Hello, all! I’m here to give you all an update on the long-awaited Demo 5. No, no, we’re not dead, nor will we ever be. But last time, I wrote that we were looking at a Fall release. Technically, Fall doesn’t end until the 21st of December, so we still have a solid month to deliver. I still think our team can make it, but I do want us to be transparent about why it hasn’t been released yet.

You see, we had plans to make Demo 5 last quite a while. We were going to put in quite a few hidden tasks and features to make you play the game up until the final release hits. Take a look at this screenshot.

So we went on a chip adding and testing spree a while back. We’re still doing it. Those of you who might have said that Demo 4 didn’t provide a lot of options for BattleChips won’t be disappointed here. There’s <u>over 100 Standard chips</u> we’re letting you collect in the demo over a period of time. And some chips from previous games are getting changed. Whether it’s better or worse for balance as a whole remains to be seen.

This is easily the most time-consuming aspect, as we’ve had to do late-game balance testing. Some chips are getting buffed, others need to be curbed back. In fact, as of this post, I still need to hand Max some balance notes. So, if the demo is delayed, this is likely the reason. There’s gonna be a lot of chips to find, and in hidden places. Some might be obtainable during special events. Yeah, that’s right. It’s gonna be lit.

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We’ve hit some real-life issues like family and health. I just recently got over a real bad fever, and Max is still one guy programming the whole thing, and he’s as human as the rest of us, so yeah. We’re going to be more transparent on what the status is closer to our deadline, and whether or not we need to delay it. Make sure you’re following our Facebook or Twitter if you aren’t already.

Timezones are also a key factor here. When one of the testers finds a bug, Max, who lives ahead of us by several hours needs to receive the bug, program a fix, and then needs to receive notification of the bug has been fixed from a tester. It’s <u>relatively</u> minor all things considered, but it can still add up to quite a bit of time once you realize how many scenarios could crop up in a Battle Network game.

We also need spriters, so if you know anyone who’s good and dedicated with joining our team and creating fantastic pixel art, send them our way. We recently interviewed a few people who didn’t make the cut. And while it’s a shame, we’re still looking to expand our team. And no, a second programmer at this stage in development would actually be a setback, since that means the new recruit would have to spend a lot of time learning how it’s been programmed before beginning to help.

Cross your fingers. We could update the demo after its released, and we definitely plan to. But a lot of us share the desire to have the “first version” be as complete as it can. We aren’t a fan of Day-1 DLC or Day-1 Patches.

We’re going to be writing small little updates to keep things more transparent as we inch closer to our deadline, so keep checking.That’s all for now. Killer, out!