Distribution 

We are excited to announce that we have partnered with the Humble Store (from the fine folks who run the Humble Bundle) for direct distribution of Delver’s Drop.

What does this mean? 

• Once we have uploaded the Alpha (and later Beta) builds to the Humble Store, we will send a message to the applicable reward tiers with a link that you can use to redeem Delver’s Drop through the Humble Store. 
• The email that you provided in the survey will be the email used to redeem the game through the Humble Store. For those of you who have not filled out the survey, you will have to use the email that we have on file from Kickstarter (or Paypal.) 
• As we make new builds, you can use the Humble Store to download the latest versions, up to the final Release version and beyond. 
• The PC, Mac, Linux, and Android versions, and the OST will all eventually be available for direct download DRM-free via the Humble Store when they are released. You will also get your iOS and Ouya codes via the Humble Store and if/when the game is on Steam, you’ll receive a Steam redemption code as well. 

We chose to partner with the Humble Store for several important reasons: 

• They are really awesome folks! They were super helpful and very flexible with us, which was a huge help when considering how to distribute Kickstarter reward downloads. 
• Easy and consistent distribution; a better experience than we could otherwise provide on our own. 
• Unified Kickstarter distribution + direct orders (later) = saves us a lot of time that we can spend on the game instead. 
• Ability to provide all of the info / downloads for all platforms in one place. 

Humble Store Accounts: 

If you don’t already have a Humble Store account, you can create one here: https://www.humblebundle.com/signup This is not required, but we do recommend it. 

Email Matching (IMPORTANT!) 

If you do already have a Humble Store account, your Humble Store account email MUST be the “preferred email address” that you entered in your survey, otherwise you will not be able to add Delver’s Drop to your Humble Library.

Private Forum Access 

To access the private Alpha/Beta sections of our forums (http://forums.pixelscopic.com), we also need your “preferred email address” in the survey to be the same that used for your forum account creation. We will be enabling the private forums soon, so if you haven’t filled out your survey please do so ASAP. 

In other words, your “preferred email address” must be the same for: 

• Your “preferred email” survey response 
• Your Humble Store account email 
• Your Pixelscopic forum account email 

Apologies for any inconvenience regarding this; when we sent out the surveys we didn't have the direct distributor locked in yet, otherwise we would have mentioned this previously.

What if they don’t match? 

We do have the ability to manually make any changes should something be incorrect, so fret not; just send us an email explaining what needs to change: ks@pixelscopic.com 

What about other distribution services? 

We will be using the Humble Store for fulfilling our Kickstarter distributions and for our direct sales, but we are still pursuing other options for release distribution such as Desura, GOG, Gamer’s Gate, and of course we are still plugging away on Greenlight for Steam. 

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Robot <3 Kitty Greenlight Supershow 

We have been invited to participate in a livestream with the great duo over at Robot <3 Kitty, creators of Legend of Dungeon. This will happen on Saturday, June 29th. The event will feature a variety of developers who currently have games on Greenlight. We had the chance to hang out with Calvin and Alix at PAX East a bit and they are a lot of fun, so we are definitely looking forward to the show! 

We haven’t been assigned a specific time slot yet (the show runs from 11:00 am to 11:59 pm Eastern Time / GMT -5) but once we know, we will post that information. 

There is another interesting thing about June 29th... 

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Alpha Access 

On Saturday, June 29, right after our segment on the Supershow ends (or perhaps even during) we’ll be posting the first Alpha build for all Alpha Backers ($25+ tier) to download!

How will I get it? 

You will download it on the Humble Store as mentioned above, and then you are ready to rock! 

How do I play it? 

On your PC or Mac of course! We will include some brief information about how to play the game and the forums will also have some information that you can check out. As mentioned during the Kickstarter campaign, the first Linux builds will be later (sometime in August), but from that point on the Linux versions will be in lock step with PC / Mac until Release. 

What is Alpha? 

Alpha is an industry term that usually means that a game is quite playable but incomplete and unfinished. The June 29th build will be the first Alpha build, so it will be even more incomplete and unfinished than the final Alpha build will be. 

What will be in this build? 

The first Alpha build will be highly playable, but contain only a portion of the game’s overall content. You will be able to select between the Rogue or Sorcerer classes and explore (and die in) the 4 levels of the first zone, The Chill. Many features will be present, some will be broken, and others may be missing entirely. 

I pledged at $30+, so I should get 2 copies of the game. Does this apply to Alpha? 

No. You will not get 2 copies of the Alpha build, as mentioned on the Kickstarter page. However, you will get 2 copies of all upcoming Beta builds. 

