River City Ransom: Underground

Backer Preview 2 is here
over 8 years ago – Sat, Jan 02, 2016 at 10:20:54 PM

Hello backers,

This time last month we sent out Preview 1 for eligible backers and now we're ready for another release. Here's everything we've been able to accomplish thanks to your feedback and patience:

We added a training room for single player

A lot of backers were expecting a PvE experience for the first previews and while we're still working towards releasing the proper story experience in preview, we have added a practice room based on player feedback. Now you can start an arena match with a single player, which will take you to a practice room with training dummies so you can learn how to play the game before playing with others.

We've made special moves and combos easier to pull off

The strongest feedback we got was that a lot of the Street-Fighter inspired fighting combos were hard to pull off. We've increased the Z axis tolerance of all attacks, added a slight increase to the timing window for special attacks, and also re-mapped all special attacks to a simpler button system. We think you'll be happy with the results. 

We've added a few easter eggs

As part of a larger plan we have added a few new arena features we will let you discover for yourself. More is on the way!

Much improved de-synchronization protection and tooling

Together we quickly found some unfortunate de-synchronization bugs in the first preview. These bugs occur when the network state differs between players in the game. We believe we've fixed the most visible one, and we've greatly improved the engine's detection capabilities so that finding more de-synchronization issues will take less time. We know how frustrating these can be so we're working hard to address all of them.

Fixes for countless gameplay bugs
You found a lot of issues, some hilarious, some embarassing, and we've done our best to address as many as possible. A very special thanks to Andrew Merritt for being a true bug whisperer, finding some very creative ways to break the game.

Game downloads are now much smaller

Since we wanted to get previews out faster, one major step was reducing bandwidth, so we've reduced the preview binaries down to ~15MB from nearly 170MB, mostly due to audio compression. We've also stripped out a lot of unnecessary data to speed up boot times.

Crashes are more graceful

Now you will be able to send us crash reports and diagnostics directly from inside the game, and we do a better job of recovering from a crash, especially when running in full screen mode.

We've got a dedicated support site

Please visit http://support.rivercityransom.com to file bugs (in the email widget in the bottom right-hand corner) and peruse the FAQ questions which we will add to over time when answering common questions.

What you need to do

You will download the previews the using the same process as you did for Preview, and your keys will still work. Worth mentioning, however, is that previews are not cross-compatible, so you will have to play the same preview number with other backers when playing multiplayer. We plan to release previews at a faster clip, so we will think about ways to improve the versioning experience once we have multiple previews in play.

Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you again soon!

Team RCRU

The Big Update: Helping Hands, Arc System Works, Greenlight, and the Backer Preview Program
over 8 years ago – Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 11:26:51 PM

Dear Backers,

For a long time it has been our goal to ship the game in Q4 of 2015. Internally, we set our sights on a late-November launch, when we planned out our development roadmap at the beginning of the summer.

Since then, we have been intensely focused on achieving that goal. Because we are a small team, we haven’t been able to spend as much time on keeping you updated on our progress as we would like, and as you would like (we know, because we’ve read Facebook and the forum). We’re sorry about this, and thank you for your continued patience.

While, sadly, we are not quite ready to release the game today as we had hoped, we are very pleased today to be able to offer you some exciting news about the significant progress we have made.

Holding the Fort: Meet the Maas'

Starting last year, we were blessed with the addition of two key team members. Silent heroes who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to give the development and design team (i.e. Bannon, Andrew, and Daniel) the crucial time and space needed to stay on task.

Steve has taken on several production duties behind the scenes, most notably stepping up to the challenge of integrating well over a hundred game levels in the content pipeline, with tools that leave a lot to be desired, in an ever-evolving game environment. He is also responsible for editing the Greenlight video trailers, and too many other tasks to list here.

Joining him is Sarah. If you've received a response on Kickstarter, Facebook, Twitter, or email, chances are you've already met Sarah, who took over as our social coordinator-slash-logistical operative. Watch out for her in the forums, as she will be reprising her role as the upcoming backer preview picks up steam (more on that later).

Arc System Works and River City Ransom: Underground

We all remember vividly when Arc System Works announced the Million Co. IP acquisition. For a short while, there were some doubts about the fate of this Kickstarter, and while we got the word out about the successful licensing transition on Patrick Klepek's article on Kotaku and through the backer forums, we should have posted a follow-up here.

