Xenonauts Kickstarter Project Update #7, $102,000 and Counting
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The $100,000 stretch goal involves adding indoor missions - basically terror sites set in large bunkers or research facilities that have been attacked by the aliens and need to be cleared out. These are in addition to the Xenonaut base defence and alien base attack missions. We're about to start working on the Xenonaut base defence tiles (the code is all present and correct) so we'll be looking at making the tiles as interchangeable as possible with these new "indoor missions" while still allowing for the required visual variety.
The next stretch goal is up at $140,000. I think this is perfectly achievable if we have a strong final week. I'm pleased to see that there's been a lot of interest in the DVD copies which has helped us out, but it's always difficult to keep the momentum going midway through a Kickstarter and our continuing battles to get mainstream press coverage haven't helped much either.
The Kickstarter has been quiet for the past 10 days or so, as I've shifted most of my attention back to development. We're planning to release a new pre-order build of Xenonauts about a week after the Kickstarter closes, so once everyone has had a chance to claim their Desura keys and get themselves set up.
Here's what we've been working on recently:
Firstly, we've been busy adding the female soldiers to the game. The code for this has been finished and we're just working on the portraits now, so if all goes well they'll be in the next build. The modified Basic Armour art has been done, but all other armour will look the same. You can see previews of how they'll look here:
www.xenonauts.com/devimages/female_basic.png
www.xenonauts.com/devimages/female_jackal.png
Next, we've been putting in the pre-generated soldiers for everyone donating $100 or above. The code for this is also in place and includes a Force Soldier box, where you can enter the numeric code given to you to make sure the starting squad in any game you start always contains your soldier. This box supports up to 12 codes, so you can trade codes with others and populate your starting squads entirely with your friends!
We'll be sending out the Kickstarter surveys once the Kickstarter closes, and those $100+ backers who respond promptly will have their soldiers available in the next build.
For the ground combat we've fixed up the bug where Xenonaut troops weren't reaction firing properly, and (hopefully) fixed some persistent issues with multi-tile prop rendering that have been causing us problems for a while. We've also added the accuracy reduction for firing through smoke.
We're currently working on implementing the alien racial abilities (regeneration, wall breaching, chryssalid-esque zombifying, various other secret stuff) but we're in the process of testing that still. The AI isn't bright enough to use the active abilities yet, but hopefully the passive ones should be visible in the next build. As should smoke grenades.
On the strategic part of the game, we've fixed a truckload of bugs as well as the female / pre-generated soldier implementation. We've also been working on adding more customisation to the invasion AI so we can balance the number of UFOs better, and getting the base defence turrets functioning properly. These now shoot at UFOs attacking the base (reducing the strength of the attacking force even if the UFO is not destroyed) and auto-upgrade as you research new types of weapons, but we're still working on how the game displays all this information to the player.
