The game has now finally progressed to a state where the core mechanics (such as ship building and fleet battles) are playable and the basic supporting infrastructure (menus, game settings) are in place. I have decided to do a closed testing round soon with the intent to gather feedback about these core mechanics. All feedback from this group will be considered carefully and thus you will be able to influence the game.
There isn't much of actual content in the game, so trying it out won't necessarily take that much of your time, but you must be willing to spend some time gathering and communicating your thoughts and opinions. The first build should be ready for testing in a couple of weeks, but I also need to create some content and write a simple quick start game guide as well.
In this first pre-alpha testing build you will already be able to:
- Create your own ship designs with module count ranging from just a few to hundreds.
- Use 19 unique module types, each with their distinct characteristics. Including thrusters, generators, shields, weapons, armor etc.
- Use your own or provided ship designs to assemble fleets to take on battle challenges with.
- Command your fleet in tactical battles against computer controlled fleets.
- Get scored for your combined battle command and fleet designing performance.
- Manually control (fly, aim, shoot) any ship in your fleet during battle.
- Create and edit your own battle scenarios or play quick skirmish battles.
http://www.battlefleetengineer.com/2014/08/introducing-battlefleet-engineer.html
What the game is lacking
- All progression mechanics, it only has single battles
- Any and all audio
- Battle environment variety (currently only different sizes of empty space)
- Many visual effects and fitting UI elements
- You are allowed to record videos and take screenshots of the game itself, and share & monetize such content provided that you clearly mention the name of the game and that the content is from a pre-alpha version.
- You are not allowed to make copies of, share or sell any of the game files (compiled code, assets etc.) in any form with anyone, with the exception of ship, fleet, battle etc. save files that you have created by playing the game.
How to apply:
Write me an email to testers@battlefleetengineer.com and explain who you are, why should I trust you and most importantly what are you willing to do to help make the game better. I'm mostly looking for simple, realistic and concrete pledges like:
- "I will record and commentate me playing the game for the very first time, pointing out things that I don't understand or frustrate me"
- "I will try the provided battle challenges and report what kind of ships seem overpowered and any bugs that I encounter"
- "I will create few ship designs and report my honest thoughts about how the ship editor is too clumsy and hard to learn"
- "I will test the game with a few different computers I have access to and report any problems I encounter and what kind of performance I get"
System requirements:
Battlefleet Engineer is a Windows PC only game that is designed to be played on a desktop computer. This imposes some (pretty basic) hardware requirements that you will need to take into account before applying to be a tester.
- Mouse with a clickable wheel (5-button mouse recommended)
- Screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 or higher (not a hard limit)
- Windows XP or newer (Windows 7 recommended)
- GPU with DirectX 10 support (anything newer than 2008-2010)