A rogue-like sci-fi strategy survival game with base building, tactical combat, crew management and emergent storytelling.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Alpha UPDATE: slight delay to March 3rd (sorry!)
about 10 years ago
– Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 09:19:57 PM
Hello esteemed Backers,
We're really sorry but the Alpha date had to be pushed back to March 3rd. Simply put, we need a couple of more days to iron out the new Tutorial System and rebalanced combat.
Here's what we've been changing to combat: - Alien factions are now susceptible to certain types of damage (ie. Engine Damage, Crew Morale/Panic, Hull Damage, Weapons Systems, etc) - Alien factions are sometimes resistant to certain types of damage - As you fight different factions, you will learn their resistances and weaknesses - Different class of ships and officers will also have their own resistances and weaknesses to certain types of damage - Combos are now much more effective at 100% more damage but they are harder to pull off and usually require at least 2 different ships or classes to pull off. - Critical Hits are back! It's a small base chance but can be improved via officer skill, affinity bonuses and veteran crew bonuses
And we're changing the first backer build to be called Pre-Alpha instead of Alpha
Why are we changing Alpha designation to Pre-Alpha?
We also will be changing the name to Pre-Alpha so that people will understand it is not feature complete since ground combat is still being worked on. Streaming or recording of Pre-Alphas is restricted. We kindly ask our backers to not publicly share information about the Pre-Alpha since it is still an early build.
New Schedule and who will be able to access the playable builds:
Pre-Alpha (the release previously known as Alpha) Game state: all features excluding Ground Combat Who can play: All Backers who pledged Lt. Commander First Class and above will have access to Pre-Alpha this Thursday.
Can we stream? No. We kindly ask our backers to not stream, record or publicly share information about the Pre-Alpha since it is still an early build.
Alpha (April) Game state: feature complete but lots of testing, tweaking, polish and balancing left Who can play: All Backers who pledged Lt. Commander First Class and above will have access to Alpha
Can we stream? Yes
Beta (April/May) Game state: feature complete but lots of testing, tweaking, polish and balancing left Who can play: All Backers who pledged Ensign and above will have access to Beta and all Pre-Order backers.
Can we stream? Yes
Thank you all for your patience as we hurtle down this crazy road towards launch! We can't wait to get the PRE-ALPHA into your hands this week!!
ALPHA release date revealed!
about 10 years ago
– Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 11:00:15 PM
Halcyon 6 ALPHA is set for March 1st, 2016!
Hey future Starbase Commanders, we're super sorry for all the delays to Alpha but we're happy we can finally announce a FIRM DATE for the Halcyon 6 Alpha.
Thanks so much for your patience!
Why was ALPHA delayed so much?
Good question! The biggest reason was the results of our friends & family internal testing. We got a lot of great feedback but what was obvious from our initial tests was that our UI was not quite ready to release to our backers.
We had lots of issues with consistency and unintuitive button displays. That's one of the issues with building a game with so many interdependent subsystems that we have.
Anyways, the end is in sight, we've been hammering on the UI changes and we're going to be launching a much more intuitively designed UI in the upcoming ALPHA.
We'll be sending out ALPHA notices and keys on March 1st.
Starship Progression, Officer Affinity and Elite Crew, Oh My!
Ships and Officers go together like...
You're looking at the new Ship Management screen and you'll see a bunch of interesting new elements regarding this Rogue class ship and Officer Iglesia:
This ship is a 2 star rank, having achieved 6 victories so far
Due to its victories, this starship has unlocked two Elite Crew members that give unique bonuses to combat
Officer Iglesia has commanded this ship for 17 days and has unlocked the "Pirate Expert" affinity bonus, which gives her a 5% damage resistance when fighting pirates.
Affinity bonuses disappear if you re-assign Officer Iglesia to another ship.
Please note the Elite Crew and Affinity bonuses are still under development and will be tweaked and balanced over time.
3. Our Halcyon 6 coming soon page is up on STEAM!! Please add us to your Wishlists since Valve uses this metric for determining store features etc. http://store.steampowered.com/app/371200/
4. Our support team has received a couple questions about timing on backer rewards. Not all these rewards are activated with the Early Access release. We'll be fulfilling most of these rewards either just before the Full game launches (for the Design a Character or event rewards, for example) or shortly after the full launch (for the more physical rewards like art, swag, etc). Hope this clears up the confusion!
Thanks again everyone for your continued support as we enter the final stages in our push towards Early Access launch!
- Halcyon 6 Team
The Road to Alpha, Officer Progression and more!
about 10 years ago
– Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 09:37:52 PM
ALPHA almost here… but not quite yet!
So, where's that alpha access email, amirite? It's coming, we promise (thanks for your patience!)!
For those of you that have contacted our support team: don't panic. You haven't missed the email or your access key.
As we mentioned in our last update, we are all about delivering a fun, polished, and solid game. We're still trying to sneak in some tweaks and changes to really blow out some stuff involving the ship progression as well as officers powers, traits and level ups.
Speaking of Officers….
Looking for a badass officer? Look no further!
Officers are the backbone of Halcyon 6 but we haven’t shown them much love in previous updates. And we’re working as fast as we can to implement some of the more awesome stuff related to them.
Here’s a peek at some of the abilities and Epic Powers that we’ve got planned:
We've been keeping busy!
And these are just the starship related abilities.. there’s another set planned for ground combat :D
As officers progress and level up, they will have the option to upgrade an existing power or add a new power to their repertoire. Each officer will become quite unique compared to each as they grow in power.
Officers will also acquire random traits and personality quirks as they progress through their adventures.
And while officers are super important.. we shouldn’t forget our starships.
Did someone mention starships?
Damaged Chruul ships are kinda gross!
