_Doborog Team explaining why console review is taking longer than expected
(thanks hoverfish2 for sharing this meme template on Reddit r/CloneDrone)_
Helloooo humans!
We just released a teeny update on Steam! It includes some important preparation for our full console release to support crossplay 🤫
We also want to share an update on our console review progress to hopefully help answer the question... “why is there no release date yet, foolish indie game developing humans?!?”
Upgrades to Support Crossplay
Let's start with something invisible! This release includes an update to our networking library that will allow us to support crossplay on consoles. That means you will be able to play with your friends, even if they’re on a different platform (which is inferior to your favorite gaming platform, of course 😛).
Some More Bug Fixes!
While the server already kicks AFK players from co-op games, it will now kick them even if other players are playing while ignoring them. This will occur after 30 minutes of no input in public game servers, so stay active if you want to keep your endless streak going!
In exciting Not Crashing News™... after months of investigation, we solved a multiplayer crash that sometimes happened after joining games! Thanks to everyone who sent in descriptions of their crash scenarios to our bugs email. These are super helpful for our bugfixing!
Chapter 5 & console porting release update
While we heard from other devs that simultaneous releases with crossplay support are tough, we didn’t expect quite how long it would take! Rest assured we’re doing everything we can to get the game fully released on all the consoles as soon as we can. For example, when new bugs come in from the console platform reviewers, we drop everything, fix them, and submit a new build immediately. While the console review process takes longer than our usual Steam release cycle, and it can be frustrating for us too, we hope crossplay with our console friends will be well worth it!
For anyone interested, here's what the console process looks like: we prepare a build, then the console platform QA team tests and finds any issues. We then fix them and submit another build. Then they find fewer, smaller issues, we fix them, and when they finally don’t find any more issues... we can set a release date!
Review rounds have taken longer on some consoles because of reduced QA capacity during COVID. Given this, it’s been extra hard to predict exactly how long we’ve had left. Since the discovered issues are becoming fewer and lower-impact, we’re hopeful we’ll be able to lock down and announce a release date soon. That said, there’s no way for us to know exactly how many issues remain for them to find... and how many more review cycles it will take! We're crossing our fingers, and we will keep you all updated!
That’s it for this teeny bugfix update! We have some other fun things planned before launch, too, if you want to follow along:
- We have a TikTok that’s blowing up and we still don’t understand it: https://tiktok.com/@doborog
- Erik’s streaming development live on Twitch almost every day: https://twitch.tv/doborog
- Discord’s poppin’: https://clonedroneinthedangerzone.com/discord
Clean clean clean,
Brian & the Dobogang
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