Wow, what a year! Cyber Knights: Flashpoint launched into its alpha phase January 4th, 2022. Its such a natural time to reflect on everything thats happened in Cyber Knights this year and to look forward to the next year. So, lets do it!

1 Year of Building With Our Alpha Backers

A scroll back through this years monthly updates will show you just how many milestones weve hit since starting the alpha. Players have helped us shape nearly twenty heist levels, over 100 class talents and hacking programs and a good 75% of the games intended features at launch. Alpha players feedback & gameplay have led us to add a few new features to game as well. Some have been small but fun, like being able to hurdle fences. Other additions have been more core to what makes Cyber Knights unique, like the pre-heist legwork system that allows you to build your relationship with contacts, earn pre-mission advantages, and flesh out storylines taking place beyond the tactical gameplay. On the tactical maps, feedback from the alpha has led to numerous quality-of-life changes and a major revamp of the combat/weapon rules, helping us iterate the gameplay to its most-fun. We even got the chance to make a public stealth & combat demo available on Steam a couple of times this year, particiapted in the first TactiCon and were featured in the PAX East Rising indie showcase (an interview from the PAX floor is included below). [previewyoutube=JasXWpG7xs8;full][/previewyoutube]

Current Content Pause; a Fresh Start Coming

Now, during the months of December and January, were holding off on Alpha updates so we can integrate a few overhauls too large to roll out incrementally. Were aiming to resume regular updates in a month or so, with a big package of changes and new content for the game. Itll be a fresh starting point for all Alpha players, a chance to come back and check out the latest and greatest with revamped core systems and a fresh UX and one of the last major milestones on our way to Steam.

The Road to Launch

This is the year Cyber Knights is coming to you and to Steam! Upfront, we want to let you know its not going to be this quarter. The wide scope of the UX & design project has turned out to be a much more extensive process than we anticipated the payoff in how intuitive and enjoyable the games deep, complex systems will be immense, but it does take time to create, iterate, and get right across the entire game. Although thats taking more time than we anticipated, it is going very well. As youve hopefully seen in the previews weve shown, were feeling this will be the best-designed Trese Brothers game to date.
Wireframe design for pre-heist planning
Visual design of mid-mission status page
Wireframe of the Knight's revamped class tree Another area that has expanded beyond our initial projections is the iterations on the stealth systems and related enemy AI improvement. We set quite a challenge for ourselves creating a game that seamlessly mixes tactical combat, stealth and hacking into one mission experience. Getting the balance right of just one of these pillars is hard enough. Its been essential for us to spend extra time on in the alpha on stealth, increasing the variety of security device challenges, making sure enemy units behave intelligently and convincingly as they hunt for your team, and tweaking stealth so that it feels fair and fun is a broad balancing act. Were not ready to share the specific launch timeline yet, but we will continue to keep you updated here and in Discord as we close in on it. We know you want the game; as a small indie studio I cant tell you how much we want to hurry up and release it! But the game only gets a single launch. That launch significantly impacts its lifetime success & future, and so were making sure the game we deliver is the game thats ready for you to have a blast with.

An Update on Our Team in Ukraine

With all of the hype for this games UX quality and while looking at the progress behind and ahead, we need to take a moment to mention our amazing art & design partners based in Ukraine. Its now over 10 months that Ukrainians have had to defend their country from Russian invasion & bombardment, enduring loss and horrific war crimes with perseverance and determination. While so many of us enjoy the escape and entertainment of games in the warm safety of our own countries, people just like us are dealing with tremendous hardship and worse so that we can have that luxury. We continue to stand in support of our colleagues and peers and ask that you do the same. Project HOPE, Direct Relief, and The Kyiv Independent are all worthy non-profits our team has donated to and recommended. Most of our colleagues are relatively safe in Lviv at the moment, though Russia continues to target energy infrastructure across the country to try and create a winter of suffering. Even with everything going on in their lives, these folks regularly go above and beyond for us; we really hope that soon this year their country will be able to return to peace.

Creative Surveys Closed

Per the deadline we shared in November, all creative reward surveys (except Encode Your Legend, which is not yet available) have now closed. If you have any questions, were in the #backers channel in our Discord to help.

Reward and Stretch Goal Progress

For completeness, we include the progress bar infographic in each and every update. If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us. We have continued to work on the Digital Artbook and are cutting new pages weekly.