When we can expect the next build? Or the Beta builds?

Below is the tentative build schedule we have set out for major builds, covering up until the first Beta build in early August. In between major builds, we will likely make several minor builds - most often for hot-fixes on particularly bad bugs/errors. We have also come up with code names for these builds (in italics) so they’re easier to remember and distinguish than with pure version numbers. 

• 06/29/2013 — Alpha: “Rogue Magic” 
• 07/12/2013 — Alpha: “Brute Danger” 
• 07/26/2013 — Alpha: “Wild Tale” 
• 08/09/2013 — Beta: “Stealth Secret” 

Why does the schedule only go to August 9th? 

The month of August is very crazy this year! Between the first Beta build(s) and PAX Prime, it becomes really difficult to accurately plan so far in advance because PAX is always a bag of surprises. It is our plan to release the 2nd Beta build before PAX Prime but it may not be possible. During August, we will release the remaining build schedule leading up to the final Release in October. 

How will the demo updates work? 

The game will try and ping our server when you start it up to see if there is a new build available. If there is, it will show a simple message and then you can download the new version from the Humble Store. Old builds will still work for some time after a new version is released, but eventually we will probably force you to update to the newest version for sanity’s sake. 

So I have to be connected to the internet to play??? 

No, of course not :) If you are not connected to the internet - nothing will happen. You won’t get new version notifications, but you can still play the game as you would please. But it’s obviously beneficial to you (and to us) if you’re always playing the newest version. 

Can I write a preview, upload gameplay to YouTube, or livestream the Alpha Builds? 

Yes, with a catch or three. We want our users to enjoy the game (and help others enjoy it). This means that you have our permission to show it around in your corner of the internet. But we do have a few requests: 

• Be clear that you are playing an “Early Alpha” build of the game. It is not representative of the final game in terms of features, game mechanics, content, or quality. 
• To help with the above (and to help everyone keep track of which version they are playing), we’ll be putting a “watermark” in the corner of the screen stating something like “Alpha: [Build Name] [Version Number].” This will not obstruct gameplay. We ask that you don’t try to crop or edit this watermark out in any screenshots or videos.
• Please make the assumption that since this version is not finished, the final quality of the game will (hopefully) be improved — and further assume that your input can help us improve that quality! 
• Feel free to share your early opinions online, but if you want to contribute to improving quality or need to make a complaint or a bug/crash report, we ask that you give us feedback through the forums. These forums allow us to track these issues and feedback much more effectively, and respond directly to critiques. 

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We need your surveys! 

If you haven’t turned in your survey responses, please, PLEASE do so! Just look in your Kickstarter inbox for a message about Surveys from Pixelscopic. We have received probably 95% or more of your responses, but that still leaves a lot of you that we haven’t heard from! The sooner we get your information, the easier reward fulfillment will be :)

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Custom / Unique Digital Rewards

Soon we will be sending out the forms/questionnaires for the more custom digital rewards (such as naming an item/power-up, NPC likeness, enemy design.) So be on the look out for that message!

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One last note: Since we are in the guts of heavy development right now, we are going to hold off on doing the next livestream until after the Alpha build goes out. The Greenlight Supershow at the end of this month should be really awesome though, and we hope you'll join in and enjoy the game with Robot <3 Kitty and us, as well as the other games that they will be streaming. 

Thanks for doing all of that reading! We know this was a long one, but hopefully we’ve answered (almost) every question that could come up regarding Alpha distribution. If we missed something, hit us up in the comments, on our forums, in a direct message, or at ks@pixelscopic.com!

Here's the moment you've all been waiting for... We've tallied the votes (from Kickstarter and Paypal backers $25 and up) and have the results for the three classes that will appear in the base game (out of 6 choices). Each voter was able to submit 3 votes (which could be the same or different classes). So without further ado...

The winners are:

• 1. Assassin
• 2. Elementalist
• 3. Beastkeeper

For details on these classes, please see our previous update here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixelscopic/delvers-drop/posts/456505

So there you have it! We're pretty happy with the results, although we were secretly hoping for the Bard to get in. As we've mentioned previously, the non-winning classes may be developed at some point in the future as an expansion or DLC... but we'll have to wait until after the game is released and just see how things pan out. Maybe someday!

That's it for this time. Look forward to the next update in about 2 weeks!

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P.S. Apologies for the poor audio quality on the livestream. We actually found a weird setting in our software that was apparently causing the echo, so that's fixed now. We'll keep you posted on when the next one will occur (about a month from now)!

