Community Newsletter: December 5, 2020
over 3 years ago – Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 02:00:38 AM

PROGRESS

What a week! Wave 1 of the Combat Arena Alpha is live, and it feels like we’re in a whole new world now. It’s been such a thrill to finally show everyone what we’ve been working so hard on!

• In case you missed it, here’s the gameplay trailer we released earlier this week:
  

• The team has been working tirelessly to get the alpha ready for wave 2! We’re facing a balancing act between making it available as quickly as possible, and ensuring that new players are getting the best experience we can offer.
  
  
• We’ve started creating patch notes for new builds of the alpha. They have a nifty spot of their own in our website's navigation bar for easy access. It’s like mini-newsletters, but more frequent! Because of that, you can expect these bi-weekly newsletters to be more of a brief recap of our general progress going forward.
  
  Anyone interested in learning about the changes made to the alpha so far can find our patch notes page here!
  
  
• The Skymill account system now handles all of the matchmaking! This made it so that we can really control the full matchmaking process and cut down on the time you're waiting in queues. We also made some speed and security improvements to the account system in general.
  

COMMUNITY

• It was wonderful seeing so many of you on our Twitch stream this past Monday! We hope you had fun getting a first look at our combat arena in action. If you missed it, you can watch the VOD here.
  
  
• GymLeaderEd kindly invited Rob to an interview about the alpha on his YouTube channel, which you can find here!
  
  

Thanks for stopping by! We’ll see you for the next one on December 18th!

Combat Arena Alpha Gameplay Trailer
over 3 years ago – Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 01:41:42 AM

The gameplay trailer for the Combat Arena Alpha is now live! We hope to see you tomorrow at 1pm EST for the live gameplay stream on our Twitch!

Community Newsletter: November 20, 2020
over 3 years ago – Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 08:09:55 PM

PROGRESS

We’ve made great progress this week! So much, in fact, that we are confident enough to say…

WE WILL BE RELEASING THE FIRST WAVE OF THE ALPHA ON NOVEMBER 30!

• You can expect to hear more from us leading up to the alpha launch with details and instructions for those in the first wave of testing. We’ll be posting to our website as well as our Kickstarter page.
  
   
• Last week, our team started holding small internal tournaments to stress test the game and look for bugs. The range of skill levels within the team is variable, but watching the more seasoned members go head to head in the finale is always entertaining. (Rob usually wins. Surpriiiise.)
  
   
• This sprint was divided between adding many cool new attacks, lots of fixes to accuracy, new VFX for the existing attacks, and a great deal of bug fixes. Each of the fixes were pretty small, but as you run into more and more it can really affect game feel. Getting these patched up was really a massive improvement!
  
   
• We finished the (very rough first version) of our input settings screen. It features rebindable keys and something a lot of people have been asking for: Controller Support!!! Do note, it's still a very early version with no semblance whatsoever of things like aim assist and proper deadzoning. As we get feedback from players and do more play testing ourselves, we'll be making improvements to controller support and features like it over the course of the alpha.
  
   
• We've added the ability for players to host and join Private Games. Our matchmaking always allowed you to play a against a random player in your region, but now you can set up a private game against your friends!
  
   
• We've moved onto beefier servers in preparation for launch, and also added dynamic scaling so more servers come online automatically to handle the load. We'll be doing a lot of server load tuning as we start adding players. It's been impossible to stress test with our small internal team, so expect a few bumps in the road as we tweak the scaling.
  
   
• We've been doing a lot of cleaning to get ready for company ;)
  Sprucing up the icons, fixing fonts, adding more impactful graphics. Just the standard sort of polishing stuff you’d expect leading up to an alpha launch. It’s fair to say the game still looks like an alpha, but at least it's not the ugly mess it was a few weeks ago.
   

COMMUNITY

• We’re so thrilled to see that people are starting to receive their Awburn plushies!
  
  -We’d love to see how your Awburn is settling in! If you feel so inclined, share a picture on Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #AwburnIsHome so we get to see!
  
  -If you’re expecting a plushie but haven’t received an email with tracking information, please be sure to fill in your address info in your user account on our website! We will be doing rolling shipments, so the sooner we have your address, the sooner we can send your plushie!

• Our apologies for the accidental lapse in newsletters earlier this month. If you'd like to read the updates from November 6, they are available here!
  
   

Thanks for stopping by! You’ll hear from us again before our next scheduled newsletter, but we will also see you for the next one on December 4th!

Community Update: October 26, 2020
over 3 years ago – Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 09:57:42 PM

OVERVIEW

There’s a lot to talk about this week! Here are the main subjects we’ll be going over:

• Announcement video
   
• Development updates
   
• Alpha Arena roll out
   
• Plushie updates
   
• Community pumpkin carving contest
   
• Community stream updates
  
   

INITIAL ROSTER

One of the most common questions we get is, “Who will be playable in the Alpha Arena?”

Take a look:

PROGRESS

• All of the combat arenas received major improvements this sprint, with new lighting, fog, and clouds being added to each. The Ruins arena is now complete, and the other two arenas are not far behind!
  
   
• Status and crowd control effects are in now! The effects give Kinfolk new options for things like hampering the enemy’s movement and dealing damage over time. Each one also displays a little VFX animation above the affected kinfolk so you can easily tell what’s going on.
  
   
• With all of these status effects, you’ll need a way to help get rid of them, so we've also begun implementing held items. There are several held items which you can select in team customization and (in certain circumstances) acquire in combat.
  
   
• We wrapped up most functionality for the battle results screen. Now when you finish a match you'll see how many rounds you won and lost, which kinfolk were alive and died during each round, and your change in player score.
  
