We hit alpha this week! Wooo! While this is exciting news for us, lots of people were left scratching their heads… what exactly is an Alpha, you ask?

That answer changes a lot depending on the studio, but for us it means we have first pass completion of all content in the game. All features are implemented. All levels are playable. All bosses are fightable. All items are gettable! Everything is there. You can play the entire game from front to back. It’s all real!

The next step is heading towards beta. For us, beta means we will have all of that content finished, and the only outstanding issues in the game will be fixing small bugs and issues that remain. In the remaining weeks, our time will be spent doing playthroughs, playtesting, balance, iteration, polish, dialog, localization, testing, certification…exciting stuff. The polish that happens now is one of the most important phases of development!

And if you’re wondering why it took so long, let’s just say the game got a lot bigger than we originally intended, and we think everyone will be happy with that! To celebrate this achievement we have created a new trailer!  Jake even created a new track for it.  Check it out!

During Shovel Knight’s campaign we met all of our stretch goals, including the addition of 3 more playable characters! This led to us creating a lineup of all our boss characters, with descriptions of their personalities and backgrounds, potential playstyles, and wonderful art created by our own Erin Pellon.  In case anyone missed it, you can give it a look:

Character Polls!

The backers spoke and cast their vote! The winners were:

Hey guys!  Welcome to our new site.  We actually finished developing this months ago, but we’ve been so preoccupied with making the game that we didn’t have any time to launch it!  Hopefully, this will become our new home for pushing out news and other exciting stuff to you guys.  The site was created by Jeffrey Simon of Gray Oak Productions, check him out when you get a chance!