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It's been far too long since I've written up a devblog and for that I give my sincerest apologies. We've been working through obstacles over here, and I wanted to take this opportunity to open the door. Read on for a better understanding of what the team's been up to and our big, big changes moving forward!

Client Update Live on Steam

We've pushed a new update live on Steam earlier today! Fire up your Town Square clients to try it out now. While I know you're all waiting patiently for exciting gameplay from the SWAT module, this is a necessary update to the existing Town Square systems which overhauls several key systems. Plenty of bug fixing aside, the most noticeable change in this update is a massive update to player movement, controls and animation. This is an important component for improved combat controls.

The Road Ahead

As many of you are already well aware, our development funding isn't what it used to be. Our progress has been slower than we'd like it to be because of this. Some of our key developers are working part-time as we take on additional work to pay the bills. This is unfortunate, but it simply means we need to change our strategy going forward.

One of our primary reasons for releasing modules during development was to account for crowdfunding requirements. Having met those demands with the release of Town Square, we no longer have such an obligation and can explore new options.

The big news here is that instead of releasing modules, we're going to release incremental updates which will, over time, develop our content into the full vision of Identity. In place of the SWAT module you'll receive weapon systems, character development, an enlarged environment, police systems and so on. We'll continue releasing key systems gradually. The time this will take is based on our funding. That is, the more people who buy access to the Town Square or purchase rare items on our website, the faster we can get content out the door. As it stands now, weapons and melee combat is just around the corner.

In addition to our release structure changes, we're planning on opening development to the community. By supplementing our primary development team with skilled community contributors, we can get more done on a small budget. I'll explain this in more detail soon as it gets better fleshed out, but if you're someone who would like to get involved (and you do have experience in the role) we'd love to hear from you. Toss an email to community@asylumentertainment.ca.

Budget and Fundraising

More money in our budget means more dedicated development hours. To increase Identity's development speeds and get new content in your hands as quickly as possible, we've begun looking at external sources for investment more seriously. We do have a couple offers on the table now, and are always open to more opportunities.

There's been talk in the community about our significant $1.6m budget; however, it should be understood that we received that sum over the course of over 4 years. After taxes, licensing fees, platform fees, refunds, etc, our annual developer salary budget has been on average about $170,000. With this considered, I'm extremely proud of our team and what they've accomplished; much of our developed content has not yet been seen and I'm excited for the future when everyone is in full swing again. We have a very solid foundation in place for an amazing MMORPG. Gameplay systems, which are the bulk of the remaining effort, usually come together relatively quickly.

Furballs

Furballs is a mobile game inspired by the PC/console hit, Rocket League. Asylum Entertainment has been tasked as a publisher for this title. While the Asylum team is not contributing to the development of Furballs, we are helping to get their game out to an audience. Furballs is now on Kickstarter, and it only has one week to reach its hefty funding goal.

As a publisher, should we be able to help them reach this goal our business, Asylum Entertainment, will receive a significant share of net income from the Furballs game during testing and post-release. All, every single cent, of the money Asylum Entertainment receives from publishing efforts will be pooled directly into the development of Identity.

Check out the Furballs campaign on Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/phony/furballs-bringing-competitive-fun-to-mobile. If it looks fun, share it with your friends and help get the word out. We have SIX days only to raise nearly the full amount. That's not going to be easy at all, but if we're able to do so Identity will have secured additional funding going forward. You'll be supporting two great games at the same time!

In Summary

We're looking at some big changes over here, and I'm quite excited to dive into this! The biggest thing to take away from what I've said above is that you're going to be spending significantly less time waiting to play the full Identity experience. Instead, you'll get features patched into your client on an ongoing basis, expanding on the game with new content to experience. You have the social base character elements in the Town Square, and soon it'll be time to step out into the world. There won't be loads to do out there at first, but that'll change very quickly. You will be our testers. You will be the first to experience this content, and the ones to help us shape it.

Check it Out!

If you haven't seen the latest Identity Insider video, check it out now. If you have, watch it again because it's awesome!

Step into the Town Square!

The Town Square module is now released and available on Steam. If you haven't had the chance to try the Town Square and experience a small piece of the Identity world, grab your Steam key and check it out.

With the Town Square now running smoothly, we've shifted much of our focus to feature development for the SWAT module. We'll continue to fix bugs and add other features to the Town Square, too.

Get your Identity Steam key!

To get your key, login on the main site at www.IdentityRPG.com. You can then go to the Account tab of your profile where you'll see an option to link your Steam account.

You must have BETA ACCESS on your account to claim a key!

ATTENTION! You can only attach one steam account to one game account, and it's permanent. Be sure you're logged into your game account which has the items you've purchased before attaching a Steam account!

Once you've obtained your key from the Identity website you can enter it into your Steam client, but be sure that you're logged into the Steam account where you'd like to own Identity. Click the Games menu in Steam, and then Activate a Product on Steam.

-- John VanderZwet

Let's Make Identity Great!

Identity's development is going great thanks to the support of people like you, but systems like these take a lot of manpower and resources to create. Identity has an awesome community behind it, but when more people know about what we're creating and our budget grows from pledges, we can not only work faster but we can do more, too.

If you're as excited to play Identity as we are making it, help spread the word. The gaming industry has needed a game like Identity for too long; let's make it great together!

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