Some of these ships have seen better days but you can’t expect to come out of a nasty encounter with the Chruul without a few blemishes!
Aside from adding proper damage modelling (as pictured above) in combat, we’re going to be doing some interesting things with ship progression.
Yes, ships level up too!
More on this in the next update ;)
4. Our support team has received a couple questions about timing on backer rewards. Not all these rewards are activated with the Early Access release. We'll be fulfilling most of these rewards either just before the Full game launches (for the Design a Character or event rewards, for example) or shortly after the full launch (for the more physical rewards like art, swag, etc). Hope this clears up the confusion!
Once again, thank you, our wonderful backers, for your patience as we march on towards the ALPHA, then BETA, then Early Access release! We can’t wait to get this game out to all of you!
Halcyon 6 Pre-Orders Explained
about 10 years ago
– Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 10:27:39 PM
Hey backers!
I just wanted to drop a note and let you know we've opened up our pre-orders so that anyone who missed our Kickstarter can still help fund development of our game and get access to the Backer Beta. We're doing this for both the extra funding and the extra Beta testing that we require for this game.
We've priced the Pre-Order at $20 USD, which is much more than the original price that our Kickstarter Backers paid.
Pre-Orders only receive access to the Backer Beta and a Steam Key when we launch in Early Access. There are no titles or credits in the game, or anything else.
We recognize and appreciate very much the early investment that you awesome backers (THANK YOU!) placed in Halcyon 6 and our team so we wanted to make sure that you know that.
Please help spread the word and share to any friends or family that might want to join the Beta.
Feel free to ask any questions in the comments, I'll try to answer as soon as possible!
Thanks again for sticking with us and being part of our story from the very beginning!
cheers, Ken and the Halcyon 6 team.
Happy New Year!
about 10 years ago
– Thu, Jan 07, 2016 at 10:21:06 PM
We’ll get right to the good stuff, people - who’s ready to actually play the game?!!?1??
We’re expecting to have our first closed-alpha builds available shortly! We’re right in the middle of working out our distribution plan and it will most likely be via Steam Keys. So, if you’re one of our lucky alpha test backers (and have we said “thank you” you lately, our magnificent backers? Thank you!), we’ll need you to do a couple things to get sorted on your side as well.
How to Access Halcyon 6 Backer Alpha and Beta phase:
2) Let us know your forum name and email (must be same email as Kickstarter) via this form (http://goo.gl/forms/SKc536NW28), so we can connect you to your forum account, and give you access to the super secret squirrel TESTER ONLY sections.
3) Watch your email inbox for more details.
4) Please note, you can only join the Alpha or Beta if you backed Halcyon 6 at the Beta and above tiers.
Simple stuff! We’ll be collecting your feedback, questions, suggestions, memes, and other various and sundry information from the forums (including Dev Polls), so sign up! For those asking “how can I get my hands on a sweet alpha build of Halcyon 6?”, you’ll need to time travel back to spring of last year and get in on that backer reward tier… cause this is a backer only reward, folks. Sorry.
Alpha and Beta: What’s in it?
We’ve been really focused on making sure that the core gameplay and our main story campaign is fun and engaging and feels really solid, which is why we’ve been continually iterating on the core design of Halcyon 6. A lot of what you saw in our early screenshots and videos may be quite different in this late-stage version. If you’ve been diligently following along here or on social media, you’ve seen the game evolve with each of our updates. We’ve made some significant changes to the overall game that we feel tightens up combat (both in speed and tactical feel) and makes the game a whole lot more fun to play.
Let's just say we came a long way.
We’ve been pretty transparent throughout our development process and we expect this will continue during the Alpha, Beta and Early Access. The earliest builds will focus on the combat and quest loops, with the first tastes of base building and tech research being looped in for late Alpha/early Beta.
Steam Early Access Launch
Immediately after our Beta phase, we will launch Halcyon 6 on Steam under the Early Access program.
The launch version of the game will only include Act One of the three-act story campaign on Steam. Subsequent Acts that continue the main campaign will be released as free updates/DLCs for our backers and Early Access supporters. We’re also keeping Ground Combat out of Alpha/Beta Testing (for now) and planning to roll it into the game as an update after our Early Access release.
Why only Act One?
The honest answer is that we ran out of time. We think Halcyon 6 is chock-full of potential and that’s why we built it with ‘modding’ in mind, but that introduced a layer of complexity in our development that’s set us back a bit more than expected. As of right now, we have an amazing space strategy game engine with enough content for Act One with a solid amount of replayability. We also have a bunch of great features and content partially developed and almost ready for prime time in Acts Two and Three.
Our hope is that releasing Act One on Early Access will accomplish two things:
1) We hope to generate revenue to keep development going at a full pace. A 9-person team is a lot of people to feed and we will want to keep going at full steam ahead.
2) We hope to engage our fans and community early to help us shape the ongoing design of the game. There’s just so much we want to build for Halcyon 6 but we want input from our community to help us make the best choices.
We will publish a schedule for post-Early Access that will map out the content and feature updates leading to the “final” version of the game for the official launch later in the year.
Calling All Backers!
Did you know there’s 6,396 of you out there? We’ve always been humbled by the support we’ve received ever since we did our Kickstarter campaign last year.
We’re asking for help once more. All we’re asking is that when Halcyon 6 launches on Early Access, that you claim your Steam Key (which we will send to you), give the game a spin and leave a review for the game.
That’s it. We just really want you to play the game (Act One) and let us know what you think about it. We’re all really excited to get Halcyon 6 into your hands soon and have you folks start exploring the universe.
Finally, we know that everyone says thanks for your feedback. Our team here at MDI truly believes that we make better games when we’re engaged with our players and really listening. Please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences with us in the forums, by email, or in the Steam forums - let us know what you think!
