Halfway has now officially hit digital store shelves! You can grab the game right now on Steam , Humble Store or directly from us via Humble Widget for $12.99/£9.99 with a -10% launch discount. The game is available on Windows, Mac and Linux!
“Halfway is a turn-based strategy RPG taking place a few hundred years into the future. You take control of a small group of people and guide them through cramped and gloomy corridors on board of the colonial spaceship Goliath. Use equipment, skills, locations and strategies to your advantage as you slowly fight your way across the ship.”
Even though the game has been released, we’re not done yet.. Soon, we’ll be releasing the tools we used to create the levels and campaigns in Halfway to the public and we hope you’ll join us in making lots of interesting new challenges for the community. Stay tuned for more details on this!
For now, we’d love you to check out Halfway and why not get involved in our community forums over at halfwaygame.com? 🙂
Update: We released some patches for Halfway which improve the stability of the game. Look in our Forum for the changes.
This is the big day we’ve been waiting for! We’re finally ready to announce when Halfway will hit the market. For this occasion we’ve also launched a nifty new Halfway website, which you should definitely check out here.
But more importantly, we’re very excited to announce that Halfway will be released on Steam and Humble Store on 22 July 2014. That’s next Tuesday! 😀
The game will be available for Windows, Mac and Linux for $12.99/£9.99 with a -10% launch discount. We’ll be adding modding support in the form of a campaign editor, which we’re hoping to release very soon after the game is out.
Keep an eye out on the Halfway website for future updates and as we’re adding more content. And please come say hi on the community forums!
Now all that’s left to do is check out our launch trailer below and help us spread the word!
Wow, time’s flying! We’ve now officially passed the one year development mark for Halfway and we’re edging so close to release that we can almost taste the release day beer! Meanwhile we thought we’d give you guys a quick update on our blog on what’s been happening. If you’d like to get more frequent updates please check us out and follow us on Twitter (@robotality). We try and push out some little details and screenshots of our progress as much as possible on Twitter. Plus, we like hearing from you 😉
On the team front, we’ve had Daniel Ludwig join the team as a coder. He’s a very experienced Game Developer and we’re really happy to have him on board (check him out on Twitter: @code_disaster).
So, where’s Halfway at? Well … we’re pretty much done. Which is a scary and at the same time ridiculously exciting statement. All the levels are in the game, music is done and all the features are there. We’re now spending a lot of time testing, tweaking and polishing to make it a round experience. A huge thank you to everyone who’s been playing and testing the game and has given us invaluable feedback!
We won’t announce the release date just yet, but keep an eye out for this very VERY soon. To finish up this short update, we’ve collected some animated gifs and screenshots from the last few months of development. Enjoy!
(Toilet cleaning in Halfway. Well not really, but you know..)
(A battle scene from Josh’s apartment)
(Preparing space-ship burgers in the homebase)
(Josh smoking a cigarette trying to figure out things on his equipment)
It’s well past time we crawl out of our game development caves and let you know what we’ve been up to! 🙂
I’m sure most of you are aware we’ve blazed way past our original timeframe of releasing Halfway during Q4 of 2013. There’s really one simple reason for that: The game just needed more time to mature. In fact, Halfway is still shaping more into the game it should be with every passing hour. It’s a wildly challenging and sometimes taunting task. But we’re more confident than ever that the final game we’ll be worth the wait. And we certainly haven’t always felt that way throughout development (Just being honest here!)
So .. what’s the actual progress we’ve made in the last couple of months?
We’ve overhauled the entire AI making it super smart (things like reacting to noise). We designed more then 15 levels. And if we’d have kept all the iterations needed we’d probably have about quadruple the amount. We re-introduced the ring menu and made various other UI tweaks. We’ve added ALL player characters to the game, totalling 8, and also added all enemy types except for one (Fun fact: All the units take up about three 2048×2048 textures by themselves, that’s A LOT of lovingly placed pixels). We added more than 100 unique items to the game all with charming names such as “The Devastator”. The music has morphed and shaped into something new and very very atmospheric. We fixed a lot of bugs and added a lot of bugs. And we could go and on.. But much better then as listing everything here we’re just going to show you what the current state of the game is in moving pictures. About two weeks ago we did a 90-minute live stream with Tiyuri from Chucklefish playing Halfway:
You might wonder why Chucklefish would be streaming our game. Well, the exciting news is that we’re partnering with Chucklefish to bring Halfway to as many people as possible. In more traditional words: They are publishing our game. But, Chucklefish are about as different from a traditional publisher as you could possibly imagine. Simply put, they are brilliant at what they’re doing (heard of Starbound? ;)) and we are super excited to get to work with them. This truly only means good things for Halfway, and for us.
