It’s true, we’ve begun a new round of beta testing, meticulously recording aggravated murmurings and strange glee-filled squeals in an attempt to distill a shipping date.  The theory is that when the one outweighs the other, we’ll be able to ask for money for this thing without feeling like highwaymen

Version 0.8 will be rolling out here today, an indication that we are rampantly crushing bugs underfoot.  Our biggest problems at this point seem to be at least partially to do with our constant desire to improve our user interface…

As mentioned in earlier posts, this game has been around for a while as it has ramped up to an actual full-time project, and has undergone a number of overhauls of the general interaction scheme.  We started with a “Sierra-type” interface, with the bar along the top that hid when your cursor wasn’t up there, and an eyeball cursor, and all of that classic (aka completely unintuitive) goodness.

We’ve tried to modernize a bit since then, but a lot of things were left behind because of a comprehensive “list” of ways in which players interact with the game: two or three methods for doing so kept slipping through the cracks.

Anyway, long story short, this makes a few select things *very* confusing for our beta testers, and when they get confused they get cranky, and when they get cranky we’re not doing our jobs.  so there’s some definite ironing out required.

On the other hand, there are a few things that we’ve decided to start doing thanks to beta feedback that are positive!  things like little animations FFT-style to display status effects, bare-bones monster health bars,  and other “as simple as possible” ways to describe gameplay mechanics so that players can concentrate on bashing things and getting loot.

If you want to beta for us, I’m going to be drawing from our mailing list in about a week, PLEASE submit your email at the bottom of the main page, your help is invaluable!