Knights! Were down to the final month preparing for the upcoming alpha. The Nightbot on our official Discord server is counting down the hours, minutes and seconds --
It has been a busy 2 years of sharing progress updates, showing the concept art morph to 3D and then into animation, and giving sneak peaks of the games many systems as they have shaped up. Were finally on the precipice of an entirely new chapter of this Kickstarter project and now the updates will turn more and more to focus on the Alpha Phase. As in our previous updates, we will highlight 3 big areas within the game that weve been working on at the end, but this update is more focused on the procedural prep for the impending Alpha Phase.

Alpha-Only Kickstarter Updates

For alpha backers, we want to give you a heads up that there will be some additional communication this month in prep for the upcoming Alpha launch. There will be 2 Kickstarter "Alpha-only" updates published for Alpha and higher tier backers only in the month of December. The first should be out later this week and will include an invitation to complete a quick survey about the platforms you plan to play on. We will also be doing a test run with our Alpha backer email list, so everyone in the Alpha group will get a direct email announcing this survey as well.

Please Join the Discord

If youre in on the Alpha Phase, please be sure to join our Discord. Once youve joined up, run the command max!addrole to ask the MercerBot to add your special Kickstarter role. The hub for the Alpha Phase will be our Discord, so getting everyone on board and ready before the launch date will help everything run smoothly and will let us focus on the game and not Discord roles on January 4th :D If youre not on Discord yet, weve got a very friendly server -- come hang out and make it your first. Even if you arent in the alpha phase, there are special #backer channels for you, so come see what MercerBot can grant you.

Last 3 Days to Join Alpha!

When the private alpha launches in January, we will welcome more than 1,000 backers who pledged at the alpha access level or higher into an early version of the game. These players will be the first to plan heists, build their merc squad and test their skill against the enemy forces & AI. We rely on the private alpha to put the game through its paces, help us improve the systems and allow us to build out the rest of the game hand in hand with you. This feedback is critical to ensuring we create the best possible version of Cyber Knights: Flashpoint. If youd like to join that very special process, there are 2 days left to complete your late pledge to get exclusive alpha access with the option to add the alternate-start add-on reward Horizon Cypher through Backerkit.

November Progress

November has been another big month of progress -- every day hammering on the game and improving and preparing for the big day. With more than a month to go, weve been putting our current list of infrastructure, distribution and player feedback channel tasks first so that those dont end up squeezed off the end in early 2022. So -- with that said, here are 3 highlights for November --
This month, weve made another big round of improvements to our build automation framework. Weve selected our distribution channels and are wrapping up major upgrades to the build architecture to automate the build processes and push those builds up to the distribution site for the alpha. This is hard work but will save us oodles of hours with each Alpha update so it is critical. Weve also been working on the crash and bug reporting pipeline which will be key for our small team to keep up with the larger player-base for this Alpha. Were excited to share that the game will automatically send crash reports to our servers which is going to be a big help when and where we run into crashes. And, to boot the game will also feature a hotkey / button you can push to report a bug, which will immediately snap a screenshot and open a form you can fill out to add a summary and reproduction steps to the bug report.
During November we also finished a rebuild of the games Overwatch and Other Persistent Map effects system, which internally are called Tokens. While this system will be primarily used for Overwatch when the Alpha releases, it has amazing potential for future cool Talents, cyberware and gear effects. A token represents anything that persists on the map and causes an effect within a given template (such as a sphere or an arc of fire). In the case of Overwatch, the token allows a combatant to take reaction shots at anyone who enters the Overwatch template. In the case of a smoke grenade, the grenade leaves behind a token which blocks sightlines which prevents long ranged gun attacks (but not swordplay, ziiiing!). The possibilities with Tokens extremely wide open, so once we saw how cool that could be, we felt the need to invest in a bit of a rebuild to make sure the door was wide for further classes (Agent EX, Toxkit, Drone Pilot, Assassin all come to mind ...) and gear.

Reward and Stretch Goal Progress

For completeness, we have included the progress bar infographic in this update even though nothing in it has changed. If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us.