setting with a simple plotline overlaid upon it. We would use cartoon-like graphics on a tile-based, flat world that would allow us to concentrate upon the story and game-play rather than upon the engine or graphics.

Then we held our Kickstarter and heard from you – our fans – what you actually want to see.

It was clear that what you really wanted was something more like the Quest for Glory series and less like yet another RPG.

As we read your comments, our vision evolved. We put more story and puzzles into the design. We went away from the cartoony look into a more realistic character style like the best Sierra On-Line characters of the 1990’s.

Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption evolved from an RPG/Adventure Game into a modern take on Quest for Glory with turn-based, puzzle-oriented combat. We decided to let the players out-think the monsters in the game rather than out-mouse-click them.

One change leads to another

The flat tile system for the backgrounds was too unrealistic and distorted to work well with our new character designs. We had to find a better way to present the art and create the game magic than what we started with. Our team artists far too talented to let the game look anything less than amazing.

We have a new team of programmers who are talented and passionate about our game. They are creating new ways to bring the visuals of the game to life.

We have spent the past few weeks testing new approaches and pushing the envelope of how 2D art will work with the Unity Engine.

So far, the strongest approach is to turn the 2D background artwork into 3D. We have come a long way from the flat little game we envisioned at the start. We are starting to create a huge, complex world full of fun and surprises.

Making Hero-U the Way a Game Should Be Made

Unlike those days when we worked for big companies where we had to make our deadline no matter what it takes, where creativity, bug-fixing, and polish are not important, and the game will ship whether it is ready or not, we control the vertical and the horizontal. We can strive to make the best possible game. We can push the boundaries of what has been done in the past to give you a game you love to play.

After all, now we are working for the best bosses in the world – You. We want to give you our absolute best, no matter what it takes.

By the way, we are still looking for one or two highly talented and experienced 2D animators. We do not pay as well as the big studios, but you get to work on your own schedule on a fun project. Interested artists need to be able to animate large, semi-realistic characters and create smooth “walk cycles”. Contact jobs (at) hero-u (dot) net with a link to your portfolio and animation samples to apply.

Here is a very early look at the new Hero-U Composer design tool in action.  It will let us define complex conversations and other interactions that we can import directly into the game code.  More automation = Fewer errors and more player options.

In Other Worlds

There are some very interesting projects out there currently. We would like to mention four Kickstarter projects and three other web sites, so we will keep the descriptions brief.

A Small Favor (http://kck.st/ZlhUxj) ends in less than four days. It looks like a side-scroller, but it is actually a science fiction adventure game with a good story line and nice animation. It looks fun, but needs serious support!

Among the Sleep (http://kck.st/11D7N79) is a horror adventure in which you play a two-year-old child. It is well along in development and is very close to reaching its goal in the remaining five days.

The Realm Game (http://kck.st/XZlFdU) is being developed by a studio more known for animation. As a result, it is gorgeous and you should visit its project page. The Realm has about 30% of its funding goal with nine days left, so they will need a serious push to make it.

Bashar, a passionate backer of Hero-U, is writing Derelict: A Short Story (http://kck.st/10kmLMF). If you like short-form science fiction, give this one a try.

Spellirium (http://spellirium.com/) is a “Kickstarter-like” project looking for funding on its own web site. If you enjoy spelling (think Boggle or Bookworm) and adventure, you might find this fun.

Adventure Burger (http://www.adventureburger.com/) is a site that follows Kickstarter adventure games. This is a good place to find out about adventure games that fall between our project updates.

KickstartVentures (http://www.kickstartadventure.com/home/) is a blog by Shawn Mills. Like Adventure Burger, this site will keep you up to date on new Kickstarter adventure game projects. In addition, Shawn’s articles talk about great adventure games of the past as well as current news affecting players. Also check out the Infamous Quests site at http://www.infamous-quests.com/home/.

We hope you all had an excellent Mother’s Day (or your local equivalent), and are enjoying the turn of the seasons. Lori got a nice gift and an AIM conversation from Michael. I sent flowers to my Mom and broke any semblance of a low-carb diet by making blueberry ricotta pancakes.  And Lori and I romantically wrote this Kickstarter Update together. 🙂

Happy Friday, Larryettes on this side of the International Dateline.

Those of you who read all the way to the bottom of my last update may’ve read this line: “If all goes according to plan, you can expect the beta next week (week of May 6th)!”

Well, we’re pretty much at the end of the week of May 6th, and those of you who pledged at the Alpha/Beta level (and above) haven’t received your beta invitation yet. (For those of you who are still wondering why you didn’t get an Alpha version: when we Kickstarted, access to the Alpha/Beta versions of the game came only with a pledge of $75 or more.)

We’re now shooting for Monday, May 13th, to release the beta. We’ve had some interesting hiccups in the past couple of weeks…one of which was breaking Unity. (It seems that no Unity game has ever had more than about 3,000 lines of speech before, and we have about three times as many.) We also wanted to get *all* the final speech into the game before sending out the beta, and the last of the “pickups” was only recorded today.

We’ll announce it here when the beta goes out. It will include French, Italian, German, and Spanish (“FIGS”), and we’re hoping for a Mac version as well for testing.

