Posted May 4, 2018 Step inside my office! We're in the home stretch, now. The Town Square module is almost ready to go, and now you can follow the Asylum developers as we approach the release. Exactly two weeks ago we launched the new Identity Task Tracker; check out that link, or click the big green button on the Identity website. The task tracker shows you our progress from the point of release a couple of weeks ago until now, and we update every weekday. This tracker displays the data right out of our own project management software that we use to drive and organize the developers inside the studio. All tasks on the tracker are those that remained as of two weeks ago up to the point we consider the Town Square module to be ready for release. These are not all of the tasks we've done (there've been thousands), but just the ones remaining. I'm pretty proud of the progress our guys are making each day. It's only been a couple of weeks but you'll see the majority of those tasks are marked completed! It's really amazing what a team of this size can do when it has such talent. Keep your eye on the tracker; when our important tasks there are done it's time for a Steam release! We're all extremely excited over here. Town Square barber shop interior, work in progress The World Wide Wait An all new Identity website is very, very close to release. In fact, it's so close that we're only waiting on a technology partner to finalize their end of things. Our new website enhances the style of our existing site but is focused far more on improved functionality. A very robust new account system is in place to help you get in the game, and our new shop has some other big requested features! Finally, you'll be able to pay with dozens of methods (PayPal, credit cards, PaySafe and more) and even gift purchases to your friends. With the release of the new website also comes the return of the Identity Insider. The Insider will be a monthly detailed addition to the website, containing all sorts of information you may not have heard before and diving deep into a specific Identity gameplay topic. Our current pledge packages will remain on the website for only one week after the new website launches. After that, many of those rewards will never be sold again and those which are will be a bit more expensive as we prepare for retail pricing. Now's the time to join in the support of Identity's development if you have been on the fence! A look inside the Asylum Everyone at Asylum has been working like crazy. The poor guys are in overdrive and won't be slowing down anytime soon. In fact, just this last week we hired four new programmers to join the team, more than doubling the programmer team size, to ensure that we can get content to you faster. I've myself continued to put a lot of development hours in when I'm not busy with business stuff. I've added some interesting things in the last weeks including substance use and effects. You won't need to spend your time in the Town Square digitally sober! Mark, our graphic designer, has been taking his excellent art into the game engine with the creation of wallpapers for homes as well as a bunch of clothing options. I hoped to have a couple dozen cool wall options available to start with the Town Square release. When I looked over his shoulder today it was somewhere around 300. Wow, I can't even imagine the options when crafting decorations is introduced on top of that. We're pretty much ready to go on the art side of things. Those who follow us on Twitch will have seen Jade/Lee has finished will all of the housing floorplans and the final touches are being done to integrate them into the game today. A lot of our floorplans are based on pop-culture; see if you can identify them. You'll have the chance to walk through them in the Town Square to help with your home-buying decisions. Keep an eye on our Twitch streams! We're going to be showing some cool stuff quite soon. It's been a long wait for the Town Square release, but the wait is almost over. The Twitch Clips If you've been following Identity's development closely, you probably already know that developers stream their work live on the Identity Twitch channel every Tuesday and Thursday. We also use that time to answer almost every question that gets asked about Identity's development and gameplay. Now that we've been doing this a while, we've answered a lot of questions. Our awesome community manager, BeachBall, has taken the time to compile a massive list of questions linked to clips where they're answered by a developer. Get comfy and head over to the Twitch Clips Directory forum thread. If you haven't found this already, be prepared to spend a good bit of time listening to all sorts of awesome information. This is the best place to get to know the fine details Identity! -- John VanderZwet 34 2 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