So what’s next?
We’re of course still working hard at finishing the game as soon as possible. We’re not going to give a time-frame until we can guarantee it. But it’s in our own interest to get it out to you as soon as we can! Stay tuned for more details as things unfold 🙂
To finish up this development update, we have a couple of recent screenshots:
We wanted to take a quick moment and thank YOU for a fantastic year! Thanks for believing in our game and pushing us to make Halfway the best it can be 🙂
We’re taking a break over Christmas and New Year’s – but we’ll be back in the new year ramping up towards the release of Halfway!
We’ve been hiding away in our caves working like little madman on Halfway (we have the beards to prove it too). Today we decided to come out and share our progress. And because pictures speak more than words we recorded a gameplay video with commentary.
The usual disclaimer: Heavy work in progress 🙂
There’s a lot of new stuff in there that we haven’t shown before. Our previous gameplay pretty much only showed combat. In this new video you get to see how we’re integrating story elements and exploration bits into the game. Lots of other little new details in there as well, which we just forgot to talk about. We’re hoping to do another video update soon showcasing the AI, the homebase and other things!
Hopefully our chatter doesn’t bore you too much and will give you a much better idea of where we’re heading with the game. Looking forward to hearing what you think!
This past week has been brilliant! It was the first time that Johan joined us here in Germany for a focused week of work on Halfway. We’ve made good progress in lots of areas and are moving forward at a steady pace. We’re really happy with how the game is slowly but surely taking shape. But we’re also getting to feel the reality of just how much work is still ahead of us. We really, really want to get the game right. But that takes time 🙂
So, in light of this we’re not going to do our usual friday update today. From now on, instead of the frequent weekly update we might start trying out a few different things. Maybe less frequent posts, but more interesting posts. We’d also really love to try video logs and/or live streams. Either way, we’ll keep you updated with our plans and we plan on sharing as much as possible as development progresses.
Thank you to everyone who’s been following us on the blog and various other outlets so far – We’re really excited about the game and can’t wait to put it in your hands!
As promised in last week’s post, this time we want to tell you a bit about the world and events within which Halfway takes place. The background setting of the game is a key component to how we build the game. It shapes all the little details that we are putting in the world, nuances in dialogs and interactions but also how we approach things visually. As always, these things are subject to change and we’re constantly tweaking things to make the world more interesting and consistent.
So, why not grab yourself a nice cup of tea or coffee and read through this first part of this rather word-heavy post 🙂
The Setting
In the year 2321 CE, scientists have achieved an incredible milestone: Faster-Than-Light travel. Through a freak accident the G.S.A. (Global Space Agency) discovered an anomaly while experimenting with gravitational fields, which lead to a quick development of engines capable of travelling at superluminal speeds. Equipped with that break-through, humanity very quickly started spreading across the galaxy and building a network of colonies in neighbouring solar systems.
The race to explore the universe caused the face of society to change dramatically. Governments started to weaken their hold, as all power moved to privately funded corporations around the world, leading the charge amongst them, the G.S.A. These corporations were responsible for some of the most radical reformations in society, one of the most controversial ones being the strict 3-tier social structure now commonplace in most parts of the world: Either you were born into the elite (A-Citizenship), employed by one of the large corporations (B-Citizenship), or unemployed and considered the outcasts and scum of society (C-Citizenship). Moving from one to the other of these social tiers rarely occurs. There are rumours of a small underground movement trying to oppose the grip the corporations have.
This vast expansion to other solar systems is carried out by large experimental colonisation ships, the crews consisting of all areas of society specifically trained to establish outposts of humanity in the distant corners of the galaxy. Driven by the prospect of glory many people gave up their normal life on earth to be part of the great human expansion.
Even though these colonisation ships travel at extreme speeds, the journeys are long and challenging. In order for the human body to properly deal with the extreme conditions of superluminal travel and to save on rations needed, the majority of the crew is cryonically frozen and only a skeleton crew handles the everyday tasks aboard the ship. Journeys may take months, sometimes even as much as a year.
G.S.A.
The Global Space Agency (short G.S.A.) was formed during the 22nd century by an unprecedented privatisation of national space agencies across the world.
During the 21st century not much progress was made in the area of space technology. Governments began minimising their investments in what seemed like a fruitless branch of science. However, space tech was still actively pursued by a few private companies who still saw a future in space exploration. Towards the end of the century, propelled by an assimilation of private space tech companies, a large buy-out of government funded space tech caused most countries to completely shut down their space exploration efforts. Out of this, the G.S.A was formed.
