Beta, Launch, and Skystone!

As you might recall from our earlier posts, we know how to make games, but it takes us a lot of time. That's why we are constantly looking for ways to improve our process to be quicker. Part of this effort is to focus on doing actual games and outsourcing the other stuff. Whenever we find the right partner we are delighted to hand over some responsibilities to them so both teams can focus on what they do best. This brings us to...

Hellcard now has a publisher!

A perfect example of such a field is publishing. We can do it well, but it takes up a lot of time and slows us down. Now we have found a partner in Skystone Games. They are a small team of super-talented people including David Brevik, the guy who designed the first Diablo! Most importantly though, Skystone's team thinks like we do and moves quickly so we expect the partnership to bring out the best in both teams!

Launch date

Cooperating with a publishing team opens up new possibilities. Not only do we have more hands on deck to get players to see Hellcard. We also have access to more expertise and publishing know-how. We spent the last two weeks discussing the launch date, looking at all the games releasing in November and December, and decided to move Hellcard's launch to Q1 next year. It's just a few weeks longer but will have a huge impact on Hellcard’s visibility.

Since Skystone will prepare for the launch, we will use that extra time to add more to the game. I will write more in another post, but we are working on custom difficulties where you can make the run a bit more challenging. This was meant to be part of the first post-release update but will now be ready for the launch.

The Closed Beta Sign-ups!

Last but far from least: all this stuff needs to be tested. We are starting the beta sign-ups now. Use this form if you are interested:

Sign-up for the Beta here!

And join our Discord to keep in touch with us and the community (we have cool emotes ːArchduckː, just sayin').

This time around we will be distributing invites in batches - that way we can try things with fresh eyes on each batch sent. It also means that we can't guarantee that everyone who signs up will get a key, it depends on how many sign-ups we have.

There will be an option to ask for 3 keys. During the demo beta test, many players asked me for extra keys and I spent the first few days sending them out in PMs. Lesson learned! The beta will start in three weeks, that's when we will begin sending out the keys.

Some stats from the Closed Demo Beta

We had a blast during the demo beta and got a ton of useful feedback from you. As a result, among other things, we changed the upgrade system and tweaked the balance. We also prepared an infographic with some interesting data from the playtest. I should have posted it earlier but there was always something super urgent to do (good thing we now have Skystone and I have time to post ːarchduckː). Without further ado, the Demo Beta Summary (kind of large pic, sorry)!

tl;dr

We now have a publisher who will help us get more eyes on Hellcard so we can focus on the development! We have also moved the launch date to Q1 2023 in order to avoid the big titles that can spend gazillions on marketing and we are starting Closed Beta sign-ups!

As always, Stay Safe in Paper Dungeons ːarchduckː Konstanty