We have been very busy.  That said, another minor delay.  But!  This time there is a huuuge silver lining if you just can't wait to get your hands on the game: you CAN get it tomorrow. Wat? The current delay is caused by a couple of things, but the need for adequate testing (even for an early access launch) is one of them.  There were some severe performance issues in procgen-levels-only that I've ironed out in the past day, and that set me back.  It also made me really antsy about wanting more eyeballs on this before we start selling it.
You Can Get A Copy, Tomorrow So!  If you're interested in testing the game, please send an email to arcengames at gmail dot com, and we'll provide a limited number of people copies of the game based on our best guess as to who will give us actual testing feedback based on how they present themselves. This does mean that you'll get a free copy of the game that will continue to work after we release it.  Free stuff, yay! But, as we've done in the past with testers on other games of ours, our one request is that you do a good-faith effort to actually not just play the game, but also report any bugs or issues you find.  Instructions one how to do that will be provided via email, but it's basically just mantis bugtracker reports. Despite one person having a crash in a video today, I'm pretty confident in the demo levels at this point (they are limited in scope and have been beat to heck and back by press and a few testers we do have and of course our staff).  The procgen stuff is a lot more voluminous and has had far fewer eyeballs on it, which is my core concern.
Streamers Get A Copy Tomorrow, Too We've been hesitating on reaching out to twitch streamers until the procgen stuff is in place, because that's what is needed for them to really be able to do longer-term streaming.  That will be ready enough tomorrow, although I shudder to think that some of them may run into some issues like being able to find a hole in a room and jump out of the level and get infinite falling death, or find some other issue that we just need to spend 5 minutes on to fix once we (or someone else) find it. Having press/streamers and QA running simultaneously is not the ideal, but doing that AND having a launch at the same time is straight-up stupid if you have any alternative.  So if you're a streamer and you run into a problem, please let us know if you will, and give us a little extra slack for just two days. ;)
Full Release Into EA On Wednesday The 21st This last delay will give us a few things: [olist]

If I happen to have spare time on my hands (haha), then I can throw in a few extra goodies for the launch.  Otherwise those can come the day after launch. [/olist]
Last Note I know that all these delays have been really frustrating to folks, and may have looked unprofessional in some respects.  I've spoken on the Arcen forums on this subject at some length, but basically I've been caught between competing "challenges" for a while now. Ultimately I've chosen to continue to do what is in the best interest of the launch of the game, even if that means a later launch, and I think that you'll appreciate that when you get the launch version.  And then hopefully that will transition well into us making more content very quickly after launch, too, to further reinforce the forward momentum we're picking up at this point. Anyway, so I apologize about the rollercoaster this has been.  Hopefully if you're invested enough into the idea of this game that this has been a big frustration for you, you won't mind getting a free copy in exchange for some early testing.  We can't give out a thousand copies of the game in that way, but having a few dozen extra sets of eyeballs would be a really good thing as a last sanity-check. Thanks as always for reading, and for your support! Chris
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[ 2016-08-22 02:47:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

• 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.