Hero.EXE Reveal + Backerkit Launch!
about 4 years ago – Sun, Jun 05, 2022 at 02:31:20 PM

I said hey! What's going on?

Hi all, it's been awhile since our last update so we wanted to share with all of you a little more of what's happening with the game.

Starting off, the big question a lot of people have been asking: How is your Ukrainian developer on the team? He is doing well, thankfully, and in a safe location with his family and eager to pitch in again. We will be ramping up work gradually to that end to accommodate their changing circumstances. We’re super excited to see him back and safe!

Next! What have we been working on? Well as a lot of you know we have completely revamped the animation system for Hero.Exe. Changing from frame-by-frame animations to mesh-based puppet animations allows us to do a lot of cool things:

• It allows us to add more animations than the base set we had originally planned. (Additional custom animations per character– including those anticipated combat Victory poses! Doing this for frame-by-frame requires exponential amounts of extra work, but now we can do it for an affordable cost and it'll look SICK!)
• We can make more cosmetic skins than we originally intended and possibly even include character customization within the game. We're still experimenting, but the “base” rig (as well as core outfits) for each Ava is complete!
• With unlimited rig-based animation in mind, we can make more characters and enemies overall– even some UI has potential! Using Spine going forward, this new method of animation creation makes the process from conception to completion twice as fast!

World Building (Literally)

Speaking of creation: Server Worlds! On the docket is creating the rest of our map tiles to traverse the world of the alternate ‘net! Featured above are Overworld tiles for Kadan, the Server World run by the sleazy Monarch Profit: a Las Vegas-inspired desert with all manners of seedy pixel-grubbing underbelly included. Be sure to explore the tourist attractions of the area, like the Loan Shark Opera House and the completely legitimate Digital Animal Reserve! With every Server World having its own distinctive theme, each map will harbor their own unique content to that specific area outside of the main story within each of the character campaigns–including firewall dungeons and special NPCs! We’re really excited to see the rest of the Server Worlds come to life!

Gameplay Progression

We've also been focused on one core development idea called the “Golden Path”. For those who aren't aware, the Golden Path is an industry term for the most likely route for a player to play the game from start all the way to completion. Our #1 goal is to have the golden path in place by the end of this year. We want you to be able to play as one character (most likely Valentine since she has undergone the most refinement), and be able to play as them through their entire story campaign.

To this end, most of the core Story Beats for each Ava campaign are now in place– we’re talking with our new writer on the team to flesh out and expand those beats as well as fill in the rest of the loose ends & gaps, creating fun scenarios to encounter along the way; Valentine has some Servers to explore!

While we are primarily focusing on Valentine’s campaign for the Golden Path, each of the playable character campaigns are being written at the same time with intertwining Story Beats– a choice you make with Valentine might be vastly different with Chip! With each Ava having a distinct personality, some decisions will feel more obvious to benefit one character over another– choose wisely! Also as a bit of a teaser, Ronin’s campaign layout in particular is the most complex.

BackerKit Update

Last but not least: Backerkit. Backerkit has been our single biggest challenge on the publishing and development front. With submissions for review returned numerous times, and after many days of sweat and tears, we’re extremely thrilled to announce we are FINALLY…

Good to launch!

This will get everyone their acquirable rewards and roles– as well as open up merch for everyone else who didn’t get a chance during the Kickstarter campaign! That’s right– those pixel keychains are available to purchase once again! (Also the Desire Daki, if you… desire!)
We’ll immediately be starting off with a Smoke Test for BackerKit’s system, so check your inboxes to see if you’re one of the first to receive your survey!

TL;DR

Overall things are gradually marching forward and going well, with the team balancing Hero.EXE between our other responsibilities and the way the real world has become even more of a challenging factor. We’re happy to say that your support has made it a lot easier. We've hired more people, got new tech, and have overall made the development process much more efficient.

I know what you're all waiting for, though...

Desire joins the fray!

Hero.EXE First Backer Update of 2022!
over 4 years ago – Tue, Mar 01, 2022 at 10:00:41 PM

Where have you been?

Hey there AVA Pilots, it's been a while since we posted an update and we want to be 100% transparent with everyone on how development is progressing. If you have any questions or want an easy way to contact us, please join our Discord server or @ us on Twitter!

NEW STUFF!!!

The Mystery Egg team has been cranking out some amazing work over the past few months: new areas, new cards, and a lot more in the docket-- but what we're most excited about are the new animations!

We recently dipped our toes into using Spine2D for our animations and by golly-- what a beautiful tool. With frame-by-frame hand-drawn animation being a tried and true method for Hero.EXE up until this point, we've done our best to marry that style with Spine to fantastic results! No longer a significant timesink, Spine opens up not only a considerable speedboost for development, but also a smoothness that's not easily matched. 

Each of the 4 main characters are already getting a full animation overhaul: Valentine, Melody, Chip & Ronin are being meshed, rigged and brought to life once more-- and Valentine's new look is already fully implemented into internal development builds of the game! 

Though we're not yet 100% unanimous past the "key characters" of the game, with how well received the new animations are, the team is heavily leaning towards a full conversion for every enemy made thus far, as well as using it for every animation going forward.

Controller Mapping Support

Another key update to the game-- an (unsurprisingly) popular feature request: Controller Support! Plug in your favourite button-masher and try out the game with different controls-- also fully remappable to your hearts content! Thanks to the great work from our lead programmer, you'll be able to enjoy this feature when it arrives in a future patch!

