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[More_Badass]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKXeK1XcVow
http://monothetic.com/beacon/
Made by TheHollowNight, a frequent poster over in the Indie Dev thread

More gameplay details in this post

Beacon is a Sci-Fi Action Roguelike in which you take control of Freja, a recently-deceased pilot-for-hire whose ship has just crashed into the side of an unknown planet. Luckily for Freja, thanks to her ship’s automated clone bay, being dead isn’t the pain in the ass it once was.

Played as a top-down shooter, Beacon tasks you with fighting your way through a randomly generated hostile world, all the while trying to find the materials required to build a distress beacon and escape the planet into which your ship has crashed.

While you’re making your way through these areas you’ll not only find weapons and items to help you; You’ll also be collecting DNA from the enemies you defeat. Then, when you inevitably die, you’re given the opportunity to combine the DNA you’ve collected with your own, granting you different stats and potentially gameplay-altering physical mutations for your next run.

 

[EdibleKnife]

That style and music are insane! Definitely on the top of my watchlist

 

[Chobel]

The trailer was really well done. I like the artstyle too.

 

[SplitYourInfinities]

Digging the art direction.

 

[salromano]

=o this is so pretty

 

[Omega Kirby]

Very nice indeed, art style reminds me a bit of transistor.

 

[rybrad]

Been excited for this for what feels like forever. Is there a release date yet besides "coming soon"?

 

[TheHollowNight]

omg thank you for making this <3

 

[TheStig88]

Yo, that art style is so sick though. So keeping an eye on this.

 

[jbug617]

there is a post on Xbox Wire
http://news.xbox.com/2016/03/08/beacon-coming-to-xbox-one/

 

[TheHollowNight]

Been excited for this for what feels like forever. Is there a release date yet besides "coming soon"?

We don't have anything concrete right now, and I don't want to say anything in case I get misquoted down the line. But if we're being optimistic about it, within the next 12-14 months is a solid projection!

 

[zXe]

day one

 

[Inumbris]

Wow, the subtle low-poly art-style, the colour palette, the music, all fantastic! I'm really looking forward to seeing more of this game. I'm really curious about that DNA splicing mechanic as well.

I don't play enough good top-down shooters, so it's good to have one to look forward to.

Congrats TheHollowKnight!

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

Really pretty.

 

[rybrad]

We don't have anything concrete right now, and I don't want to say anything in case I get misquoted down the line. But if we're being optimistic about it, within the next 12-14 months is a solid projection!

Longer than I would like but I know quality takes time. Are you guys planning on being at PAX at all?

 

[TheHollowNight]

Longer than I would like but I know quality takes time. Are you guys planning on being at PAX at all?

We have no plans to be at PAX East, we're a very small team and haven't sorted out any sort of funding/publishing up until this point. But I'd personally love to be able to take the game to PAX Prime this year! Fingers crossed.

 

[rybrad]

We have no plans to be at PAX East, we're a very small team and haven't sorted out any sort of funding/publishing up until this point. But I'd personally love to be able to take the game to PAX Prime this year! Fingers crossed.

Cool, I hope you guys make it to Prime, would love to check out the game in person!

 

[TriAceJP]

Reminds me of Transistor, minus the gameplay style.

I really enjoy games like this. I'll be following it.


Oh, a GAFfer made this? Consider a copy sold.

 

[K.Jack]

I blind buy anything that combines sc-fi and rougelike elements.

Congratulations, you played earned yourself a sale.

 

[super-famicom]

This sounds really interesting. Will definitely keep an eye on this.

 

[magwizsorc]

Looking good so far, hope to see it keep pace until release.

 

[Kane Zakharov]

Excellent work on that trailer.

Game looks great!

 

[TheHollowNight]

Thanks everyone! Appreciate the positive responses so far!
We're going to be present at GDC next week so hopefully there will be a nice trickle of news concerning the game in the immediate future!

 

[More_Badass]

Some cool details from Monothetic's devblog:

Guns
http://devblog.monothetic.com/post/132111694300/designing-lethality-part-2

In the Beacon Universe, the most well known military weapons manufacturer is Kaiser-Schmid. With Freja being highly paid employee of a private military operation, all of the weapons originating from crashed pieces of Freja’s ship are manufactured by them. They are generally the weakest weapons in the game, and will often be available in the first level or two as a quick upgrade over the plasma pistol. Their functions are simple and they are quite easy to handle.

