Last month, I opened the update with “What a difference a month makes…”. Interestingly, this is exactly what I had in mind for this one until I realized I’d be repeating myself! This month was full of downs and ups, starting with a project near-death experience when I realized the gameplay was going in a very bad direction and ending with a Rocky Balboa comeback, leading to the first closed playtest build, which is being played by 5 valiant Discord members as you read this.

These first 3 months of development were largely about turning my high-level aspirations and old plans into actual code and a core gameplay loop. Getting it right wasn’t easy, but I’m happy to see Outsider becoming an actual game. The latest build has music, sound effects, logo and title screens, gameplay configuration and a fully playable tutorial (around 15 minutes of playtime and actual replayable). While most graphics are placeholders, the gameplay is there. It’s nothing to write home about, but it might already be better than Concord and early Fallout 76. :)

Many still wonder what the game is about, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise! The playtesters already know it, but I need to put a lot more work into the main experience before considering sharing it with a broader audience. You’ve seen the Steam capsule on which the title screen is based, but here is an in-game screenshot anyway.

As the Outsider playtest build already features the first music track not made in-house, it’s the right time to announce the full musician roster. I’m a supporter of Creative Commons, so I decided to leverage some open tracks in addition to the ones created in-house. Besides yours truly, Outsider will feature the Lithuanian electronic musician Stellardrone and the Brazilian-American electronic musician Malds. These are not “random free assets”; Stellardrone and Malds are hard-hitting musicians, and I’ll be hand-picking tracks suitable for the game. The playtest build currently features my own Blue, now selected as Outsider’s main theme, and Stellardrone’s Rendezvous with Rama.

Let’s now talk about plans for the future. As I was preparing the playtest build, it became ever more obvious that the constant context switch between Developer/Musician/Graphical Artist/Writer was leading to poor productivity - and even premature burnout. As soon as I’d be efficient with a tool, I’d switch to another task and lose some of the “task muscle memory”. This made sense initially as I was derisking the project and trying different tasks, but I needed a different way of working that involved less task switching. This means that I’ll switch tasks less often going forward.

With Milestone 3 (M3) complete, it’s time to start M4. Originally, I wanted M4 to lead to a somewhat rough build with the tutorial and part of Chapter 1, using that for a semi-public playtest. This would be a fine approach, but given what I just said, I want more focus and less task-switching. So, the new M4 will be more about graphics and coding, leading to a much more polished game with roughly the same amount of content I have today - which includes many things that didn’t make it to the playtest.

It will be a beta-quality build with UI assets that can accommodate current and future content all the way to the final release. You won’t play for very long, but what you’ll see will be closer to the final game’s early stages. I’m targeting early January for a public demo (that means YOU will have access!), including the tutorial and a portion of Chapter 1, but featuring non-placeholder images, gameplay and audio assets.

If you want to get your hands on Outsider before then, just come to our Discord server and enroll in the next pre-demo playtest!

See y’all later!