What’s Happening
It’s been a while since we’ve posted an update, so I thought I would give you a summary of what’s been going on the past few weeks.
Porting
We’ve been working hard on porting the game to Linux and Mac using Monogame. Unfortunately, we ran into numerous technical problems which make it difficult to develop the game on all platforms in parallel. Monogame is not yet mature enough to support all the features used in a complex 3D game like ours on all platforms. After speaking to the project lead on MonoGame, he told us to wait for a future version based on SDL instead of OpenTK on Linux. Further, we will need to get a Mac computer to develop software for OSX. It looks like porting to other platforms will be much harder than we estimated.
Since we’ve promised to begin our closed pre-alpha test this month, it looks like we are not going to be able to start parallel development until much later than anticipated. We are still going to port the game, but it seems that the game will have to mature on Windows for some time before we can offer cross platform versions.
Steam
We took some time to make our game compatible with Steam. In contrast to porting, this was far easier than expected. We were able to download and play the game (with steam community overlay) with very little difficulty.
We will be able to distribute Steam copies of the game to our backers by handing out developer keys. Backers will also have access through the Humble Store, once we’ve worked out the distribution deal with the Humble Bundle. We will distribute that version as a simple Windows installer.
Building a Team
We have put out some local requests for contract work on DwarfCorp, and are about to put out a similar online request. We’ve begun the process of interviewing candidates. Stay tuned for details.
Distributing Rewards
We’ve sent out probably 90% of the postcards, but have run out of stamps and labels! There are maybe 5 postcards left to send, all international. Next, we’re going to send out the posters, and finally the T-shirts.
Development
Though we’ve been busy with behind-the-scenes porting work, we have also been doing a bit more development on the game. In particular, we’ve been concepting various bits of artwork, improving the rendering engine, and have done a complete re-write of the AI engine.
I would like to see GOG.com as another DRM-free alternative. They have a submissions form up at http://www.gog.com/indie and say “Whether we decide to accept your game or not, you will hear from us within two business weeks on average.” I was able to get Divinity: Dragon Commander through GOG.com as a reward for backing Larian Studios’ Divinity: Original Sin Kickstarter and I plan on doing the same for Original Sin when it’s released next year, so I would like to think you’d be able to offer DwarfCorp’s backers copies through GOG.com as well.
^.^ Nice to see you’ve been busy, and not kidnapped by aliens
when are the key from paypal send dont have any key resive ?? and i pay for the game
Nobody has gotten any keys yet. We plan to do this by October 30th.
Can you tell us a bit more about the recruitment of a team? How many do you want to be? Is it going to change the schedules for the alpha and beta?.. etc 🙂