The leadership of the G.S.A had acquired all this technology to further their investments in asteroid mining technology. Their venture started paying off a few decades later with the deployment of the first large mining vessels to gather resources from asteroids.
With natural resources becoming increasingly rarer on earth the G.S.A. was soon able to recklessly force the government to their rules and regulations as one of the only providers of natural minerals. The discovery of the FTL drive further strengthened the GSA’s grip on the people and government, which was one of the initial triggers that caused radical changes in how society is governed in general.
And with this we’re concluding today’s post. Stay tuned for more details and background info next week!
Quite unusual of us to post on a Tuesday, but we have a little video we wanted to share with you anyway 🙂 As you you would have seen in last week’s Friday Update, Johan Vinet has been making some of Halfway’s character portraits. He also recorded a cool little time-lapse while making them! So click below to get a look at how he makes them (hint: pixel by pixel ;)).
Oh, and the video is accompanied by another track from Halfway’s soundtrack. Enjoy!
In this week’s Friday update we’d like to introduce some of the game’s main characters. Oh, before we begin: In case you missed it we had a nice little chat with Developer’s Accomplice about us and Halfway, which you should definitely check out if you haven’t already!
Right, let’s have a quick look at the setting Halfway plays in: Goliath, the spaceship on which the events during Halfway take place, is a large colonisation vessel. These experimental spaceships are deployed to reach the far corners of the galaxy and establish new human outposts there. Even though they travel at superluminal speeds, journeys are long and challenging. For that reason everyone except the essential crew is cryogenically frozen throughout the duration of the travel.
In Halfway you control some of Goliath’s crew that have found themselves as survivors of a violent overtake from an unknown species. Each one of those people has a story and is not just another disposable unit. The dialogues and the way they interact with each other are an important part of how we tell the story in the game. But their character goes beyond just their “story”. They also have unique strengths and weaknesses that if you take the time to learn, will give you a rewarding amount of tactical variety to work with.
Full Name: Staff sergeant Morten Lannis Citizenship: B-Class Neutral
Staff sergeant Lannis is an excellent squad leader responsible for one of Goliath’s onboard security units. As an experienced veteran soldier he has pretty much “seen it all”. Thanks to his 25 years in the army he’s gained a wealth of experience and is a master at shooting with his favourite rifle RX-573 AT. Besides his preference towards rifles he’s skilled at almost any weapon. He possesses a strong aversion towards Stimpacks and any modern body-implants that enhance physical abilities. The young guns respect him, despite the fact that he’s quite the conservative.
Either way, SSG Lannis doesn’t worry about other people’s opinions. Besides, this mission is meant to be his last one as he is currently on his way to retire at the borders of the colonies.
Full Name: Corporal Samuel “Mule” Lankford Citizenship: B-Class Neutral
Because of his physical stature, Corporal Lankford’s comrades affectionally call him “The Mule”. He is a big muscly soldier, which you wouldn’t want to challenge to a fist fight. Moreover he’s an excellent shooter, so you’re not likely to get close to him anyway if he doesn’t like you.
Due to a “reflex-enhancing” pharmaceutical trial, he suffers from a severe drug addiction. Unless he get’s his daily fix, he’s unlikely to even hit an elephant right in front of him.
Despite his addiction, Samuel is a trustworthy soldier and is held in high regard by SSG Lannis with whom he’s served for almost 20 years already.
Full Name: Jenna “Wild Child” Wallace Citizenship: B-Class Negative
“Wild Child” might not be the most charming person around, but she knows how to stay alive and is always a step ahead of the game. She mostly keeps to herself but knows exactly what she wants. An in general, she always gets it.
Wallace, usually working as a mercenary, has joined the ship’s security personnel in order to pay for the trip to the colonies, where another job is waiting for her.
Her weapon of choice is a 20mm S&S X20 sniper rifle, and for that reason usually won’t be seen much up-front in battle. Rumour has it that the reckless mercenary is afraid of the dark. But one probably shouldn’t mention that in her presence, unless you are looking for a quick way out of life.
And that’s all we have for this week! The avid reader would’ve noticed that we promised something “moving” for today’s update. Well, we changed our minds. It’s now instead coming on Tuesday 🙂
Next week we will talk a bit more about the background story and world of Halfway, with some of the aspects already hinted at in today’s update. Thanks for reading!
Full Name: Staff sergeant Morten Lannis
Full Name: Corporal Samuel “Mule” Lankford
Full Name: Jenna “Wild Child” Wallace
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