Hey, everyone. This is Last BeNVoLeNcE, musician, part-time youtube-guy and solo developer of Astraverse! [b]I'm happy to announce that Astraverse's demo is finally available![/b] I know some have been waiting [b]literal years[/b] for this and most of that is just due to me working on it by myself while working a full-time job. I'm also happy to say that the demo is quite playable and includes features such as character creation, palette customization, basic loot, leveling, a basic quest and even 4-player same-screen (local) co-op! However, the demo isn't as polished as I wanted it to be, nor does it have all of the features that I wanted it to have. This is due to the unfortunate event in which the SSD containing the source code and latest version of the project died seemingly out of nowhere and for little to no reason. This is but one of the risks involved when solo-developing projects and as much flak as I've already given myself for not backing it up on the cloud--in which I was pretty sure I had already done so--it doesn't change the fact that I can't access the most up-to-date files for the game to make the needed changes to release the demo in the best possible state that I could have in time for the Steam Next Fest. However, rest assured--if you wishlisted Astraverse or have been following its development, whether closely or loosely--[u][b]this is NOT a "dead project" at all![/b][/u] It definitely helps that I still have a version of the project, including the source code, that's timestamped from about 1 1/2 years ago and I also have sent the SSD to a data recovery lab where they've already confirmed that the latest files for Astraverse contained on the SSD are somewhat accessible from their end. I can't pay the data recovery lab to retrieve the most recent up-to-date files just yet but if some things regarding a current music project I'm helping to produce goes well, I should be able to pay for the files out of pocket soonish. In the event that I'm not able to retrieve the latest project files, I'll be taking whatever I have now and rebuilding the systems that are currently in the demo that were not built from the time of the project files and source code backup that I currently have. That includes re-fixing whatever bugs that I had encountered along the way. I'm also considering programming them in a more simplified way, removing whatever fluff I thought would be cool to add in that was probably not as important, anyway. [h3]What does this mean for this demo release? [/h3] It means that whatever bugs or issues that you run into right now are just going to have to wait until I can either get to those files from the data recoup lab or rebuild the game from the point I left off from in the backup I currently possess. [u][b]This also means that the demo won't be as polished as probably any of us would like it to be.[/b][/u] I really wish that I was able to clean it up some more and add what I still feel is truly needed to enhance the experience as well as better help new players along from the beginning but unfortunately, there's really nothing I can do for now. Regardless, I sincerely hope you guys enjoy the demo and I'll make sure that a bug-fixing thread is created to revisit any issues later on. Thanks! - LB