Dead State - Getting the Word Out & Patch

The next Monday Design Update from Brian Mitsoda released this week asks for help on spreading the news for his game, and talks about the upcoming  new patch.

As you may know, we've been updating the build pretty quickly these days. We've been finishing up the last tasks on our plates, closing out bugs, and figuring out the priorities for the polish stage. We're finally getting to the point where we are looking at a definite time period for release and we will be announcing a release date soon. However, as Early Access/indie titles tend to be overlooked by press - especially in a season full of major AAA releases - we really need your help to get the word out about Dead State. To build awareness for the release this year, any word of mouth you can generate will help build buzz that will make our eventual launch a lot more successful and allow us to continue to work on fixes and expanded content in the future.

Here are some of the things you can do to help us get the word out:

-Post about us or link to our 2014 trailer or our eventual release date announcement on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
-Discuss or recommend Dead State on game forums. If someone hasn't played since the 7 Days build, let them know how much the game has changed. Remember to emphasize that we're not just another "kill zombies" game. Please be mindful of forum rules and basic courtesy.
-If you like the game, review the EA build on Steam. The more positive reviews we have at launch, the higher the interest from new players.
-Add us to your Steam wishlist if you haven't bought the game already.

With all the holiday releases coming out this year, it's going to be easy for our game to be overlooked. Remember, we're a group of ten developers with a small budget - we don't have a dedicated PR team or even a PR person. Every bit of attention we get right now is because of positive word of mouth. Additionally, with all the negativity about Kickstarter projects lately, many players have written off Kickstarter and Early Access titles completely - we need to make sure that people understand that we have not abandoned development and that we are releasing the game this year. With your help, we can help reach a greater amount of potential players and gaming press, and that's a good thing for Dead State and DoubleBear's continued operation. (And no, don't worry, we're not close to closing up shop or anything, but a successful launch gives us a lot more freedom on future projects.)

Now, as for the patch, we intend to (hopefully) have another patch out this week, and it's another content-heavy patch. Here's a few things to look forward to:

-Fixes for many of the major dialogue freezes (Aimee, Corbeau).
-New Crisis Events.
-25 new random encounters, some that are reactive to attacking factions.
-Wounded system - if you've played Jagged Alliance, it will seem familiar, but starting with the next patch, healing will create wounded HP that can only be healed with time/infirmary treatment. This feature was supposed to go in at beta, but slipped back a bit due to other priorities.
-Additional balance to weapons, melee special attacks, and certain stat effects (carry weight adjusted up again).
-Additional areas with loot passes.
-Additional system and bug fixes.

As of right now, we have a few other additions that might make it, but I don't want to promise them yet as they haven't been 100% tested yet (*cough* horses *cough*). As I'm writing this on Sunday, you might be able to infer that we're working overtime to get Dead State into the best shape we can. We want the game to be as polished and bug-free as possible at release, so keep that feedback coming in - we appreciate the dedication of our Beta players in helping us track down these issues. Okay - back to work for me. Thanks for your continued support and remember to spread the word about Dead State!