JUPITER HELL NEWS

It has been one year since you Kickstarted Jupiter Hell! 12 months ago our Kickstarter completed at 117% of our target amount, and since then we’ve been hard at work to turn your generosity into a fantastic game :)  

There have been some delays along the way, but we’re at a really good point right now. Some developments of late:

• We’ve expanded our team to 10 people, including 2 new programmers
  
• Our custom engine is working great, with Linux builds, optimised physics and light systems, and of course the unique adaptive animation system that makes the game so fluid to play
• We now have 6 separate environment tilesets, each with color schemes and varied amounts of decorative elements, so we’ll have diverse and interesting levels to explore
• Jupiter Hell is now populated with several new enemies, including the imp, fat demon, clawed demon, combat drone and summoner, with others in the production queue (these are all placeholder names, incidentally)
• Base gameplay mechanics are integrated, with the code for deeper elements already in place and ready for rapid expansion
• ASCII mode!

What next?

Our next Inner Circle build is expected by the turn of the year. This will be a meaty build for our IC fans, and we expect a big amount of adjustments based on that.

We then plan to release Jupiter Hell’s first alpha build to our Alpha backers in March! Our roadmap to alpha includes a number of key games features:  

• Full game UI (though still mostly text-based placeholder)
  
• Character creation and character advancement (xp, leveling, etc)
• Inventory system, loot and ‘loot boxes’ (the fun kind!)
• Initial FX system, for cool explosions, shot effects and more polish on the visuals
• Many other fixes and polishing on technical features and quality of life improvements to make the game feel more playable and fun
• Once we have the alpha released we’ll publish our roadmap to beta!

Discord

Tired of sitting alone, unable to profess your love for Jupiter Hell and D**mRL to like-minded individuals? We understand how you feel, and so we’ve now made a ChaosForge Discord! Discord is a modern chat program with many nice features for gamers, and the ChaosForge Discord has an active community of fans of our games and regular interactions with the developers. Invitation here: ChaosForge Discord

The New Year

2018 is going to be an exciting year for Jupiter Hell. We really appreciate your support through this, and your patience with us through the delays we’ve suffered. The support of fans and friends has been a huge source of strength! We hope you stick with us for the journey, and we can develop an amazing game with your help.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Development of Jupiter Hell marches on! You can keep an eye on the latest via our regular tweets and Twitch streams.

We have had some delays though. The original plan stated an Early Access version by November. Development is going very steadily, but with some things taking longer than anticipated and some of the development schedule being rearranged. Our current plan is to shortly release our third pre-alpha to the Inner Circle, and then the alpha by the year end.

Further development updates:

• Two new programmers have joined the team. Olgierd is working on rendering and resource management. Emil is working on the game’s audio engine.
• We’re now integrating engine tools into the game which will make the Jupiter Hell more open to modding. This was originally planned to be done much later, but is far more effective if done at an early stage.
• Physics in the game can been optimised, meaning it will perform much better on a wide variety of machines.
• Shadows have been improved, and a new optional shadow algorithm will be available for stronger hardware (see comparison below).
• Resource management has been added to the game.
• We have a new sound engine ready for implementation, with Roland working on the soundtrack and audio samples.
• New tilesets and enemies have been added.

You can find more info, including some cool concept art pieces, on this month's Kickstarter update.

The Inner Circle pre-alpha has now launched! Inner Circle backers can reach it on the Jupiter Hell forums. It’s very basic at this stage, with several known bugs and incompatibilities. But if you have IC access then please check it out and give us your feedback! You’ll see a lot more development of this in the near future, with hopefully weekly builds. Find out more on our forum post (Inner Circle members only).

We also have a new programmer on the team. We’ve been getting him up to speed with the code and the engine, and he has already finished his first major project - porting the engine to Linux. We now have Linux support for the game integrated, and the pre-alpha is available for both Windows and Linux (64-bit only though!)

Kornel has been doing regular live development on Twitch, so be sure to check out his sessions if you want more of an insight into how development has been going. If you’re geekily into how all this stuff gets made then it’s a fantastic opportunity to see behind the scenes of the whole process.

Note that some Hotmail/Live users have been struggling with forum access. If that includes you then please get in touch with us! We’ll sort everything out :)

It has been a busy week, with over 800 backers, 47% funding, Steam Greenlight campaign launched and lots of updates! Here are the highlights for those not staying up to date:

• Campaign launched with a huge wave of support from the very beginning
• Coverage in Rock, Paper, Shotgun
• Tweets of support from John Romero, Tom Hall and John Carmack - the unholy trio of Doom developers!
• Updates from the campaign with whiteboard artistry, game design and story details and concept art
• Kornel has been streaming Jupiter Hell development on Twitch (you can catch up with previous videos, but look out for opportunities to join in and ask questions live!)
• Steam Greenlight campaign launched - come vote!
• GOG.com campaign launched - come vote more!

And we have more news and excitement to come :) If you’re not part of the campaign then join up now! If you’re a backer already then please help us spread the word to many more people. Hell is coming :)

Jupiter Hell, the spiritual successor to Doom the Roguelike, has now launched on Kickstarter!

Jupiter Hell Kickstarter

With Jupiter Hell we are aiming to get a new generation hooked on the hardcore roguelike formula. Combining traditional gameplay with a modern look and feel, it is a game that can appeal to both long-term roguelike players and new gamers that have embraced the likes of X-COM.

We need your support to make this happen! Please visit the Kickstarter page, check out our video and the details of the game, and pledge if you can. You help in sharing news of this is also much needed - please spread the word and bring Jupiter Hell to everyone!