Hi everyone, before I get into today’s update, please let me forward my sincere gratitude to everyone who has supported the Fig campaign so far. The level of engagement has been overwhelming and the team and I have been blown away by the reception the game has received. So thank you all!

Visit the Fig campaign and pledge your support!

As we are already nearing our funding target, I wanted to talk specifically about what this means for the games release, and what we are targeting with the stretch goals. Once we hit the $25,000 target, that will enable us to release the game on Steam. But, before I talk about the console releases and additional targets, lets talk about Steam and PC, Linux and Mac.

I often get asked about the games Linux & Mac support and DRM free versions for those that do not use Steam. As a developer, I have always tried to ensure that we provide true multi-platform purchasing support. When I was developing Jump Gunners, I worked very closely with the gaming communities from r/linux_gaming and r/macgaming to test and develop for their platforms. I successfully released Jump Gunners on PC, Mac and Linux and Xenosis has been built with that same support from the ground up.

Liam from Gaming on Linux posted an article recently on his impressions from the vertical slice Linux build, and said “I liked what I played of the early build so much, I decided to personally back this one. Can’t really give it a more positive outlook than that”.

As for the question about DRM free versions, Jump Gunners is available on Steam, itch.io and the upcoming Kartridge. I intend to ensure that Xenosis gets the same platform support, but additionally we will target a release on GOG, assuming that the game passes their strict entry conditions and curation. In addition to this though, everyone who backs the game on Fig will be given access to a DRM free version of the game, alongside their Steam key.

OK, so lets talk about stretch goals.

I will provide information in a Q&A format, based on questions that have been received by fans of the game.

Q - Why do you need additional money to release on console?
A - There are a lot of costs associated with releasing a game on console, such as buying development kits, paying for territory ratings, licenses and paying for porting support and any costs raised during the complicated QA and certification processes.

Q - Will there be a delay in releasing on console?
A - At this point we are trying to ensure that we launch worldwide on all platforms for which we have met the funding targets, assuming we do not hit any unforeseen reasons that could prevent that.

Q - Why do you need the additional funding to provide enhance audio, extended ship etc. Why was this not part of the initial release?
A - As a team, we have worked hard to design the best game experience that we possibly can, with the resources that we have, and we feel we will achieve that. However, there are some really awesome things that we really wanted to do, but cant without either additional people, hardware and software. All of that costs money, and we felt that rather than reach for the skies on our campaign and risk not getting funded, we should focus on delivering a tightly designed game experience that plays to our strengths, without sacrificing quality or deviating from the game design. We felt that if we were to greatly surpass our funding goals, then once the core experience is built, we could invest additional funding to build in these features.

Q - Why so much more money needed for Switch than PS4 and Xbox?
A - Xenosis may look like a 2D game, but it actually uses a large amount of 3D mixed with dynamic lighting and advanced AI. All of this means that it requires a good GPU and CPU to run well. The Switch has far more limited hardware than the PC and next gen consoles, so we would need to invest heavily to redesign a lot of the engine tech to run smoothly on switch, and this will need 3rd party support in doing that which comes at significant cost.

Q - Is localisation really that expensive?
_-A - For a professional company to provide this, yes! We have a huge amount of dialog in the game, and to get it translated well will cost a lot of money. That being said, we are definitely open to community support when it comes to getting the game into gamers native language, and the localisation engine was one of the first systems designed in the game so support is there and ready for the translations.

I hope this helps provide some clarity around our campaign stretch goals and with your support, we are all excited to see what we can all achieve together! So please share this campaign and spread the word to help us provide the best game that we can!

In the next updates, I am going to be live-streaming the game on Twitch with Indie, we are just working on the details and schedule now, so you will able to join and chat to me directly whilst seeing the game being played. Following that, I will provide video updates on some of the core systems in the game, along with more in depth looks at how we are composing the soundtrack and the story components.

If you have any requests for updates, or just wish to reach out, please just leave a comment below.

Kind Regards,

James Stone
Designer & Developer

Xenosis: Alien Infection is being crowdfunded on Fig, visit the campaign here: http://www.fig.co/Xenosis