Hey all!

Today marks the release of our closed alpha - we are very excited to get the alpha backers feedback. In this post, I would like to share the current status of the game, and what we have planned in the short term. Please keep in mind that we are a small studio, and can only move so fast.

Current Status:

The Alpha v0.1 represents a very limited version of the game, still early in the development period. It comprises of four sectors filled with enemies - your goal is to free the developers from the prison so we can continue to work towards the next update.

We have been pushing hard to get as much as possible into the alpha as possible, as we know you are itching to shoot some baddies. As are we! But, that also means we could only focus on the core rifle combat and movement, of which the basic functionality is in place.

You will see a lot of the mechanics displayed in the interface, but some of them are dummy and not linked up yet, overall the User Interface has not seen an artist yet. All this will naturally be implemented for the final game, as there will be more weapons than just this one in the near future, all the animations will be improved upon and the current strategic map is only a prototype.

We are looking for feedback on what is currently implemented and made in into the alpha. Especially things like bullet speed, general feel of combat, overall looks down to specific bugs that you might stumble upon. We would rather have 10 reports on the same bug than not get a single one and then miss out on fixing it!

Once we have collected feedback, we will make an update on the combat part, and otherwise we will truck onwards towards the Alpha v0.2, and Steam Early Access.

Note: a lot of the combat functionality is put into a right mouse button click context sensitive menu! If you want to see all the button controls, then please open up the “Controls” panel in the options menu.

Known Issues:

- Squad knowledge: If one Mercenary sees an enemy, everyone in the team sees him too - and vice versa.

- Ricochet Bullets: Sometimes your bullets takes a turn for the worse - and hits you or another random enemy in the face

- Minimap breaks when tabbing out

Short-term Roadmap:

- OSX and Linux versions of the alpha

- Unit direction: Line of Sight with viewcones!

- Multiple Unit selection in realtime mode

- More rifle variations!

- Ammo!

- Different firing modes (burst, full auto etc based on weapon capabilities)

- More sectors!

- Pathfinding & movement on Strategic Map

- Going prone to crawl under cars :-)

Mid-term Roadmap:

- Weapon classes - Pistols, Sniper Rifles, SMGs

- Interrupts in combat

- Targeting body parts

- Inventory & Armor

- Improved AI

- Dialog System & NPCs

- Working Doors

A bit like christmas, where the hell is the download button?! :D

"Going prone to crawl under cars"

- That's a nice new feature!

Awesome, can't wait!

No E-Mail yet, not even in the spam folder. :-(

But seriously, that update made it really hard to wait any longer. I just cleaned out my spam folder because I am going to look into it constantly to make sure I don't miss the mail in case it ends up there, so please hurry up sending those keys out. :D

Oh, one more thing - we are allowed to post videos on youtube, aren't we? Can't hurt to get footage out.

Yeah, you are allowed to post videos

As long as you treat it as an Alpha and not a finished product, then we're happy :)

I just sent out the keys, but I'm sure I missed someone, it's not easy goign through 7,5k backers in 2 different lists where some people have different emails for both Paypal and Kickstarter. 

Hmm...free a dev... why? When they're all tied up so nicely and you can just zap them to work 24/7?

On serious note, looking forward to that e-mail, I basically standing in the doorway of my Gmail looking after the postman down the street...

When you guys get it, put link to livestreaming ;) Seriously I think I'll watch tomorrow what is / if something is uploaded to Youtube.

gmx is faster it seems :P

Dammit - I got the mail almost 40 minutes later because of dinner. :'-(
Really happy to see "you're about to install Jagged Alliance Flashback" in Steam, though. I guess I know what I'm going to do this evening and the whole weekend. :D

Sooo... Youtube is ok, how about Twitch.tv live streaming?

We do want to make live streams, but didn't have time to set it up.

Did you get the mail Shanga? Can't remember what Tier you ended at..but you got a Tier gifted or something...

Ok then, I'll see if my PC can handle Twitch streaming. Now all I need is for that goddamn old fart of a Gmail postman to move his ass over here....

Probably missed it then :) will find your mail and send it

Just got the steam key in the mail, but can not find flashback on Steam yet.

I think the only way is to manually go to the menu and select Games > Activate a Product on Steam

Have all the email keys been sent already, or are there more to come? Because I still haven't got one...

That worked, thanks for the info, Playing it now.

Think my key may have fallen by the wayside as well? FC, help a hungover irishman out! :)

It's really hard for me to keep track of all the posts in here, please send me a mail on support@fullcontrol.dk if you're missing an alpha key

Hey all!

Before starting into the weekend we found some time and fixed a few bugs here and there. We are updating the Steam version as we speak, so the new changes should be implemented shortly.

Cheers!

Alpha v0.1.1 Changelog

- Pressing escape doesn’t quit the game anymore

- Removed debug steam overlay buttons

- Moving camera to enemy unit when he starts movement

- Death bug fixed; there is now blood and physics applied properly

- Selection 3D objects tweaks

- Moved merc spawn points slightly in sectors c13 and c14

- Rimlight increase to make characters a bit more visible

- Changing stance during movement no longer freezes the merc

- Controls screen: added info on how to rotate the camera

- Turning more than 90 degrees now handled properly

- Changes on minimap colors when unit is selected

- Fixed the visibility calculation when changing stances

- Added helpful button to return you to Strategic Map when sector is clear

- Double clicking your squad on the strategic map deploys to that sector

- Strategic map should resize properly first time

- Added a “surprise” when you beat the game

- Mac version of the alpha!

Heya.

I just upgraded to alpha.... but how do I get the key?

Could you add 'Save' option in game?

@Bobbydylan: We will send the key to you as soon as Andreas is back in the office.

@HardcoR: We will definitely add a save option to the Alpha as soon as we can

@All: We had some troubles with the Mac build, so we will look into that on the other side of the weekend. 

Cheers,

Roman

When is new patch coming?

I don't want to force you, but I can't wait for the new functions too XD

Hold your horses. It's only been one workday. :D
However, I would also like to see rather quick updates. It doesn't matter whether a lot has changed or just a few things. There are a lot of people out there eager to check out every little improvement.

New features are 2-3 weeks away, while minor improvements are added when they are ready. We need to test them a bit to make sure the changes don't break the code :) 

Also working on getting the editor ready 

Just saw in the dev diary 2 that the palms were animated. Now in the alpha the bushes and trees are not animated. I guess that will come later? I think it is very important that the bushes, palms and trees are animated to fill the world with life. It would be nice if bushes and trees are moved by the wind and so on.

Part of the work behind animated vegetation is that our 3d modellers need to go in a hand paint the vertices (our shader accepts 0 black to 255 white colors, 0 means it cant move, 255 means it moves as much as the shader allows).

We just havent gotten around to doing all the vegetation yet, its more of a polish issue at this point when you compare it to getting the overall gunplay and game experience to feel cool and inhabited.