Yeeaah... sorry about that.  Last week it was going to be the 5th, and then late last week that shifted to the 8th.  Now it's the 11th. So what gives? Well, in a nutshell, I'm trying to make sure we have the strongest possible offering right at the start of Early Access.  This whole early access thing (the official system, not doing betas) is new to me, so I guess I'm a bit gun-shy on that.  Plus the Steam store is a really challenging place right now; we just took a beating in the summer sale, so it's very important to me that this launch well. Let's look at the positive side of this, though, and what each delay has bought us: Shifting to the 5th:

• We now have a first-person view in addition to the third-person view.
• A lot of enhancements have been made to the handling of the third-person view, too.
• The level editor is waaaay more advanced than I'd ever anticipated for this point in particular.

• The first procedural level in the EA version of the game is now going to be an apartment building, rather than an industrial area.
• This is a way more unique and interesting environment as a first experience, because it's so innately familiar to us from real life.  Seeing a raptor in someone's bedroom is freaking cool.
• This has prompted me to come up with some new cool ways of stringing together level pieces in order to make these levels feel labyrinthine in a good way.
• This has also prompted further refinement to the feel of the raptor, so that it now can navigate these sorts of smaller spaces as well as the larger spaces like we were testing in before.  The added versatility is really cool.

• 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.