Welcome to the "Inside the Ready Room - Starlight Inception Edition!" The Ready Room is the area on a carrier where pilots are given briefings and sent off onto missions; thus the name for this series of blogs.
It’s been a few months since the last update and a lot has happened, so we wanted to fill in all of the backers and prepurchasers on the status of the game, as well as giving an idea of all things Starlight Inception in the next few months.
Also, Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah to all those who are celebrating it…
Since the game is now heading toward final release on several different platforms and versions, we want you to have all the latest info on each version. Understand though, that this information is subject to change…
VITA SCEA [Sony Computer Entertainment America]
STATUS: Release Candidate submitted to Sony
Vita Beta: Vita Beta launched successfully on SCEA and has been generating great feedback and great ratings – thank you for all that you have done on our behalf to make the game better.
Vita Full Game: We have submitted our release candidate to Sony and without going into too much today, it is moving through the internal Sony process toward release. Currently that date is TBA (To Be Announced), but we are hoping for release before Christmas. This submission did not include Multiplayer, as we are pushing hard on that front now.
Multiplayer is in final testing phase on our front, and we will be patching that into the game on or near release. It is shaping up to be lots of fun. We are implementing Online Multiplayer to give you all more options to play with friends. Party Matchmaking and Adhoc Multiplayer are also on our list. More on this as we get closer to release.
We have set the retail Vita price at $22.99 US. We want to be as consumer friendly as possible, while still rewarding the backers and prepurchasers. Hopefully this satisfies everyone.
VITA SCEE [Sony Computer Entertainment Europe]
STATUS: Release Candidate submitted to Sony
Vita Demo/Beta: The question we see very often, and which we are working hard to answer is: “when am I getting my Starlight beta through SCEE?” We’ve even seen a couple of “Are you planning a European release?” The answer is a resounding ‘yes’! Of course, we want to be a major presence on non-SCEA Vitas! We have a Russian captain (Capt. Genna Petrovich) who is central to our story! ☺ Because of communication delays, some code delays and other factors, we have still not been able to release the Beta through Sony Europe. Adam has submitted a build. We have been promised that it will be posted as soon as possible, and we will let you know when that happens, as well as distributing vouchers. This will not be an open beta as in SCEA territories, and will only be available to Kickstarter backers and prepurchasers on Vita. Thank you for patiently waiting for this release.
Vita Full Game: Our priority has been the overall game release for Europe, which involves working through the translation of the massive amount of words in the game (approximately 20000 at last count), as well as implementing multiplayer just like the SCEA version. We know we didn’t really promise it, but we have contracted to localize the text in the game to French, Italian, German, and Spanish. This will be true for all international versions of the full game once the translation is completed, tested and integrated into the game. We are at the mercy of SCEE and European schedules, as well as being gated by PEGI (the European Rating Board), which has its own internal process, so again, as soon as we have a date, we’ll let you know. My gut tells me very close to Christmas, or very early next year.
It is very important that those backers who are looking for an SCEE version contact us through email at
info@eschatch.com so that we can enter you in the database for a European code (if you haven’t done so already). If we don’t know that you are looking for a European version, we can’t send you the voucher code for the demo/beta or full release.
EHE DRM-FREE / STEAM
STATUS: Released through Steam Early Access/EHE Server
PC Full Game: The PC version continues to gain refinement as we push toward a final release. We will continue to update Steam and our DRM-Free Server as those refinements are added. Look for a release fairly soon which incorporates the PS Vita polishes as well as full voicework from professional actors (my voice will stay in the opening cinematic, but the rest of the game will now have professional voice actors doing the heavy lifting, and it sounds a lot better). In addition there are lots of fixes for bugs, a few more joystick refinements, a new save game file, and the end credits, which incorporate all of those Kickstarter special thanks which we promised. We’re working hard to do a simultaneous release of the PC version as well as Vita, but we are a small team and so we know the dates may slide around a little. We’ll keep you up to date on this, but the current plan is to finish the Steam / DRM-free version before Christmas.
EHE DRM-FREE / STEAM (FRENCH, SPANISH, ITALIAN, GERMAN VERSIONS)
STATUS: Released through Steam Early Access/EHE Server
PC Full Game: This is essentially the same game that is already available on Steam and our server, except we wanted to let our European backers know that we are going to be integrating localized text for the four languages above into the game (voices will stay English language). This will happen as soon as we finish QA on the translation for the Vita version, since they share the same code.
SONY CROSSBUY
STATUS: We’re doing it ☺
We have already given Vita beta vouchers to the PS3 preorders, which should be a powerful hint that we intend to do a crossbuy between PS3 and PS Vita. This is the current plan. In addition, we will feature a very slight upgrade cost (probably between $2.99 and $4.99) to gain a version for that other big Playstation console when Starlight Inception releases on PS4 next year.
PS3 SCEA
STATUS: Full game in production
PS3 Full Game: We are tweaking the game for PS3 as we finish PS Vita Multiplayer. We are able to use assets that are sort of between the lower poly Vita models and the higher poly PC assets in most cases, and the finalization of the PS3 platform has been fairly uneventful. Just plugging away to make sure the framerates are nice and that we squeeze as much coolness out of the art as possible. Looking at sometime in January to release this version.
PS3 SCEE
STATUS: Full game in production
PS3 Full Game: Not too much to add, except to say that there will be a French, German, Italian and Spanish version of the game. Like the PC and PS Vita international versions, they will have subtitles and text localized, but not the voicelines, which will remain English. Look for this in January.
KICKSTARTER PREMIUM FULFILLMENT
We’re still waiting for the last few responses to our physical gear-based Kickstarter surveys, but we have begun the ordering process of physical items promised in our campaign.
There are still over a hundred responses necessary for the digital items – please check your spam filter, email inbox etc. for the Kickstarter survey – we want to make sure that everyone gets what we promised them.
We’ll have some more pictures of the physical Lightning to show – we’re starting to accumulate a squadron of them here at Escape Hatch, and visitors are always blown away by the build quality and paint work done by the award winning miniature painter Tyler Mengel.
FORUMS
If you are a backer, or have taken advantage of our prepurchase program on the
www.eschatch.com, and want to join our forums, you can sign up now – we have found better spambot filters…
SPREAD THE WORD
We have started our public relations push, so now is the time to once again start spreading the word about this game, coming to PC, PS3 and PS Vita. We appreciate all you can do to let the world know about this game.
THANK YOU
Thank you again for participating in this process, and for backing this game. We have lots of exciting news to share in the months to come, so stay tuned.
Kindest Regards,
Garry, Melissa and the Starlight Inception team