Enemies - Prism drones
http://devblog.monothetic.com/post/128352087940/designing-lethality

Each faction in beacon will have a distinct “visual identity” that can be reduced to shapes, and for Prism we chose a hexagon. Here you can see me trying to incorporate the shape into some sort of kevlar for the droid but in the end I felt it was too rigid. The other question was about weapons, and how the droids should wield them. I decided against having them hold the weapons (a la Phantom Menace federation droids *shudders*) as it didn’t make sense for me to allow the possibility that the droids can drop something they would always be wielding. Instead, I chose to give them a cannon arm which are tailored to their specific class

Modular grenades

Cloning, DNA, and Mutations
http://devblog.monothetic.com/post/120891228040/mutations-101

Cloning is what gives Beacon a sense of progression through multiple playthroughs; a feature lacking in most recent roguelikes. When you die, you won’t be sent back to the beginning of the game as if your previous playthrough never happened. Instead you’re cloned from the remains of your previous playthrough, in part using DNA collected from enemies you’ve killed, and sent back to the beginning of the game where your crashed ship’s clone bay is located. Cloning will both be used to provide a way for the player to build up their character over multiple playthroughs and to provide a vehicle for subtle narrative.

----

Every enemy in Beacon has a chance to drop a piece of their DNA, which you can then implement into your genome on death. Implementing a piece of DNA will both add and subtract to certain statistics from your character, allowing you to tailor your statistics to your playstyle. Want to forget you have a health bar? Focus on adding DNA with extra health to your genome at a loss of speed and accuracy. Want to get a critical hit every other shot? Focus on adding Accuracy for a loss of Stamina.

---

Mutations add another layer of progression to the cloning system on top of adjusting your stats with DNA. When you reintegrate DNA, there’s a chance that you’ll receive a mutation that can further affect your stats and even give you bonus abilities in game, with both positive and negative effects. Each mutation also has a unique visual effect that is added to the base player model when played. Below is Freja with two Tritoraptor mutations along with descriptions of their effects.

Bracing Scales
- Your skin dries and cracks, with Tritoraptor scales beginning to peek out from underneath. The extreme initial pain is somewhat offset by the protection your new scales can offer.
30% Chance to be immune to any instance of damage taken.

Aerodynamic Tail
- Your spine mutates and grows, forcing your tailbone out of your body and forming a primitive tail. You find yourself more agile and spry.
+25 Speed

 

[EdibleKnife]

Thanks everyone! Appreciate the positive responses so far!
We're going to be present at GDC next week so hopefully there will be a nice trickle of news concerning the game in the immediate future!

What engine did you lot use to make this? Love Freja's character design by the way

 

[Raist]

Love the art style.
The restart with a spin thing is a pretty good idea too.

 

[Novocaine]

Love the art style, very clean looking. Definitely interested.

 

[z3phon]

Damn that's one beautiful looking game. The environment and designs look amazing.

 

[PaulloDEC]

I don't even like roguelikes and I feel like I might have to grab this. Art is incredible, it looks like it controls nicely and the mutation stuff sounds really neat.

 

[Corto]

This one is definitely a looker! Gorgeous art. And it strikes all my pavlovian chords of rogue-like, sci-fi and isometric view. I'll be there in early access if that's available... *wink wink nudge nudge

 

[Corto]

What engine did you lot use to make this? Love Freja's character design by the way

Unity. The team will be demoing the game at GDC at the Unity booth.

 

[Y0j1mb0]

This looks pretty badass. Love the look, feel and music. I'm in on the Xbox when it drops. Hurry up with it.

 

[Spence]

Looks great, loving the artstyle, I get a bit of a Dungeon of the Endless vibe.

 

[a.wd]

Wow, soo pretty

 

[Nomadic Sparks]

So cool

 

[lcap]

Whoa, so cool. I'm really digging the art style.

Congrats, I'll be there day one!

 

[TheHollowNight]

Thanks again everyone! Any questions you have, shoot them my way!

We had to clear up some confusion earlier regarding the PC Gamer article, as they decided to speculate we may be Windows 10 Store exclusive on PC.

http://www.pcgamer.com/sci-fi-roguelike-beacon-is-all-kinds-of-stylish/

Which isn't true, I think we were just a little vague when we said 'Windows' in our press release, because we haven't actually confirmed any storefronts on PC yet. I understand though since we're part of the ID@Xbox program and it would be easy to make that assumption. Hopefully the article will get updated soon! Of course we would love to bring the game to as many as possible! Steam wasn't mentioned by name since we choose not to go through Greenlight.

 

[Skilotonn]

Wow, the game looks, sounds and moves amazingly - great stuff to you and your team TheHollowNight!

The only reason I'm fine with your 12-14 month release window is because I still haven't picked up an XB1 yet, hahaha!

 

[K.Jack]

Thanks again everyone! Any questions you have, shoot them my way!

We had to clear up some confusion earlier regarding the PC Gamer article, as they decided to speculate we may be Windows 10 Store exclusive on PC.

http://www.pcgamer.com/sci-fi-roguelike-beacon-is-all-kinds-of-stylish/

Which isn't true, I think we were just a little vague when we said 'Windows' in our press release, because we haven't actually confirmed any storefronts on PC yet. I understand though since we're part of the ID@Xbox program and it would be easy to make that assumption. Hopefully the article will get updated soon! Of course we would love to bring the game to as many as possible! Steam wasn't mentioned by name since we choose not to go through Greenlight.

