Hello everyball! So November is about to end and some of you are probably waiting for news about the next update. Well, here they are! And not only that, we also plan to talk about planned future updates and finally answer the big question: When will there be more Story?

Release Schedule

The following is an estimate of the future release schedule. Note that there is of course no guarantee that we release all that on time - game development is hard after all. But we'll try our best to stay close to it. So here goes! CrossCode 0.8.5 Release Date: December 13, 2016 The next update will further extend the jungle! Includes:

• So’najiz Temple - the Wave Dungeon
• Shock Mode
• Final Jungle Area
• Extended Basin Keep
• More Quests

CrossCode 0.9.0 Release Date: February 2017 This update will finally complete the jungle and also include a lot gameplay additions and improvements - like way more skills and combat arts! Includes:

• Grand Krys’kajo - The Final Dungeon of the Jungle
• More Party Members that will also use Elements and Combat Arts
• More Combats Arts (at least all level 1 and 2 arts)
• Most Passive Skills Implemented
• More Quests

CrossCode 0.9.5 Release Date: April-May 2017 This update will finally extend the story and also add a smaller area (comparable to Autumn's Fall). If we'll manage to get it done, you'll also be able to enter Rhombus Square for the first time! Includes:

• Finally more story
• A new area
• Maybe: Rhombus Square
• More Quests

CrossCode 1.0 Release Date: June-September 2017 This will be the big release of the full version! It will include an (hopefully) satisfying conclusion to the story. Includes:

• Full Story
• Complete Skill Tree
• Indiegogo Backer NPCs, Quests and enemies (maybe not complete)
• More Quests

Post Release Content But wait! That's not all. We made a lot of promises back during the Indiegogo campaign and since it will be hard to deliver all of this with 1.0 we plan to update the game beyond the "full release" for additional end-game content and more! This includes:

• New Game+
• All remaining Indiegogo Backer Content
• A Battle Arena in Rhombus Square with a lot of different challenges
• More Quests

So looking at this release schedule I'm sure some of you have questions!
I want more story already! Why do you release more story so late? Because cliffhangers! The story of CrossCode may seem fairly relaxed so far, but things won't stay that way. When we continue the story further, there will be plot twists and other surprises. And then you'll have to wait. So instead of letting you wait half a year, we thought we'd try to reduce it to a few month by just releasing the story close to the final version. We just hope to deliver the best experience of the story that way! Also: The additional time really helps us to polish things up to the end to have the best final result without changing too much during development. Didn't you plan to finish the Jungle back in October? Now it's even further postponed to 2017. Yes, things again took a bit longer than expected, partly due to illness of team members. But there is another reason as well: the jungle will be the last big area and following that we will mostly focus on implementing missing features such as skills and maybe more quests. And of course, lots of content for the story we can't release because spoilers. That's why we thought it would be good to kind of spread the content of the jungle over the next few releases instead of releasing everything at once. Also: More Boss Contests! Is the Jungle Dungeon the last dungeon? Will the game just end after this? Yes and no. The dungeons of the Jungle Area are the last "proper" dungeons. However, the game will not simply end after that, more stuff will happen. There will be more puzzles (though not of the density of a proper dungeon), more boss fights and in general a lot of exciting stuff! But we won't spoil things! So wait... Wasn't the release planned for Q2 or even Q1 2017? And now it's September - postponed again? Well, sorta. If things go perfectly, we might be able to hit June for the final release, which is end of Q2, strictly speaking. We might miss that deadline though, mostly because the Jungle area took quite a bit longer than estimated. In the end, we'll try to stay close to our release schedule, but when it comes down to it, what is most important to us is a good end result. If it turns out that we need bit more time to really properly conclude the story, we'll take that time. Will there be More Quests? There will always be More Quests. Anything else we didn't cover with this set of entirely fictional questions? Please ask ahead!

Recent Progress

Okay, so here is what we've been up to recently!
Visit the new area of the jungle...
... enter the Wave Dungeon...
... defeat all the threats...
... to finally collect the last element!
Also in development and hopefully ready next year: the final dungeon of the Jungle!

Steam Awards

Oh boy, it's the Steam Awards, would you look at this! Maybe CrossCode can have one of those? That “I Thought This Game Was Cool Before It Won An Award” Award looks so shiny! You can still vote until November 29! Also, CrossCode is currently on sale!

Gamedev Stream

We'll have another stream tonight!
We will try to implement some of the Shock Combat Arts, answer your questions and probably do a drawing again! You can watch it here: twitch.tv/radicalfishgames Time: 20:00 CET / 11 am PST And that's all, until next time!

[ 2016-11-27 16:43:49 CET ] [ Original post ]