Hello folks! [b]It’s been a hectic few months at Failcore. [/b]We are so focused on developing Invisible Fist that we had to cut out all other activities – including writing a regular devlog. I’ve came to a conclusion that it can’t be really treated as an unnecessary activity – even though only a handful of people now have access to the demo, it will soon change, and we would love to make you all part of this crazy process called game-development. So, let’s start with some exciting news. [b]We are coming to Kickstarter in a few days![/b] Kickstarter is a thing we discussed from the very beginning of Invisible Fist development, but had many reservations – should we really stretch the budget? What if people won’t participate? Well, the last one is a big one. I have to admit that trying to stand out in the cluttered games market, especially with our first game, proves harder that it seemed at the beginning. We’ve got a lot of cool press from the US, Poland, Spain, Russia and Czech Republic, as we presented the game during Games for Impact event, and even [b]won Grand Prix award [/b]at one of the Polish expos! [img]https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/33928142/0576e984f99aa801b762b3347cc594c37976bf4a.gif[/img] We’ve won a fancy award at the Warsaw Games Show! Yay! [img]https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/33928142/d02ca8371004e1ed74ff530945d125d9ac048606.jpg[/img] We’ve showcased Invisible Fist on Games for Impact. [b] Alas, having some PR just doesn’t seem to be good enough.[/b] I could start talking about the new way of publishing games that everyone can participate in from the very beginning and create hundreds of YouTube videos, but for now, let’s just say we still have a lot of work to do if we want people to see our game. So, the Kickstarter. We probably wouldn’t do it if not for Alexis Kennedy (Weather Factory, Cultist Simulator), who pushed us a little bit in this direction. It’s happening! We are cautiously optimistic, having set a really low goal and some reasonable stretch goals. We mostly treat KS as a way of promoting the game and letting in people who may not be big gamers but still want to keep an eye on the project. And lastly, there are some things that will not be possible for us in terms of our budget but could make the game better, so if we are able to collect the funds, we will implement it. It will happen in the next few days or so; so, stay tuned for more info! As for the game itself, we’ve done a lot of changes in the past few months. – [b]We had to let go of some of the people [/b]in Failcore. Monthly payroll got too big for our limited budget and we did not have any other choice. The good news is, we are still friends and we helped them find new jobs. This is never easy, even more in a case when you like someone and they are doing a good job, but it was probably the best way we could do that in these circumstances. Natalie, Wojtek, Maciek – thanks for your great work – we miss you guys! – [b]We’ve moved from one programmer in Failcore to an outsourced software-house and this was a great decision[/b]. A lot of our ideas waited months to be implemented into the game, and with more senior people tackling the issues, we were finally able to bring the game closer to our dreams. It’s still not perfect as we have a lot of work yet to do, but we are really happy with the results. – [b]We’ve introduced new mechanics[/b] to make the game more challenging and have a deeper gameplay. I think this is a big one. Since the beginning, we only had the Anti-capitalistic / Late Capitalism theme in minds. We were searching for long for the game genre and finally settled to Card Game. As we found out, there’s a big difference between being a player of Magic The Gathering, Hearthstone or Slay The Spire (even a pro-gamer one) and designing a card game from scratch. This is a point that’s most expressed in terms of negative critique of the game – even though theme, stories and graphics stand out, the mechanics are not deep enough for the category’s fans. We have taken this issue very seriously and we made a lot of progress in the last few months. We are still working on the balance, since most of the card game players find it too easy, but we are on a good way to do that. Additionally, Kickstarter will let us dive even deeper into the mechanics. Right now, we added: – [b]Special Cards for every character [/b]– these are your typical synergistic cards that create powerful combos and let you take change of the course of the gameplay by introducing new strategies. – [b]Critical hits[/b] when you fill up the whole 24 hours in a day. It gives you a 20% chance of dealing critical damage to the hand by requiring you to prioritize playing more around your stress and just playing the same cards over and over. – [b]Stress-related disorders [/b]– that’s a completely new one. Previously, you could linger in the “Panicked” stress tier for as long as you wanted, and the only punishment was that all card cost 2 hours more to play. Now, every day you go to sleep with the highest stress you have a chance of developing a disorder that will dramatically change your gameplay. You can become depressed, delusional or suicidal among others. Even though they are negative, they will push you to adapt your playstyle, adding more strategies to the gameplay. Ok, this could go much longer than that, but we would love to stay in contact with you and get into discussion with more frequent pieces in terms of development, so we have to keep some stuff for the next devlog. Stay tuned for the next issue of the devlog and in the meanwhile, hit us with any questions you have! Don't forget to join our [url=https://discordapp.com/invite/MJJvvgW]Discord[/url] channel!