Start on SFX work, Preparation for Steam Release (Patreon)

I thought I'd make a quick update post, because I haven't made one in a while! Currently, I'm working on a number of things in parallel; most importantly SFX and release things...

Sound Effects: Of Sticks and Stems

Last-minute Christmas shopping. Hope you've been good, this year!

"Stems," get it? It's an audio production term. Oh, well...

Sound is the biggest singular thing still missing from the game. I've been in talks with a professional sound designer for a while now, but because of unfortunate/unlucky delays and hold-ups I've finally decided to try and get some sound designing done myself. Let's see how that goes—what could paaawsibly go wrong.

I call this song "Earthquake at the Foley studio"

Last weekend, I've recorded and cleaned-up a total of 317 individual sounds (many of which are different takes and variations of the same sound, of course) which should hopefully give me enough material to get started. I like the idea of using my own recordings, just to make the project a bit more personal—although some sounds I'll surely grab from third-party sound libraries, and such.

(I also plan to make all of my raw sounds available for higher-tier patrons, soon, just in case you might find them useful!)

At the end of the day, I don't have too much experience with this sort of thing, however, so don't expect the same quality from me as you would from a professional sound designer—but I really can't wait to hear this stuff in the game!

Steam Release Preparations

Here's another thing I've got rolling, recently: Early preparations for releasing on Steam!

I had registered the game with Steam a while ago, but I've only now integrated Steam's API in the game and got the build pipeline going. So I can build the game, upload it to Steam, and make it available from there—yippie!

Look, Pawperty Damage is on Steam: Just like a real game!

Don't start looking for it on Steam, just yet, though! While the game is in the system and upload/download works just fine, the game's shop page isn't public, yet.

That's because the shop page still needs to be filled with content: I have to write some text, upload screenshots and create a whole bunch of shop/library graphics that are mandatory on Steam.

Almost ready to go: All the graphics I need to prepare for Steam and itch.io, easy to edit and manage in one big master file. Too bad the graphics are still empty...

This is a bunch of busy work, but I really hope I can still pull it off by the end of the year. Then folks could already start wishlisting the game on Steam!

Closed Beta when?

With the game being on Steam, I can also start thinking about a closed beta and early access, finally.

The game can't be found in the shop, yet, but I can already make it available for people to play and beta test.

I had really hoped I'd get the game into a state where I could comfortably have a closed beta for patrons, before the end of the year. However, without any sound or music in the game (as well as a few other things still missing), I don't exactly feel confident to do so, just yet.

Realistically, it would be some time in January, hopefully.

So, from my end, I'd kindly ask for a bit more patience! In the meantime I can already think a little about the details of how a beta or early access would look/work, exactly.

Thanks for your support!