Our progress towards Alpha 3 (Patreon)

Hi everyone!

A lot of you have asked about the game's status and when you can expect a release, so we wanted to give you an update, some background, and some exciting announcements.

Time flies. It's been a year and a half since we released DAVIGO Alpha 2. We've now had over 15,000 total patrons, and our community continues to grow. Thanks to everyone who has joined our campaign and made it possible for us to work independently on a game we're so passionate about!

So, what have we been working on the last year and a half? The short answer is: online multiplayer and Quest compatibility.

When Alpha 2 released last year, it only supported PCVR headsets and local multiplayer. We encouraged people to play online via the streaming app Parsec, but we knew the best version of DAVIGO would have its own networking system and be compatible with standalone VR.

There was just one little problem: DAVIGO is a physics-based action game, and networking physics is notoriously difficult, especially when running on limited hardware like Quest. We needed a solution that could support mobile devices and keep up with the game's action.

Fortunately, just when we were hunting for solutions, Photon released an alpha of their upcoming Fusion Engine, a high performance networking library for Unity. It looked promising, so we started running tests. And in May 2021, just a month after the Alpha 2 release, we had a working prototype of online DAVIGO.

It seemed like great progress! Then we began the arduous process of adapting all our existing code to run on Fusion Engine.

This took longer than expected…

We essentially had to rebuild DAVIGO from scratch, and after working on the game intensely for over two years, we were burnt out. So, we hired some good folks to help with porting the game to Fusion.

Progress was slow, but steady over the next few months as we became more familiar with the challenges of physics-based networking (on mobile devices!).

We hit milestones along the way, like a working server browser, finally porting the majority of DAVIGO's gameplay code, and hitting Quest performance targets.

These updates have been steadily added to our Prototype builds over the past year, which patrons at Earthbreaker tier and above have had access to. And very soon, all our patrons and pre-order pals will be able to download the new Alpha and join the fun.

Thanks to everyone for your patience and continued support as we work towards the best cross-reality battle game out there. This update is a huge milestone for us. We believe it will expand the community, make the game more accessible, and lay the foundation for a solid online experience that we'll continue to build upon.

What's next for DAVIGO after this Alpha 3 launch? Our next major milestone is the Steam Early Access and Oculus App Lab launch!

With the hardest work behind us and the online foundation set, we will focus on improving art, polishing gameplay, and adding content in the form of maps and character customization options to prepare the game for an official release.

We're looking forward to hearing your feedback on Alpha 3! As always, you can share your thoughts with us on Patreon, Discord, Twitter, and TikTok.

Peace!

The Davidevs