Hero-U Project Update #102

The response to Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption has been great so far! We have a Positive rating on Steam, 4.5/5 stars on GOG.com, and an excellent 7.9 user rating so far on Metacritic. The extra time we put into testing and getting the game right is paying off.

This post will update you on the most frequent and important issues that have been raised by backers and other players.

Digital Goods Including Game Keys

How to get your game key – All of our downloads for Kickstarter backers are on BackerKit. To get yours, log on to BackerKit at https://hero-u-adventure-role-playing-game.backerkit.com/backer/digital_rewards with your email. Usually that will be the same one you used on Kickstarter.

On the same BackerKit page, in addition to your game key, you can directly download the technical manual and the student handbook. As we complete other game books – the Yearbook, Art Book, Bestiary, and Soundtrack Album, we will add these to the BackerKit downloads of backers who ordered them.

If your email has changed and you no longer have access to the original one, use Kickstarter to contact me. Give me your name, old email, and current email. If I can find matching accounts on Kickstarter and BackerKit, I can change the BackerKit email. You will be notified by BackerKit when I do that.

Survey and GOG key requests – I sent the GOG part of the survey to BackerKit on Tuesday, and everyone who requested a GOG key by that time has received it. I’ve received several hundred more surveys since then, and will have to manually add GOG keys for everyone who filled out the survey after the first two days. I’ll check it about once a week since this will be tricky and time-consuming. If you requested a GOG key and don’t yet have one, please be patient.

Art Book - GOG Concept Art
Art Book – GOG Concept Art

Other Publications and Goods Still in Production

As mentioned in the previous update, most of the physical goods are not ready yet. We plan to mail all of the posters next month after we verify printer proofs of them. The boxed games, yearbooks, and other physical goods will be mailed this Fall, likely around the beginning of November.

We’ve already shipped all of the t-shirts, caps, and “Meeps,” as well as key rings from this 2012 campaign that are not part of a boxed game order. I still have about 100 Meeps, and extra t-shirts and caps – see the “I Want Things…” section below.

For logistical reasons, we plan to do Yearbook autographs on separate bookplates and mail them with the books. That way we don’t need to move thousands of pounds of books between two locations. Physical fulfillment will be done by Geekify.

Some digital goods are also still in the pipeline. We need to completely redo the Yearbook layout (we have finished all the pictures and text for it), so that will take time. We are very far along with the Art Book, which is going to be amazing. We’ve also made good progress on the Bestiary that was announced in the 2015 campaign as an add-on. We have all the tracks for the soundtrack album, but need to compile them into a pleasing sequence.

We’ve had a few requests for a hint book. We haven’t done any work on one (or put much thought into it) yet, but it is something we might do once we have all the other promised items in production.

As mentioned in the first section, each time we complete one of these publications, we will upload it to your BackerKit DIgital Rewards and announce it in a Kickstarter update.

Bestiary - Warrior Gog
Bestiary – Warrior Gog

How to Get More – Coming Soon

Kickstarter is great for funding creative projects, but it isn’t a store. Steam and GOG.com are great for fulfilling games, but I don’t know if they handle game-related items. That leaves our web site (www.hero-u.com) or possibly a service such as Amazon or etsy.

We plan to reopen a store page through hero-u.com to allow both digital and physical orders not covered by Steam, GOG, or Humble. So far I’ve been mailing packages myself; we may be able to work with Geekify to ship them in the future.

The Hero-U Store will also include some items such as meep toys, t-shirts, and caps that we have left over from fulfilling campaign pledges – we ordered extras for promotions and to get quantity price breaks.

Fixing Stuttery Graphics

Some players have reported problems with Shawn’s movement in the game or with the opening cinematic sequence. Most, but not all of these, have been players with very high-resolution displays or playing the game under Linux.

Fortunately, a player came up with a technical solution and posted it on Facebook. Here are the details:

I have found a fix for the slow mouse movement and choppy and stuttery animations and very slow and glitchy character movement you may be experiencing while playing Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. These are caused by a problem outside of the game.

Misconceptions:

  • It has nothing to do with resolution.
  • It has nothing to do with bad code.
  • Steam overlay is not causing this.

Everything is caused by NVIDIA G-SYNC and high refresh rates!

———————————————————————————

WINDOWS 10 FIX – NVIDIA GFX CARD

  • Right click the desktop click ” NVIDIA Control Panel “
  • Under ” Display ” tab click on ” Change resolution “
  • Change ” Refresh rate ” to 60Hz.
  • Scroll down and hit apply and accept all popup window prompts.
  • Under ” Display ” tab click on ” Set up G-SYNC “
  • Untick the enable G-SYNC tickbox
  • Scroll down and hit apply and accept all popup window prompts.
  • PLAY THE GAME! Select any resolution you like on the pre-boot screen.

Once you are done playing you can change these back to your desired settings.

———————————————————————————

WINDOWS 10 – RADEON FIX:

  • Right click the desktop click ” Display settings “
  • Scroll down on the Display tab and click on ” Advanced display settings “
  • Click on ” Display adapter for Display 1 ” (Or your preferred display)
  • Click on the ” Monitor ” tab on the popup window.
  • Change the ” Screen refresh rate to ” 60 Hertz ” and hit apply, accept all prompts if there are any.
  • PLAY THE GAME! Select any resolution you like on the pre-boot screen.