The vast majority of you have turned in your surveys. Thank you! We really appreciate your timely responses, and are especially excited to see your class votes and character names. If you haven’t responded to the survey yet, just check your messages (see the envelope icon) on Kickstarter.

Remember to VOTE!

If you are at the $25 tier and up, remember that the voting deadline for the character classes is TOMORROW, May 1. You can submit your surveys later than this, but unfortunately we won’t be able to count your votes toward the 3 classes after the deadline.

If you missed the character class list, you can read more in our last update (#21): http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixelscopic/delvers-drop/posts/456505

We will announce the 3 winning classes on our next livestream, which will be immediately followed up with another Kickstarter update. These will both occur on Thursday, May 9. More info appears farther down in this update.

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NEW CLASSES

So if you remember, our game will have 8 total classes:

• 3 base classes (Rogue, Sorcerer, Gladiator)
• + 3 extra classes you’re voting for (out of 6 choices)
• + 1 bonus class added to everyone’s game by our $2000 backer
• + 1 Kickstarter class for tiers $50+

We’re happy to finally announce the “bonus” class, chosen by our most generous backer, along with the Kickstarter class! If you have any questions about the latter (and how you can get it), more information appears in the last section of this update: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixelscopic/delvers-drop/posts/425930

Without further ado... we give you the final two classes!

$2000 BACKER’S CHOICE:

Musketeer

Class Weapon: Firearms - rudimentary guns that fire bullets, shot, and other projectiles.
Charge Attack: Mortar Shot - arcs a short distance and causes area-of-effect explosive damage.
Special Ability: Blunderblast - Charge up this ability by picking up debris (rocks, wood fragments, even some items or weapons) and then fire them as a massive scattershot.

Trained as much in the alchemist's shop as in the marksman's arts, Musketeers are experts in the art of creating explosives. Their guild originally focused on the design and craft of canonry, but the Musketeers have slowly become mere mercenary guards. They pride themselves on their high level of skill with their often imprecise and idiosyncratic weapons.

KICKSTARTER CLASS:

Harlequin

Class Weapon: Contraptions - gadgetry that springs forward to hit enemies with a huge variety of attachments.
Charge Attack: Ricochet - fires the contraption’s attachment which bounces from one enemy to the next before returning.
Special Ability: Mirage - creates one or more magical mirages of the Harlequin which cause effects (explosions? ice? poison?) on contact.

Performers and jokesters with a penchant for trickery, Harlequins are mysterious figures that hide behind masques and vivid clothing. Skilled in the use of hidden gags (and weapons), they deal in misdirection, magical illusions, sometimes even poison and other devious skills. A Harlequins' only form of speech is laughter — they communicate with others through pantomime.

And remember that this class will have multiple bonus costumes for backers $50 and above!

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Livestream – now on Twitch.tv!

As promised, we’ll be doing at least one livestream a month, and these will now occur on Twitch at http://www.twitch.tv/pixelscopic. We’re happy to be a part of the Twitch community, and hope that you enjoy seeing our bearded faces there every 30 days or so.

Our next livestream will be on Thursday, May 9 @ 2PM CDT (GMT -5).

Most importantly, we'll be discussing the classes that won the vote. But we’ll also show a bit about how our toolchain works, how we design rooms, and the awesomeness of Texture Packer. And as always we'll be taking questions about the gameplay, modding, etc.

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Forums - chat with us!

http://forums.pixelscopic.com

We’ve been incredibly happy with our forum participation so far! With almost 1,000 registered members and over 3,000 posts, our little community is turning into a not-so little (and not so quiet) venue for discussing everything from Delver’s Drop mechanics to literature.

Thank you to everyone who has helped to make it such a vibrant community. For those of you who haven’t checked it out yet, it’s only fair to let you know that we often leak bits of information like old concept art, details about our scrapped game ideas, and even bug videos for Delver’s Drop. So if you want the entire scoop, come chat with us!

Thanks for reading, and we’ll be in touch again soon!

Greetings friends! It’s been a few since we’ve posted an update because we’ve been busy prepping some exciting new stuff. Without further adieu let’s dive right in...

Forums

We’re excited to announcement that the Pixelscopic / Delver’s Drop forums are now open to the public! You can register at:

http://forums.pixelscopic.com

They’re rather barren at the moment; consider them fertile grounds for you to grow a garden of conversation. We’ll be posting more there soon and will be using it as the primary method for interacting with the community going forward. We’re really looking forward to chatting with you all in more depth as we make the journey to launch together.

