General Update #21

Hello Agents!

Today we'll speak about the upcoming release of Silent Echo 0.2.0, what's coming next for the game, and what's going on with Starwatch Academy!

Silent Echo 0.2.0 and beyond

Last week, we've released the early access build of version 0.2.0.

We hope you've had fun with it and liked the changes we've made to the game to make it more interesting and the increased participation of squad members.

You've also most likely noticed many locations of the new area are still barren. Adding all the code and necessary gameplay elements needed for a new area takes time. Rather than waiting an additional month to release the update, we've found it was a better idea to let you play with what's already in the game, gather your feedback, and already make changes if necessary.

Many changes have already been implemented in the game thank to the help of the beta testers, such as enemy health scaling, which will allow you to have more than 2 squad members later in the game without completely breaking the game. If you have any suggestions, comment or feedback, this is best time to let us know as we're entering the content development phase for Chapter 2.

In preparation for this weekend's public release, we've already added more interactions that were missing in the early access version. Most notably, scavenging is now available in Alix's office, the sucker parasite makes its return, repeatable sex scenes with Ava have been implemented, and even some new stuff like Sylvia being able to help you with parasite removal.

So, what's next? Well, as said previously, we are now entering the content development phase of the chapter. We're going to fill all these barren locations, add new encounters, add new sex scenes, some questionable new items and weapons!

The first thing we want to look into with the first content update is Ava's second evolution level, and also some cool upgrades for Lina. We'll give you more information on that in the next patreon update!

Where is Starwatch?

First of all, it's not dead! We don't plan to abandon the game.

For full disclosure, one of the reasons there has been no update about the game for a while is that the Starwatch writer has experienced an accute case of writer's block.

As he is not involved in Silent Echo, that is the reason the rest of the team pivoted to the development of Silent Echo 0.2.0 until this could get sorted out.

There is however a positive aspect to all of this. Many great improvements have been made to the combat system thanks to Silent Echo, such as the more diverse damage types, and we will port all of these changes to Starwatch for an even better experience.

This has also given us time to think about where we want to take the game gameplay-wise. As much as some concepts such as talent trees may sound fun on paper, it turns out that fiddling with them in a browser-based game is not exactly fun.

A famous person once said "I go play games to have fun.", and this couldn't be more true. Sometimes, simpler is better.

Is going through multiple pages of talent trees for 5 minutes fun? Probably not.
Is having an alien harem fun? Hell yea.

As we prepare to return to development on Starwatch 0.4.0, I think some of the changes that were already made are spot-on on making the game more "fun", but others could benefit from another look at them.

We'll let you know once development resumes on the game!

That's it for this week!
Have fun!