As was asked on our forums: What's the status? Short version: I have been very very busy on this, and feeling the time crunch in a major way for a variety of reasons, and so have been more silent than I should be. Longer version: a TON of work has been done... all over the place. ------------------------------------------------------ - The way the raptor handles - the visual polish - the destruction improved a bit - the raptor audio much more raptor-y sounding (thanks to Pepisolo for big parts of this, and pushing me on it, too) - other bits of audio sounding more varied and material-appropriate (thanks to Pepisolo on this completely) - a fully custom AI system that handles traversal of VERY complicated level geometry like a breeze (and that will be showing up on the unity asset store in a month or two via a new partner in that area I'm working with to handle the asset store part and not distract me from actual development). -integration with new pooling systems to make garbage collection better. -upgrading to the latest version of unity (5.3.5p2) to get some bugfixes and some performance improvements. -integration with the mobfarm smooth turret system (my AI does not do any targeting logic because there was already plenty of public code for that sort of thing) -heavy improvements of said turret system to integrate it with pooling, with SECTR audio, and for nearly zero ram allocations during runtime. -side-jumps/wall jumps for the raptor, which is a big deal for dodging projectiles. -ledge hanging and jumping for the raptor. -lots of particle effects are partially implemented, but more are coming. -lots more asset store art has been worked on and partly integrated and optimized. More coming on that. -the workflow for level editing has been figured out on my end, and a lot of improvements made in that department. However, it will be only for the developers unfortunately, and not client-side, because it requires the unity editor and the ability to embed prefabs for this. Such is life. -a ton of the raptor animations have been improved or outright redone by Blue, making the raptor increasingly organic. -lots of robot animations, only a few of which are in place thus far. -a new sort of explodey-collapse logic for the small robots is partly in place, and I'll finish that tomorrow. -a system for visual force field bubbles and the logic for that is about halfway done. It's super cool! it's for the robots, of course, not you. ;) -lots of internal optimizations to code, project structure, etc, to make for increasingly fast development of content as time passes. -the game actually compiles for a standalone executable now, haha. I had not bothered testing that previously, and there were some issues (as expected). All sorted now! Big things coming really soon (next couple of days): ------------------------------------------------------ -the first actual procedural levels to be shown off. -the main menu, with attendant settings for quality and performance and controls. -fully getting the robot AI in there and letting you actually win levels. Right now the movement logic is done and the shooting logic is done, but they aren't put together. -a much better antialiasing solution, which will really take that quality up a notch. Big things missing but coming a bit after that: ------------------------------------------------------ -the big "dismemberment enemy" robots will be implemented, to go along with the "pounce target" robots that have been my focus thus far. -substantial camera system improvements that are needed. Other related big news: ------------------------------------------------------ -we are aiming to have a new trailer AND the first press playable preview build out on Tuesday. :) -we're not announcing the exact date yet, but this will be heading to early access later this month. About the early access pricing strategy: ------------------------------------------------------ The final price is intended to be $15, but we'll be adding content as long as player interest is there to financially support it. Our goal is to always provide the game at a price that at minimum reflects the value that is there at the time of sale, so that if financial support for the game dries up, we can wrap up the 1.0 release at a lower-than-intended price while still providing a great price-to-content value.

• Be a velociraptor.
  
• Feel like a velociraptor -- this is our central design goal.
  
• Procedural levels: a pleasing blend of hand-crafted locales and randomization.
  
• Fight robots! Tear giant ones limb from limb, pounce on small ones, and try not to die.

Sell Me The Idea In One Sentence

What’s The Point?

• 1. For the pure fun of the thing. In 1993, a certain game let you be a raptor. The controls were iffy. The levels were short and static. It's very dated. Yet many of us still dust it off periodically -- just to be a raptor. Release Raptor gives you a far more satisfying, modern, dynamic experience.
  
  
• 2. For the challenge. Brutal Mode approximates what a real theropod might experience when attacked by robots. Aka, if you get shot by a rocket that's the end. You'll need to use all your raptor skills to tear your foes to shreds.
  
  
• 3. To play with kids. I want to be able to play this with my 5 year old son, but still have dismemberment (because that's cool). How to do that without blood or gore? Robots! Little robots = pouncing targets; giant mechs = dismemberment targets.
  
  
• 4. For a power trip. Brutal Mode is only fun for some. So we have Power Trip Mode, where you're on an invincible rampage. It's not about IF you can do it, but how WELL you do it. Speedrunning is encouraged. Your performance is scored and rated (avoiding hits, etc), so mistakes still have consequences.
  
  
• 5. For daily runs — maybe. My hope is to build out some daily leaderboards for both play modes, but no promises on that yet.
  
  
• 6. For the strategy of it — probably. The idea is to make these branching mazes kind of like AI War: Fleet Command maps in terms of how they provide you with opportunities. Each opportunity may increase the heat you take while moving forward, but at the same time net you some good things (thematic secondary goals like blowing up part of the facility, etc). I think I have figured out how to avoid excessive backtracking or frustration with this, but I don't want to state that as a definite feature until I have it prototyped in.

• OS: Ubuntu 10.10 or later. although other unsupported distros may work
• Processor: Dual Core 64bit CPU (2.2+ GHz Dual Core CPU or better)Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Graphics: GeForce 8xxx+. Radeon X2400+. or Intel G45+
• Storage: 5 GB available spaceAdditional Notes: Important: final specs may substantially differ. but this is our best guess for now.

• Processor: Any Quad Core or 3.0+ GHz Dual Core CPUMemory: 5 GB RAM
• Memory: 5 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB / AMD HD 7870 2GBAdditional Notes: Important: final specs may substantially differ. but this is our best guess for now.