Backerkit and Rewards

We've heard a fair few inquiries about the status of Backerkit. Rest assured that we are working on getting it up and running, with progress being steady albeit a bit slow due to technical hurdles that we should soon be clear of. We are now receiving the direct support of our wonderful publishers, Top Hat Studios, which will help us greatly in getting it across the finish line. There is still a bit of work on it that we need to finish before we're fully ready, but you should be expecting Backerkit emails in the near future.

Unforeseen Circumstances...

On a somber but important note, in light of the current situation in Eastern Europe, one of our key development team members is unfortunately in a precarious situation for the time being due to their proximity to the affected areas. We as a team fully support them and they will be taking as much time as required to settle and handle their affairs as needed. This person has been with us since the beginning of the project and is one of the major contributors to the existence of the game, and we will stand behind them during this difficult time. While this will have obvious implications for our development timeline, we hope you will understand and support them as well.

Other News: our first game is now available on consoles!

Along with our updates on Hero.EXE, we have a very exciting announcement to make! 

When we first started as a team, we created a small 2D arena shooter together: GUNGUNGUN! This game was a testbed for us to get a feel for indie development, and to fully realize each step that goes into bringing a project to full release: from a greybox, through each fundamental stage of production, and past every single hurdle that Steam made us jump through...("Trading Cards", anyone?)-- GUNGUNGUN was an invaluable experience we'll never forget. After joining hands for Hero.EXE's future release, our publishers took note of GUNGUNGUN, and were kind enough to offer to not only offer multilingual support, but to port the game to consoles! A dream opportunity, to see our work on console storefronts was one that we were eager to jump on. 

After putting in the extra hours of work and elbow grease, and we can proudly say that we did it! GUNGUNGUN is now available for digital purchase on Nintendo Switch, as well as the Sony PS4 and PS5! It was a truly profound moment for us to see some of our earliest work come this far, and while we're running and gunning on the hype train-- we are now more than ever committed to taking Hero.EXE even further!

So it begins...
almost 5 years ago – Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 01:19:29 AM

Dream Come True

So what's next? 

Well, after a few weeks of a post-campaign breather and some celebratory cake... we just received our funds from Kickstarter-- which officially kicks off development again! We'll be adding some more personnel to the team in the next 2 months, and working on making the core campaign concrete, plotting each portion of the game on our Roadmap! 

We've also been collaborating with BackerKit, so if you were unable to get something during the campaign, you'll have an outlet for some of the sweet merch you missed!

In addition, everyone will be receiving their Discord rewards (such as the tiers with exclusive access to our Beta builds) in the near future after BackerKit is set up, as it's tied with the reward tiers. 

Finally, for everyone who pledged towards a Design tier, we will be emailing you soon to get you set up with the Mystery Egg Games team and ready to build with us!

**REMINDER** Check Your Pledges! + Mini Spotlight
almost 5 years ago – Tue, Nov 09, 2021 at 03:15:26 PM

Reminder for all backers to check your pledge status on Kickstarter and your financial institution!

To guarantee you get your stuff when the survey becomes available, make sure your pledge went through with your bank-- we want to make sure everyone gets their pledge rewards with no muss or fuss!

Mini Spotlight: The Price of Defeat

Meet your unmaker

A few players have mentioned being suddenly thrown into an odd combat encounter after going through a series of unsuccessful battles. This is (soon to be) functioning as intended. Meet **̷̲̝̬̉̕͝*̷̧̰̣̀͌̆̚*̶̰͖͈̩̔̊̉͘*̷̲̗̄̀̎̄̕*̷͙͈̬͈̲̉̍*, the harbinger of digital oblivion. If an AVA's code becomes too damaged, they might find themselves face to face with them. And the price of failure may be quite steep. This functionality is currently a work-in-progress in the Alpha Demo, but you can expect to see future updates fleshing out the system!

Fan Art Contest Winners!
almost 5 years ago – Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 06:55:52 AM

Fan Art Contest Winners!

It's finally time to announce the Hero.EXE Fan Art Contest Winners! Thank you so much to everyone that participated over the course of the campaign-- deliberation took a little longer than we thought it would because of just how wonderful the submissions actually were; choosing between them was exceedingly difficult! With such unique art styles, it was like really shiny apples to really juicy oranges... That being said, let the announcing begin!

1st Place Winner: Eluchu!

Eluchu actually submitted 2 wonderful entries, but we really, really liked the simple humour in this piece-- it's cute, and features a character we never pictured someone would tackle for the contest! The heart boxers and the drowsy sleepytime cap just pushed it over as 1st place.

Congratulations, Eluchu!

2nd Place Winner: @ObesityKid!

This piece just dazzled us-- from the shine in Melody's eyes to the glowing musical elements she's interacting with, everything flows really well together to make a harmonious beautiful illustration.

Congratulations, ObesityKid! 

 3rd Place Winner: Vivian Reed 

This Valentine piece genuinely lifted our spirits during the middle of the campaign-- we woke up to a literal shining rainbow morale boost-- and it stuck with us! This piece is exceedingly cute, and you can't help but smile along with Valentine; I know we certainly did! 

Congratulations, Vivian! 

Though our first place winner will need a bit of tweaking to fit, expect to see these illustrations as Card Art in the game soon!

Special Developer Note

Thank you again to all of our participants-- every artwork was judged fairly from the team! We had immense difficulty choosing winners, and really appreciate the variety of styles, ideas, OCs, and love for the game and characters brought up to bat. With so much enthusiasm and excellent artwork shown from this Contest-- we do have a very good suggestion in our discord (thanks, Zed!) of a "museum" tile, which may very well see the light of day by release! 

P.S! Make sure to check your pledge went through to guarantee you get your rewards-- including the ArtBook, which will now feature our lovely winners!