Just in time for the weekend, I’ve finally managed to get the beta for Toyeater ready! About 24,000 words, almost 400 images and a dynamic interactive game engine!
It includes plenty of opportunities to get eaten or squashed, and you can play as a nutcracker soldier or a ballerina princess.
The plan is to beta test it this week, in time for the full release on Thursday, 19th December. It’ll be available for Tier 3 subscribers on Patreon and SubscriberStar shortly, and I’ll also message out a link to any active members with over $15 spend.
The full release will also be available for Tier 3 when it goes public, and it’ll be up on both my website and itch.io for £12.99. That’s the launch price, for Christmas, as I said it would be, but that’ll go up to £14.99 in January.
I’ll put out some more info and promotional material next week, including some images and maybe an animation, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to complete a demo this side of Christmas. We’ll see. (And no it won’t be available on mobile for now; I’ve had trouble getting that working.)
I think the game’s mostly in place, but I’d appreciate any feedback at all in the meantime.
The game has a rather complex system, where actions early on can have lasting consequences, and you often need to be in a specific place at a specific time to generate certain outcomes.
With that in mind, I think it might also be quite challenging to complete, so I’d welcome any thoughts on how difficult it is. I will be producing a hints and tips page on my website to help with that. For now, though, I’ll just let it speak for itself and see how people get on.
It’s taken a lot of doing and left my mind a bit swimming so I’m well in need of a break, but there are a few things I plan to add for the full release that aren’t there in the beta. The hints page is one, but I’m also looking into:
- A discoverable telescope, to show some of the far-off action closer up
- Adding/adjusting sounds
- Visible player arms for certain scenes (e.g. when climbing or pleading for mercy…)
- A nicer looking GUI
And probably some other things I’m forgetting right now. But for now, time for me to slink back into the shadows…
