#breakingbytes

SHARPEN YOUR CLAWS

Planet Xydonia's fame has reached nearly every corner of the universe, meaning that our friendly, pirate-y team X-BURST is not alone in their quest for grasping its secrets.

A particularly unusual message has been intercepted by our systems and it took us several moons before we were able to decode its meaning, assisted by the best translators the galaxy could offer.

"Meow."

Not sure about the real intent of this short but trenchant statement, we decided to investigate on its origins.

INTRODUCING "DYNAMIC" DUO ZORBA & ZACK

After analyzing the data we were able to gather, we learned that, apparently, the signal originated from a private conversation between two individuals belonging to the Katanyan race. One particular discovery was quite alarming. It seems that this species has an innate ability to blend in our own world, acting like innocent, domestic cats.

Furthermore, their exceptional prowess in manipulating the weak and gullible human mind, lets them live a pretty chill life, full of privileges.

The current unaware hosts of these extraterrestrial life forms gave us a short description of what they believe are just their pets:

"Zorba likes to throw his weight around, literally, and is quite bossy. He's also pretty grumpy, but in the end he manages to be adorable, still. His days are spent doing absolutely nothing, obsessing over food and looking for cuddles."

"Every now and then he decides to wear his classy striped tie and becomes the chief of the house, ordering everyone around." 

"Zack, on the other hand, is an absolute charmer. He's so elegant and fluffy, but, at the same time, a bit shy..." 

"He loves to get lazy in front of the heater, taking care of his own hair and occasionally allow some humans to worship him.

However, only a chosen few can really claim the right to get close to him, and the ultimate prize for that is a whole lot of purrs."

THE TRUTH UNDER THEIR FUR

Our poor fellow humans have been clearly indoctrinated to a point of no return, so we decided to take the matter into our own hands and discovered the true identity of Zorba & Zack.

Ace pilot Zorba McWhiskers and his assistant Zachary Von Purr are probably two of the best officers from the intergalactic empire of Katanya's army.

A small planet inhabited by the aforementioned Katanyan race, it is the center of a feline empire that has quickly expanded its influence over Sector 4.

What would these furry army officials want with Xydonia's secret? Will they get in the way of Harrison Blade and his crew?

We'll find out in the near future, once we get more data on Zorba's vessel and its peculiar round attachment!

In the meantime, please enjoy one last cat pic.

GAME UI UPDATE

While working on the game's new content, we've been polishing its overall presentation too, and made a pretty big overhaul to the menu, getting it ready to accommodate all the new modes and features we're adding.

You'll be able to see it for yourself once the new backer build gets out, which is happening very soon!

2019 will be the year of Xydonia, and we plan to bring you guys a lot of juicy surprises from here to the game's final release.

Stay tuned for more Xydonia goodies and remember to follow us on our social pages!

PROGRESS UPDATE

Hey guys and gals!

It's time for a meaty XYDONIA development update!

We very well know that we've been a bit silent lately and we're sorry if that has somewhat got you worried about the project's future. That's totally legit but, as we've been affirming all this time, we will never give up, whatever happens!

Things got pretty dark at some point, not gonna lie, and after all we had to endure, as was already disclosed in previous updates, it would be rather foolish to both nullify our efforts and fail your expectations in one fell swoop. Wouldn't it?

That said, we decided that it was really necessary to focus on restoring a healthy, productive work enviroment for ourselves before anything else, and that unavoidably forced us to scale our social media activity back for a while.

Speaking of actual workflow now, one big step forward in that regard has been made by our pixel artist and game designer, Walter, who has now moved to Northern Italy to closely work with Dario, the programmer/other designer. This means that XYDONIA's development is finally getting a very consistent boost to its efficiency, which will resonate through the overall quality of the game!

So, we're quite excited to show you some of the new stuff that's been cooking during this new phase!

NO REST FOR THE SHMUPPERS

Part of the new content we've been churning out is obviously related to boss fights, so let's take a peek at our hairy friend Mr. Sibomba!

The result of a biotech experiment aimed for the mere entertainment of our fellow earthlings, Mr. Sibomba is half-ape and half-machine mixed with a considerably short temper.

Soaring through the skies of Neo Tokyo-6 could result in stumbling upon the Flying Circus' crew keeping this big guy locked in a giant cage. Thing is, its cell wasn't built with the best safety protocols in mind, which makes it fairly easy for this green furball to escape!