If you’re one of our Beta testers, when you receive your email invitation, please be sure to read the materials very carefully. We will be looking strictly for *bugs* at this point, as opposed to suggestions for enhancements. (We’ve fielded and taken into consideration thousands of enhancement suggestions over the course of the project, especially after releasing the Alpha, but now it’s time to concentrate on finding and squashing bona fide bugs.) The instructions we send will tell you how to download the beta, where to report the bugs, and what format to follow in your bug reports. We’ll also be sure to tell you what bugs we already know about, so that you don’t waste time writing up a beautifully-crafted report for a bug we’ve already identified.

So cross your fingers for a Monday release. We’re shooting hard for a May 31 ship date, so that should give us almost three weeks. We’re anticipating that’ll be doable, because the beta you’ll receive is going to be pretty darn clean.

In other news: our Box Art contest on the Replay forums ended this past Wednesday, and we’re still debating the winner. Those of us who have hair (that disqualifies Al and me) are tearing it out trying to pick the best. We’ll have a decision for you next week.

And in the meantime, just in case you haven’t seen her yet, here’s Larry’s new love interest, Jasmine, exactly as she’ll be seen in the game!

Talk to you next week!

Josh

Hello everyone! As mentioned in the title of this update, it was one year ago down to the minute that the SpaceVenture Kickstarter went live. Well it would have been, but I kid you not, Kickstarter went down right as I was posting this. Were you guys all just so excited that you kept spamming the page and caused the server to crash?

Wow it’s already been a year..I cannot stress the stress that followed the following 35 days!(say that three times fast) But we made it, and that was all because of you fine folks here on Kickstarter. We are all so thankful and so blessed that you all tossed your hard earned buckazoids our way.

One thing up front I am excited to tell you about is that we are going to start doing a minimum of two updates a month starting on June the 1st. You can expect an update on the 1st and 16th of each month. Our epically masterful “Two Guys” are insanely protective about spoiling some little twists and turns they have planned in SpaceVenture, but I am going to at least be able to divulge project status and some fun tidbits along the way!

PROJECT STATUS

You will be happy to know that the project itself, though we ran into a slow snag on some engine issues we had, is coming along very well now. We actually hired another Unity developer to help speed everything up. His name is Vander and he is a bit of a Unity guru. Amongst video game creation, his resume includes writing plugins for the actual Unity store. He now works alongside our senior developer, Tyler.

We still aren’t ready to share a ship date yet. I know you guys are all chomping at the bits to know when you’ll get your hands on the game. The game is still on par with being done within the next few months, and for sure well before the end of the year. Please continue to be patient on that. Now that tax season is done, we are very clear on the budget for the rest of the project and things are rolling along!

Be on the lookout for a playable portion of SpaceVenture to come your way! Can’t wait for everyone to check it out!

GOG CREDITS

Emails were sent out about GoG credits around 2 weeks ago. PLEASE NOTE: The email was in regards to filling out a form. The form allowed you to make a choice involving your GoG credits. If you didn’t receive that email, please check your spam folder first, if it’s not there, then email contact AT guysfromandromeda DOT com

For those of you that chose to receive SQ 4+5+6 as your GoG download, please read the following. Some of you have not received your credit because we had to order more. We are still waiting on them to send us the credits order. You will receive an email and get access to those as soon as we have them.

CHAT SESSION WITH SCOTT AND MARK

For those of you at a high enough reward level to receive access to chat with Scott and Mark will be happy to know that there will be another one schedule for the beginning of June. The update on June 1st will contain exact date and time 🙂

I’m also planning to do a live podcast with Mark and Scott soon. Anyone and everyone can be a part of it!

FAQ

When will our rewards be shipped?
Answer: As soon as the game is complete, we’ll be shipping rewards out.

My address has changed and I need to update it with you guys. How do I do that?
Answer: Don’t worry about giving us your updated address right now. When we get ready to ship the items, we are gonna request you all to give us your updated address so we will all be in sync. No point in getting that as of now, because some of you may move between now and then.

Which conventions will you guys be at?
The Two guys Mark Crowe, Scott Murphy, and the SpacePope Chris Pope will all three be at SDCC 2013(San Diego) and possibly GMX 2013(Nashville). We were all hoping to be at PAX Seattle as well, but that may not happen. Chris Pope will be at Alabama Phoenix Festival(Birmingham) and Ancient City Comicon(Jacksonville) as well.

You guys sure have been going to a lot of conventions. Shouldn’t you be making a game?
Answer: Actually Chris Pope is the one that has been going to conventions, and that has been on his own dime, not the company’s. Mark and Scott have only been to one convention so far and that was GMX 2012. GMX paid for the entire thing.

Do you love us backers?
Answer: We love you more than Orats love chasing Sarien Spider Droids! We love you more than Labion Terror Beasts love Cubix Rubes! We love you more than Fester Blatz loves ear wax! We love you more than Sequel Police love dressing in black! We love you more than… oh you get the picture!

TITANBASE KICKSTARTER

Our buddy Ben from Titanbase productions has a new KS out. Check it out if you have a moment. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/benlindelof/ac-10-the-fps-project?ref=live

CONCLUSION

So in conclusion, look forward to hearing more from me now that we have everything working like a well oiled machine. We really do appreciate everyones continued patience and understanding as we wrap everything up! I’d also like to leave you with a scene from SpaceVenture(Made by Mark Crowe). Can you guess what those green lines are for? 😉

Thanks everyone!

Chris Pope a.k.a your humble local intergalactic SpacePope