Hey there, fellers!  It is that time again, you know the one; development diaries for both Haulin’ Oats and The Dope Game remaster.  I’ll keep them brief, as is tradition.

Haulin’ Oats

This week was a crunch to get the demo submitted for the Steam Game Festival and, by the skin of my ass, I made it.  The demo is based on the alpha version 0.0.2 build that you early adopters will get access to soon (and on Steam, no less); more on that a little later.

The demo will be available at the start of the Steam Game Festival for the public to try.  It limits you to just singleplayer, with only the basic five drivers, co-pilots, and pets.  Encounter, Resource, and Incident cards are limited to the first 10.  Everything else should function as normal.  Oh, except you only get one lap before the demo ends; however, you can replay it over and over to get a taste of the whole board.

This demo will also be updated as alpha testing and beta testing continue.  It will also turn into the game’s official demo at release.

Back to the next alpha build, I am currently doing one more big polish and bug pass before uploading it to Steam.  I don’t have an exact date but I’d say very soon.  Once that gets uploaded, the Steam keys for cast, crew, early adopters, and some other folks will be passed out.  The bulk will be available through the Itch.io links you were given previously or in your Itch.io account.  The small remainder will be e-mail individually.

A little bit down the road is alpha version 0.0.3 which will have multiplayer and Steam achievements.  Hopefully this will also be the last alpha version before moving into beta as all the systems will be in place and just need tweaked.

Oh, and a trailer is being worked on too…

The Dope Game Remaster

Honestly, not a lot happened with The Dope Game this week as almost all the time was spent getting Haulin’ Oats’ demo ready.  Nonetheless, there was some work done though it was mostly bug-hunting.

Here is a screenshot of the main menu now.  You know, for shits and giggles.

I was going to upload the new store graphics and Steam assets, as well as new achievement icons but after getting everything in place it just seemed a bit confusing.  You know, considering it doesn’t match the current version that’s available.

That being said, the beta branch should get some love soon.  Still hoping to hit the May 30th deadline and 4-year anniversary of the game’s launch, so I should get back to it.

See you next week for more!