Hello,

Yup the title includes the word beta, that’s because it’s really not very far off now.

I wanted to provide some info on exactly how we’re going to run the beta and what you can expect if you choose to take part.

The beta will come in 3 main stages.

 Progenitor

Stage 1 will be move at a breakneck speed. This will be the buggiest and busiest stage of the beta. A bunch of unfinished features will be disabled whilst we finish them up. Updates will come thick and fast, sometimes as often as multiple updates a day.

If you choose to take part during stage 1 you should expect bugs, lots of balance changes, you shouldn’t get too attached to your character or universe as we may make changes that require you to start from scratch.  You should expect the game to be broken at points as we make sweeping changes but you’ll get to enjoy exciting new content added constantly. The engine won’t optimized during this stage of the beta so performance could be poor on some low end machines.

You’ll get to see a bunch of ‘behind the scenes’ content at this stage and provide feedback during this crucial period.

DO take part in this stage if:

– You enjoy testing buggy and unfinished code

– You enjoy providing feedback

– You want to leave your mark on the game

– You just can’t wait any longer

DO NOT take part in this stage if:

– Bugs infuriate you

– You don’t like spoilers

– You can’t stand losing your save

– You want the full Starbound ‘experience’ the first time you play.

 Automaton

Stage 2 will be largely feature complete. You’ll still find the odd bug but they’re unlikely to be game breaking and the chance of you losing your character or save is minimal. The main quest line won’t be in yet but the sandbox experience will be near complete. All sectors of the galaxy will be available including sector X (End game content). Much of the focus in this stage will be on bug fixing, optimization and balance.

DO take part in this stage if:

– You enjoy reporting bugs/bughunting

– You have a low spec computer and want to make sure the game is optimized for it

–  You want a complete sandbox experience

– You tried to wait a bit longer but failed

DO NOT take part in this stage if:

– You want to play through the main quest line

– You want to be a Novakid

 Bio-organic

Stage 3 is largely about prepping for v1.0, this means finishing up the main quest line and implementing the post beta content. i.e. the Novakids, fossils. By the time stage 3 is complete Starbound should be ready to launch as a finished game. Worry not however, we plan to keep adding new content for at least a year after release, perhaps a lot longer.

DO take part in this stage if:

– You want to give feedback on what will become the finished game

DO NOT take part in this stage if:

– You’d rather wait a litttttle bit longer and play the polished final version

– You’re still busy playing Pokémon X/Y

——————–

So it won’t be too long now guys, I just wanted to clue you in on what we’re planning. We’re all pushing as hard as we can to start this up as soon as possible.

Hey guys!

Past couple of days have been dedicated to things like making our status effects more UI friendly. Making it more obvious when the player has gotten too cold, or starts drowning, because those things were annoyingly easy to miss before. Also debugging! Surprise surprise. :D

Lore was completed for the Avian, Glitch and Floran dungeons.

Buffs that allow the player to run faster and jump higher for a period of time were configured and are being added to certain consumables! And we’ve continued configuring NPCs. Today we’re doing some play testing to see what else we’ve gotta fix. :D

Earlier, my Glitch was tragically accosted by bandits. All she had to defend herself with was a burrito. The bandits decided they really, really wanted that burrito– and who could blame them? Here is a screenshot from her final moments.

In seriousness though, Armagon took this really pretty screenshot of a desert biome with a planet in the background. Conveniently wallpaper-sized (click for full-size)!

Evening everyone!

A *big important thing* we managed to get in today was support for status effect icons. We’ve been configuring all these status effects, but until now haven’t had a way to indicate to the player exactly what was going on. So, yay!

We’ve also quickly made a tree “brush” for dungeon generation keys that lets us make sure we’ve got some trees spawning in places like…Glitch villages, for instance. Towns are no longer barren wastelands!

Got some more blocks in, did some more dungeon work, fixed some bugs- particularly one with the placement of consumables in the player’s hand. I spent a lot of time today trying to make sure the “gradual healing” status effect wasn’t too powerful or too weak. Testing this out involved applying a damage status effect to banana bread and varying levels of the gradual healing status effect to a few other foods. Then I stood on my ship eating hundreds of loaves of poisonous banana bread and healing myself with pie. gamedevelopment.jpg

I leave you with a demonstration:

Goodnight!