On another note, we’ve received several pieces of fan art that would be great to post in the forums. If you have submitted fan art to us before, please register for the forums and re-post them on the Fan Art board — we’d do it ourselves, but we want you to get the credit for it :)

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Surveys

Very soon every backer will be getting a survey for info related to your reward(s). This may include everything from the name you want listed in the credits, to your preferred email address, to shipping address.

IMPORTANT:
The email address you provide in the survey about reward info will need to match the email address you use to register on the forums. This is so that we can properly grant Alpha/Beta access, and their exclusive forum area(s).

Due to Kickstarter's process we can only send one survey per tier so we’re going to have to collect all information up front, even though it will still be some time before we send physical rewards out. Keep in touch through ks@pixelscopic.com if you need to change any information after the fact! There are a few questions at higher tiers that we will ask via email — specifically if you are featured in the game as an NPC or are submitting other in-game content ideas.

But anyway (and most importantly), the moment we've all been waiting for...

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Classes

We’re excited to announce the six classes we’ve sketched out for backers  to vote on for inclusion into the game! (You can vote if you're at the $25 tier or above). We’ve listed below our current concepts regarding each class’s backstory, weapon, and general mechanics. But these are subject to change based on further development, testing, and Alpha/Beta player feedback.

Out of these 6 proposed classes, you will be able to vote for 3 in the backer survey, and we’ll take the top 3 classes for inclusion in the game! Everyone gets these classes in their game at launch.

So the characters in total are:

• 3 base classes (Rogue, Sorcerer, Gladiator)
• + 3 extra classes you’re voting for (out of 6 choices)
• + 1 bonus class added to everyone’s game by our $2000 backer
• + 1 Kickstarter “exclusive” class (remember it’s share-able!) for some tiers
• = 8 total classes

We’ll be announcing those last 2 classes in our next update, along with the results of your vote for the 3 extra classes!

So what happens to any classes that don’t get voted into the game? And why only do 3 out of the 6 ideas we have? Well each class takes a LOT of time to develop — doing the art for all 8 facing directions, plus animation, plus weapons and effects... and then doing the programming / scripting / balancing to make the class work in the game. There is a chance we could someday add the other class ideas in an update or expansion to the game if there is enough interest and support after the game is released. Or we might even add other classes too, who knows!

Remember, you’ll get 3 votes in the survey we send out — and yes, you can use all three to vote for the same class if you really, really, really want to make sure it gets added.

A few quick notes on the general mechanics involved in classes:

• Each class has a preferred weapon type which can be equipped for permanent use. Classes can use weapons other than their preferred type, but only for a limited number of attacks.
• A class’s Charge Attack results after holding down the attack button for a specified amount of time and then releasing.
• A class’s Special Ability is charged over time through various unique mechanics — these are currently TBD for all classes, but examples may include collecting gold, killing enemies, running at top speed, etc. The ability itself is activated by a separate button when the meter is charged.

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Bard

Class Weapon: Instruments (shoot musical sound waves)
Charge Attack: Randomized Multishot
Special Ability: Random effects on all enemies in room (debuffs, confusion, stuns, etc.)

Usually cheery in demeanor, Bards live for performance and praise. They have a reputation of manipulating others with the magic of their music — causing joy and despair, love and fear, or even confusion to get what they want.

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Templar

Class Weapon: Spears
Charge Attack: Dash Attack
Special Ability: Temporary Invulnerability + Regeneration

A once-noble order of guardians, Templars have all but forgotten what they were once tasked to defend. Honorable yet desperate and lonely, they've taken to menial jobs and mercenary work to scrape by.

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Beastkeeper

Class Weapon: Whips
Charge Attack: Intimidating Lash (knocks enemies back and keeps them at a distance)
Special Attack: Summon Stampede

Beastkeepers possess a heightened attunement to animal life and have a healthy respect for the power of natural creatures. They have been known to tame beast companions through little-understood inherited magic, and have enhanced abilities to summon mystical companion pets. (Think 2-player Companion Mode!)

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Huntsman

Class Weapon: Bows
Charge Attack: Rapid Fire / Spread Shot
Special Attack: Place Traps (immobilize and damage enemies)

Huntsmen are stoic, precise, and master tacticians and trackers. Living for the thrill of the hunt, these stalkers care more about the fur and meat of their quarry than admiring any sort of beauty or power of the prey they kill. Rely on setting the field to their advantage before a battle.

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Assassin

Class Weapon: Dual Blades
Charge Attack: Spin attack with thrown projectiles
Special Ability: Invisibility + Speed Boost

Consummate professionals, Assassins are trained killers with a loyalty tied only to their contract. Despite their grim trade, Assassins are largely amoral and view killing as their job — one that demands their skills be honed to deadly sharpness.

