JA:Flashback - Post-Funding Update #34

Full Control has a new post-funding update for Jagged Alliance: Flashback about shifting gears, and the developers short term roadmap.

Short Term Roadmap

Having launched Space Hulk we’re now in a position where we can start to move some of the team to the Jagged Alliance: Flashback project. Initially we have moved some of the artist onto JAF. They have started deciding on the final style and which art sets/assets we’re going to have in the game. Jesper already started to play around with what the characters should look like, so I grabbed a quick shot of it.

The approach for JAF is very different than Space Hulk as it’s a crowdfunded game, which opens up for many opportunities to get feedback and fine tune the game during the development stages. As stated earlier we want to include contributions from the community, be it sounds, voices or models...but only if we find the quality and content to be good enough. We’re also going to put some decisions up for vote e.g. “what should this sector include?” and then give you options to choose from. 

As you know from the Kickstarter we will have an closed alpha, closed beta and also early access to the game. Below you can see our plans for these. 

Alpha: 

So far we plan to have a playable vertical slice of the game ready for late 2013 early 2014, which will be available to backers who paid for alpha access. A vertical slice is basically a small slice of the tactical game where you see the core functionality and style that is planned to be in the final version. 

The feedback that you as alpha access contributor have will be essential in the rest of the process, as we will tweak the system from this slice and forward. 

Beta & Early Access 

Planning for these is hard to do as they’re both dependent on the feedback we get from the alpha tester and also what’s possible from a technical standpoint. 

As soon as we feel we have a solid alpha version ready, we’ll be able expand the game some more and readying it up for beta. In the beta we will introduce the strategic level and additional content and sectors, which you’ll hear much more about once we get closer. 

For the early access it’s really too...early to say. We want the backers to have access to the game as early as possible, so we can get proper feedback, find bugs and fine tune the game before release, but we need to have a somewhat finished game ready before that’s possible.