   
• One of the most important tasks this sprint was improving hit detection in online matches. Accurate lag compensation is a particularly difficult aspect of this, but it's one we've improved on a lot this sprint. As it turns out, Kindred Fates’ gameplay is pretty challenging to implement netcode for! We’ll be listening closely to player feedback on this, and continue making improvements wherever they are needed.
  
   
• Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy! We've honed attacks so that each projectile travels and collides more accurately. It feel more fair now when damage is inflicted, since collisions are more visible to both the attacker and attackee. We've also continued incorporating new attacks into each characters arsenal, so that each Kinfolk has some variety to choose from.
  
   
• We spent a lot of time this sprint improving the stability of our servers. We were seeing cases where the servers would stay alive after a game had ended, which caused all the servers to fill up and not allow anyone else to join a game.

ALPHA RELEASE INFORMATION

In order to make the Alpha Arena launch as smooth as possible, we'll be rolling out the servers in waves. We’re expecting this to begin in late November.

Is this a public release?
Yes, this will the first time we're releasing a playable portion of the game to people outside of Skymill Studios.

How many waves will there be, and how many people will be in each wave?
Depending on how the servers perform, were expecting 3 to 5 waves. In the first wave we’ll send out 50 keys to Champion tier backers. By the last wave we will have sent out keys to everyone who has access to the closed alpha.

How will people be selected to receive a key?
A very small number will be close friends and family of the team, and the remainder are random players with alpha access.

Can we see it?
If someone who receives a key shares the footage, yes!

When will you roll out the next wave?
As soon as we've verified that the game/servers are stable and working in the current wave! We’ll keep you updated with more information on each wave closer to their launch.
 

COMMUNITY

• The first batch of Awburn plushies will be shipped out next week! If you’re expecting a plushie but haven’t filled out your address info yet, be sure to do that in your Skymill account on our website! We’ve already compiled the list of addresses for the first batch, but if your address is in our system before the next batch (approx. 1-2 weeks after the first), it could be included then!
   
• Pumpkin contest: 'Tis the season for fear, scares, and large orange plants. As such, what better way to celebrate the times than with a pumpkin* carving contest! This ain't no ordinary pumpkin carving contest because you're allowed to carve any plant of your desire. Don't like to carve pumpkins? No problem! Try your hand at carving a watermelon, cabbage, eggplant, potato, apple, cantaloupe, etc. As long as it's a big plant and you've cut a shape into it. We're also allowing 3D models for those who just don't want to get their hands dirty all together. Just no 2D art.
  
  -Your work must be submitted by November 7th at 12:00 PM EST
  
  -Submissions must be either Kindred Fates or Skymill related
  
  -Your submission must be posted in #contest-submissions of our Discor and contain 1 image of your work with your username written somewhere in the image.
  
  -See the Discord post here for all of the rules and guidelines!
   
• Our last stream, Kindred Talks 8 is available to watch on our YouTube channel! Give it a listen if you’re curious about other aspects of the game’s development, or if you just want to hear embarrassing stories from the creators’ childhoods.
  
   
• Our next stream will be Chill With The Devs 8! Andrew has spent the past week modding Fallout 4 for Rob to play. Who knows what Andrew’s done? Not Rob! Tune into our Twitch channel on Saturday, October 31st at 3pm EST to find out!
   

Thanks for checking in with us! We’ll see you next time, on November 6!

Community Newsletter: October 9, 2020
over 3 years ago – Fri, Oct 09, 2020 at 11:31:02 PM

PROGRESS

• The playability of the game has advanced dramatically these past two weeks.  A ton of much-needed bug fixes combined with rapid improvements to the existing base classes has made combat a lot more fun in a short period of time. One such improvement added new features to our melee attacks that allows the hit boxes to much more accurately match the visual for the attack.
  

• One of the most impactful features added this sprint was game state logic that enables two teams of four kinfolk to compete in “best two out of three” matches. The round ends when all the members of one players party is defeated, and the first player to win two rounds wins the match. There’s also a new escape menu in-game that lets you change settings, leave the match, or exit the game. It will warn you about incurring a loss for leaving when a match is in progress and ask for confirmation
  
  
• We hit another important milestone when Joey successfully integrated Kindred Fates into Steam. No, you can’t download it yet :P, but it makes it much easier for the team to send updates and upload new builds for testing.
  
  
• We also re-implemented the lock-on camera mode this week. You can now focus on a particular opponent even while you move and jump around. Your melee attacks will automatically aim in their direction, but skill shots and other ranged attacks will still need to be aimed.
  
  
• The recent improvements to combat have made play-testing a lot more enjoyable and prevalent among the team as a whole, but we still have some important issues to fix before we’ll be ready to launch. John is working on improving our latency compensation code so that what you see matches what your opponent sees. We still have some work to do here, but it's feeling better. Sheila is also fixing a bug that throws off the player’s aim without them realizing it.
  

COMMUNITY

• The team had a lot of fun playing Among Us with community members on our last Chill With The Devs stream! You can watch recordings of the stream from Rob’s POV and Crank’s POV.
  
  
• Our next stream will be Kindred Talks 8: The Converging of the Cravens! Our special guest will be none other than Andrew and Rob’s dad, QA extraordinaire, Rob Sr.! We will be featuring Berry Bandit as our host, and of course Rob and Andrew will be there as always. You can look forward to the livestream on Saturday October 17 at 3pm EST! If you have questions for Rob Sr., you can submit them here!
  

Thanks for checking in with us! We’ll see you next time, on October 23!