Hi Folks!
tl;dr
We hit some technical snags, so we are delaying our paid Early Access release and instead will make our beta publicly available for free starting October 22. Visit our website Tuesday for instructions on how to obtain a beta Steam key for the beta.
tl:
We’re here to report that unfortunately we’re delaying Political Arena’s Early Access release and instead will make our beta publicly available for free starting October 22.
We hit some unforeseen technical snags at the end – like, at the VERY END (ugh!). None of these developments threatens Political Arena’s long-term survival (hooray!), but they still delayed things quite a bit, from feature implementation to debugging (boo!). We’re a very small team, and Eliot is currently handling all of the game’s technical development.
Though we’re disappointed about this, we’re confident that this is the best way forward. Faced with the choice between delivering something that we didn’t feel comfortable charging people for and missing our date, we created a third option. With this beta you can enjoy what is already an incredibly fun experience, advise us on the direction development should take and see for yourself that we’re actually building a one-of-a-kind experience. We get to open the door and bring you in!
And to our Kickstarter Backers: What we are referencing that will be available on the Political Arena website on October 22, 2024 is a beta and not the version of the game that you backed on Kickstarter. This is an appetizer for you to enjoy while we complete the game!
What is a beta?
- A beta is a video game’s work-in-progress version – warts and all. This is, in effect, the bleeding edge of what the development team is working on.
- Whereas an Early Access version may not contain all of the features that will eventually be included in the game, it still represents a technically stable and thoroughly tested build whose features aren’t likely to change much.
- A beta, simply put, may crash or change (or both!). If a video game were a text document, the beta would be a version that hasn’t been spellchecked and probably features more than a few unfinished sentences.
What does the beta include?
- Create your own politician! Customize their views, skills, personality and background.
- Customize the world! How partisan are politicians? What is the president’s ideology? This has very real consequences for gameplay.
- Try to get a bill passed! Use your limited political capital to lobby colleagues to support your bill. You can even spend your Political Capital to secure votes for your bills.
What does this beta not include?
- Not all the features are there yet: namely leadership mechanics, special interests and the budget. These mechanics are programmed, but aren’t release-stable yet, even for a beta. The game’s RPG events are fun, but they aren’t numerous enough for our liking.
So what does all this mean? Beginning Tuesday Oct. 22, there will be an order form on our website where you can “purchase” the Political Arena Beta for zero dollars. We will then email you a private Steam key and instructions. It is our intention to make this process as simple as possible.
More from us on Tuesday via email about how to get your copy of the beta. If you want to talk earlier than that, Eliot is holding another developer Q&A on Discord today, Friday October 17 starting at 4:30pm PT.
Regardless of the setbacks, we have never wavered in our mission to build this for the long haul and central to that is maintaining trust with YOU, our backers and our community.
Thank you again. And again.
The entire Political Arena Team