River City Ransom: Undeground Greenlit on Steam!

We were blown away by the overwhelmingly positive response to our Steam Greenlight campaign and teaser trailer. The game was greenlit in 13 days, had an approval rating of 79%, and reached #6 on the first day. A HUGE thank you to everyone who showed up to vote! The process of integrating River City Ransom: Underground with Steam is now underway.

Backer Preview Program

Despite our best efforts, it is inevitable that we will join many of the September 2013 games in a Q1 2016 release window. However, we are very happy to announce that the Backer Preview Program will get underway shortly.

Introducing Multiplayer Arena Versus Battles

We have regularly struggled with the challenge of sharing progress and collecting feedback, while not spoiling the game or exhausting backers before release day. To strike a balance, our initial Backer Preview is a multiplayer arena fighting mini-game, where you will be able to try out a handful of characters and their unique moves against your friends, without spoiling the story mode as we work to complete it in the background. 

Note that the game is only playable in multiplayer mode, so you'll need to grab a friend locally or over a network or the Internet to try it out (hint: the private backer forum is a great place to find fellow preview participants). Eventually we will release a proper "Beta" that comprises a deep look at the main story game, but until then we hope you'll enjoy battling it out in 5 unique versus levels designed exclusively for the mini-game.

Please be patient while we roll out preview keys to all eligible backers (any backer who pledged $40 or more during our crowdfunding campaign) in the next day or two. You will receive an email with a unique link to download preview binaries with more details, but here is the gist:

There will be bugs. Please consider it an alpha preview. We ask that you do not stream the preview until a later time, which we will reveal as we move along with subsequent releases. The best place to discuss the preview will be in the private backer forum.

We're looking forward to getting your feedback, ironing out the bugs, and moving forward on our way to a full release in Q1 2016! Thank you for your incredible patience and faith in the project!

Love,

Team RCRU

Steam Greenlight Campaign Is Open!
over 8 years ago – Sat, Aug 22, 2015 at 11:04:52 PM

The Steam Greenlight campaign for River City Ransom: Underground is now live.

Greenlight is the first step towards having RCR:U on Steam at launch. This is a pretty big deal for us, as an independent developer – Steam is how most PC gamers buy and run their games, and one of the most important ways we plan to distribute the game to backers and the public on launch day.

The campaign features two in-game footage trailers we hope will inspire you to vote, and/or share with your friends you think would like to play RCR:U on Steam.

Thank you, and we look forward to your feedback (and your votes!)

BARF!

Setting a release window
almost 9 years ago – Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 01:07:36 PM

Our most asked question, understandably, is when is the game going to be available? Up until today we've told you: we didn't know. And those following closely have understandably grown nervous. 

As our small team works away, our backers should know that we are committed to a Summer 2015 launch. 

Delays with the alpha/preview come down to wanting to release something that feels like it should vs. releasing our internal milestone builds that are likely to fall flat. As soon as we can reconcile that gap we will release something. 

Although we don't have the same risks or incentives as this video outlines, the sentiment is basically the same regarding managing excitement levels as early on as an alpha/preview build.

With that said, we're continuing to make steady progress. February saw a ramp-up in the amount of tools we have available for game testing and balancing (such as pre-recorded "loops" we can share with each other to find issues). We spent a great deal of time planning for finer details of combat and motion, trying to get the feel just right. All the while, our level design crew kept busy integrating new designs.

We'll leave you with some sneak peaks of our clear favourite character in the game, and thank you again for sticking with us.

Boxes, shirts, and networks
almost 9 years ago – Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 10:37:57 PM

This weekend, we're continuing to make progress on physical rewards while the development team pushes ahead. Now that we have solutions for the majority of our technical hurdles in the revised engine, we're now working to move all of the work and progress made to date over to that foundation.

We're writing porting code for a lot of our existing pipeline assets and getting new tools in place to take advantage of the new technical direction as quickly as possible. Our networking engine and "rollback driver", essential for battling latency in fighting games, is now firmly in place. 

We don't have a release date yet for the pre-release playable but will keep reporting here and in the forums as we close in.

Have a great weekend!