Once you are done playing you can change these back to the desired settings.

(I haven’t received any step-by-step directions for changing the refresh rate or GSYNC on Mac OS X or Linux systems, but there should be a similar process available. Also, this might not fix the problem for all players, but it should help most of the ones having graphics issues.)

Poster of Caligari City and Hero-U
Poster of Caligari City and Hero-U

Hero-U Project Update #101: Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption

Jumping for Joy
Jumping for Joy

It’s Alive!

It’s been a hectic two days with a few “teething problems,” but we Have A Launch!

Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption is now available on Steam at:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/375440/HeroU_Rogue_to_Redemption/

and on GOG at: https://www.gog.com/game/herou_rogue_to_redemption.

We’re also reworking our web site. The front page has links to Steam, GOG, our Facebook page, and so on: http://www.hero-u.com/.

About Those Steam and GOG Keys

Between launch issues and trying to make sure backers got game keys as soon as possible, I managed to create some confusion. Here’s the skinny:

  • I decided to provide a Steam key to EVERY backer.
  • All Alpha and Beta level backers have both Steam and GOG keys.
  • Other backers who requested a GOG key will get one soon.
  • “Beta-Only” – that’s actually your live Steam key
  • “Steam Beta Key” – that’s also your live Steam key

The confusing names hearken back to the beta test. Everyone who got a Steam beta key then has been updated to have the live version of the game now.

The Next Game Patch

Even before we launched the game, we were thinking about changes we want to make that we couldn’t safely include in the launch. There are some errors in the game books, a few dialogues and game events that could use tweaking, and at least one known “game-locking” bug.

(If you see a plaque labeled “Pyoter,” it’s best not to click on it. There was a bad line of code that freezes the game.) We will also keep a close eye on player reports and feedback over the next few months.

We will probably release a patch with these and other minor fixes in about a month, after which patches should be rare.

Incidentally, several players with Ultra High Definition monitors have reported serious animation issues in the game. This is a general Unity issue that we’ve also seen reported for other games. The solution – set your monitor refresh rate to 60 Hz. That seems to fix the problem.

Physical Goods and Future Games

We still have some work to do on the Art Book, Bestiary, Soundtrack, Yearbook, and boxed copies of Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. We expect to ship posters next month, new digital assets as they become ready, and boxed games in late October or early November.

We’ve started concept and art design on not one, but two, upcoming games. One is a smaller casual game we’re calling Summer Daze at Hero-U. The other is of course the second series game, Hero-U: Wizard’s Way. We’re committed to creating innovative, enjoyable games.

A Short Teaser Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2lJ4CLN8Jo

Hero-U Update #98: Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption by Corey and Lori Ann Cole

Mickey Rooney was famous (yes, before even *my* time) for starring in a series of movies in which the answer to every problem was, “Let’s put on a show!”

As we approach the live release of Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption, it’s time for us to switch hats from developers to marketers. In other words, we need to put on a show! We’re contacting press and influencers, creating “trailers”, and gathering screenshots and clips of game play to show off to the press and new players.

Once we launch the game in just a few weeks, we hope many of you will enjoy it enough to become “part of the show” by posting about your personal experience and reaction to the game on social media.

Corey at Casual Connect Europe, where we were finalists for the Indie Prize
Corey at Casual Connect Europe, where we were finalists for the Indie Prize

New Build for Beta Testers

Earlier today, we updated Steam with a new build of the game. This is intended to be very close to the final version. The opening cinematic will get new music and some lighting changes. We have a few bug fixes to make this week, but we consider Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption to be a finished game at this point.

“Finished” is of course a relative term in this digital online age. We expect that we will continue to fix problems and make small improvements to the game over the next several months based on feedback from players. At the same time, we’ll be very busy starting work on the next games and supporting Rogue to Redemption.

How close are we?

We’re trying for a July 9 release, but I think July 16 is equally likely. We will do a “code freeze” on June 30, test for a couple of days, then release it to Beta testers. If that survives a full week without serious problems, we’ll release on July 9. If not, we’ll do a new build and push the release date back a week.

Public release is waiting on three non-game things – finalizing the opening cinematic and finishing the game manual and the student handbook. When we complete those and add them to Steam, Steam will automatically update everyone to the new version.

What about gog.com and the Humble store? We’ll add those later. I’m currently working with gog.com on a license agreement and their requirements for adding Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption to their site. I have an existing agreement with Humble Bundle, but will need to set up new widgets and a download page for their system.

A Kwirk Might Jump Into the Screen at any Moment
A Kwirk Might Jump Into the Screen at any Moment

Our trip to Europe was fun and hopefully useful. We visited super backer “The Gardener – Protector of the Forest Lands” in Germany, then showed Rogue to Redemption for the first time at the Casual Connect conference in London.

The conference was held in the Queen Elizabeth II center in the historic and beautiful Winchester district of London across the street from the historic Winchester Cathedral, and a block away from Trafalgar Square and other important and impressive sites (and sights).

Finding Hero-U

The Steam store for Hero-U is https://store.steampowered.com/app/375440/HeroU_Rogue_to_Redemption/.

Our web site, where you can learn more, preorder at a discount, and join the conversation on our forum, is http://hero-u.com/.

You can find all of the previous project updates at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transolargames/hero-u-rogue-to-redemption/updates.

Our Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/TheSchoolForHeroes/.