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Elementalist

Class Weapon: Staves (mid-range elemental magic)
Charge Attack: Area of effect blast
Special Attack: Wildfire (randomly snaking elemental streams)

Elementalists are blessed (or cursed) with the ability to draw out and direct the raw power of their surroundings. Often treated as dangerous outcasts because their abilities can manifest randomly, they are spurned by most towns, thrown in prison, or simply killed... but those in power respect and rely on their skills. They tend to live in the wilderness for obvious reasons.

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Planned Future Updates

We’re developing a tentative schedule for updates in various locations to keep in contact with everyone as development on Delver’s Drop progresses. Below is a list of updates and outlets that we plan to use in the coming weeks and months:

• Weekly devlog on TIGSource
• Bi-weekly (once every two weeks) Kickstarter and blog post updates
• Monthly livestream Q&As near the end of the month
• Monthly newsletter updates (sign up here!)
• And as always we love chatting on Twitter and Facebook!

That’s it for now! Surveys requesting info about your specific reward tier (and notably asking for your class votes) will be going out in the next week or so. Let us know if you have questions through the comments below, or by emailing ks@pixelscopic.com... but we also hope to hear from you on our forums!

PayPal Extension Ended

Last night, we ended the PayPal expansion of our campaign. Here is the final breakdown of the numbers:

PAX East Conquered

A taste of the physical item swag some of you will get with your pledge (only bigger and better for backers!), or you can grab some if you visit us this fall at PAX Prime.

Visitors on Day 2.

A shot of the Indie Megabooth (see the sign on the left). Look at those crowds!

You might be interested to know that we had a visit by Jerry Holkins (aka Tycho, the writer of Penny Arcade). He came by at the end of day 2, and seemed to enjoy his few minutes of play time before he ran off to a panel. It was really fun to meet him, and to know that he’d heard of the game. 

We also had a record holder for PAX who survived 23 rooms of Endless Drop mode! You can see a group photo of us with him (in the glasses.)  We also had a Kickstarter backer get to Room 21, falling just short of having the weekend's best run.

Delver’s Drop was also one of 13 games to be selected for Warp Zoned PAXpocolypse Best of 2013 award! Here is the full list. 

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 Development Details via Destructoid 

Just prior to leaving for PAX, we had the opportunity to chat with Jason Cabral of Destructoid. Over the course of a couple of hours we discussed the early ideas of Delver’s Drop, its evolution to the current form, how the art style was conceived, and many other details. If you are interested in learning more about the game from its earliest stages you should give the following articles a read. There is also a lot of artwork that has never previously been released to the public. 

 Part 1 — Delver’s Drop Began as a Mash-up of Zelda and Pinball 

 Part 2 — High Definition and Sexy: Pixelscopic on Choosing 2D 

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 The Road Ahead

In the next couple of weeks we will be sending out surveys to all backers who purchased any physical goods to get their preferred mailing addresses, T-Shirt sizes, etc. We’re also working on finishing up the initial art for all of the character classes so the voting process can begin. Be on the lookout for those emails! 

Since we’ve returned from PAX, Ryan Burrell has been working diligently to get our new forums up and running. The forums will be a great place to discuss the game, look up FAQs, chat with other enthusiastic delvers, and will also serve as our central location for issue tracking once we begin releasing the Alphas and Betas this Summer. Our goal is to have the forums up and running smoothly by the end of next week. 

We’ve all finally recovered from various forms of PAX Plague and are diving back into the development of the game with renewed vigor, and renewed inspiration. The next few weeks will see lots of internal improvements and standardization of data elements as we finalize systems, implement missing features, add new tools to the pipeline, and move toward the heaps of content generation in front of us. To keep you in the loop as we go along, we’d like some feedback: 

How often would you like us to post updates here on Kickstarter? Weekly? Bi-weekly? Monthly? These will usually contain some details about development, but also our progress on the schedule and reward fulfillment. We’ll post additional details to our own blog. 

We’d like to share concept art, videos, and other visual pretties with you as we go. Do you prefer those to be posted on our Pixelscopic blog, encapsulated within Kickstarter updates, or posted in our forums?

We’ve been tossing around the idea of doing a livestream each month; is there substantial interest in that or would they lose their magical luster if we did them that often? Or maybe that isn’t often enough? 

Please let us know what comments, concerns, and questions you may have! We want to do our best to keep the development of Delver’s Drop engaging and exciting for all of you. Thanks once again and ciao for now!

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