Update: After a chat with devs Monothetic, I proclaim good news: "We have every intention of bringing Beacon to every storefront we can." Huzzah!

 

[eyeball_kid]

Very cool, clone me interested. Love the art design.

 

[Zojirushi]

Ctr+F Transistor

Yep me too.

 

[Ushay]

Holy shit this looks... Amazing.

Consider me interested. The art style is beautiful.

 

[TheHollowNight]

There was a comment regarding why we chose Xbox over PS4 for console and if it was due to perceived performance issues with Unity that have been doing the rounds lately. But I guess it's been deleted? I was happy to discuss!

Microsoft approached us first regarding bringing the game to XB1. A couple of months ago we were only targeting PC, but they showed a lot of interest! We'd definitely love to bring the game to PS4 as well, but I'd imagine that would be at a later time. We can only focus on so many platforms at once sadly!

Regarding Unity performance issues, we're well aware, and will do our best to make sure we don't run into some of the same pitfalls. It's a valid concern to address, and we'll be making sure we're keeping on top of optimization! I hear Unity 5.4 is fixing some stuff so we'll likely move to that.

 

[ashecitism]

Great trailer. Digging it.

 

[EdibleKnife]

Just saw 4 minutes of gameplay pop up in my subscription box via Polygon. Still looking and sounding terrific!

 

[Saint of Killers]

There was a comment regarding why we chose Xbox over PS4 for console and if it was due to perceived performance issues with Unity that have been doing the rounds lately. But I guess it's been deleted? I was happy to discuss!

Microsoft approached us first regarding bringing the game to XB1. A couple of months ago we were only targeting PC, but they showed a lot of interest! We'd definitely love to bring the game to PS4 as well, but I'd imagine that would be at a later time. We can only focus on so many platforms at once sadly!

Regarding Unity performance issues, we're well aware, and will do our best to make sure we don't run into some of the same pitfalls. It's a valid concern to address, and we'll be making sure we're keeping on top of optimization! I hear Unity 5.4 is fixing some stuff so we'll likely move to that.

Loving the art style and I look forward to hearing more about it.

Yay! at your possibly bringing it to PS4 at a later date.

 

[TheHollowNight]

We're going to be doing a proper postmortem, but I thought I'd share some thoughts since GDC is over and it was pretty incredible for the team. Especially for myself as it was my first GDC!

We were part of the ID@Xbox Loft event on Tuesday, which was mainly a closed press preview day. Meeting and chatting with all the other devs there was great and letting the journos get a first hands-on impression was exciting and nerve-wracking. Phil Spencer also played the game!

From Wednesday onward we were exhibiting at Unity's gigantic booth, which was especially a great opportunity to get some feedback from general GDC-goers and developers. It was tiring but extrememly rewarding.
Between both events our team was lucky enough to demo alongside games like SUPERHOT, Below, Sub-Nautica and Firewatch.

Here's some of the articles/media from the week!
http://news.xbox.com/2016/03/15/idxbox-games-soar-into-gdc/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lWpnvNxs8k&ab_channel=Unity

we managed to make Game Informer's Best indie games of the show!
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2016/03/16/the-very-best-indie-games-of-gdc-2016.aspx

And IGN's Xbox One roundup thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2hAowRZRBU&ab_channel=IGN

So yeah, amazing show!
Some photos from the event!

 

[Gnome Scat]

Looks great, I'll definitely be picking it up at launch.

 

[Skilotonn]

Nice - gonna go through all those links later this evening!

 

[TheHollowNight]

Hey again, everyone!
Now's probably a good time more than ever to update this thread as it's been lying dormant for a few solid months. I didn't want to keep bumping the thread for every tiny bit of news regarding the game, but I probably left it far too long since a lot has been happening!

So since GDC, we appeared at a couple of events like E3 - you may have heard of it - and Unity's own Unite Europe in Amsterdam! We appeared for maybe a total of 2 seconds on Microsoft's E3 conference, literally a 'blink and you'll miss it' situation, but the team was still super proud of that accomplishment. Trailer's here if you missed it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_mLdDSi7L8&ab_channel=Xbox

Unite was a very different event, lots of talks and seminars about tech & monetization (boring) and also free mango juice (v. good). We were part of their games showcase and it was definitely a much more laid back event compared to GDC. But overall, a really great, well hosted show, so we can only sincerely thank Unity for inviting us.

Finally, we will be at PAX West in some capacity, so expect to see some more press coverage there, along with a new gameplay trailer focusing on the DNA Cloning/Mutation mechanic! There will be lots more stuff with the game happening towards the end of the year too, so I'll be sure to keep GAF informed

If there's anything you'd like to know specifically about the game, or would like to see more of, please let me know!

In the meantime I'll leave you all with some new in-game and cinematic screenshots!