It'll be up to you to cool him down, but beware, spaceships look awfully similar to bananas through Sibomba's (undoubtedly poorly) augmented eyes!

POWER-UP!

One of the biggest upgrades we've been undergoing in the past months was shifting XYDONIA's engine to GameMaker Studio 2, which has been helping a ton in smoothing out our development process.

Relocating the entire game from GMS1 took a while at first, but it definitely payed off. We can now take advantage of a greatly streamlined interface and a much more powerful room editor.

Another big feature we're currently experimenting is an alternate 16:9 mode to go along with the classic 4:3 view we all love and are accustomed to.

This will provide a different take on the game while also making the most of the entire screen area offered by modern displays. It will be surely necessary for us to tailor the gameplay to this new aspect ratio, that's why we decided to approach it as a separate game mode.

We're still keeping the original 4:3 aspect ratio and everything is being built around that first, so you'll always be able to fire XYDONIA up on that dandy CRT display of yours!

We've also been hard at work on something that the most hardcore among you will surely appreciate, and that is pixel-perfect fast bullet collision detection. Can't blame the game for failing that flawless run anymore!

Last but not least, a big chunk of time was spent on perfecting a new method of frame updating which will greatly improve framerate consistency even on the lowest specs!

FINAL NOTES

Yet another reminder, work on backer content is still ongoing so it won't be long before it's your turn!

Here's an-in game test of backer-designed enemy BABY C soaking damage like a pro.

And it's finally time to wrap this up, congrats for getting to the end of this huge update.

As you can see, we are definitely catching up with the schedule and the next step on the roadmap will be the release of the upcoming playable alpha, exclusive to the ALPHA FIGHTER tier (and higher).

Sorry to keep you waiting, but it was definitely necessary as our top priority is to give you a real slice of the final game to collect your personal feedback, which is crucial, and it wouldn't be as useful if we delivered a rushed build. We need your help to make this the best SHMUP possible!

From now on, we'll also resume our social media activity, although the main focus will still be the actual development of the game.

There's yet some great news we will share in the near future, so stay tuned for more XYDONIA goodies!

STATUS UPDATE

Hey everyone,

It's been a while since our last update, so we thought it was time you guys got more in-depth info on the current state of things.

We chose to be as clear and transparent as possible from the beginning, that's why we decided to be honest with you and mentioned that development would slow down for a while following various personal issues we were going through. What we didn't do initially, out of respect for the ones who were directly affected, was to talk about what was exactly going on.

However, we're all in this together, so, to allow you to better understand the situation and show you how much we care about XYDONIA, we're gonna put discretion aside and be open about it.

For this particular occasion, a first person perspective will be used to let our team's member explain what he has experienced.

~

This is a project that sparked from a personal passion the three of us shared, and that makes it quite frustrating when you can't always be as productive as you'd want, still that happens to everyone and is part of being alive. I'd usually push through and actually get even more motivated afterwards, but there are times when life throws more stuff at you that you can handle.

XYDONIA's Kickstarter campaign launched a few months after someone really close to me got diagnosed with cancer. As for anyone else, this had a severe impact on my entire life, although it actually spurred me to carry on with my work on the project day and night, for a while.

However, keeping pace with the countless variables of a crowdfunding campaign is an excruciating task, which requires a huge amount of mental (and physical!) commitment, especially if you're part of a small team like us.

We all know how it turned out and I'm still very proud and thankful to everyone who helped out, but after that excessively taxing month, during which I also had to closely take care of a loved one affected by a terrible disease, I suffered a pretty heavy burnout.

That was when things started to slow down with the game's development eventually as we mentioned in our last update.

Fast forward to present times: my life went through a series of considerably big changes which include, unfortunately, losing that same loved one and the battle we've been fighting together.

I won't dwell on the grief and psychological repercussions an experience like this brings to your life and especially won't use any of this as an excuse, just take it as an act of trust from our side.

My work on XYDONIA, which never really stopped despite what I've been dealing with, is one of the many means of recovering I have from all this and I won't waste the opportunity. Contributing on finishing the game will be my way of showing how much I'm grateful to my teammates and everyone else who kept their support high instead of turning their back on us.

We're definitely gonna take this last boss down!

W.

DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

Speaking of strictly dev-related stuff, there is so much we want to show you and we'll get to that ASAP. Work on the next build is still ongoing and we're doing our best to get back up to our usual speed.

Here's a montage of some of the new stuff, captured off-screen during the events we attended, sporting XYDONIA's glorious main theme composed by Hosoe-san.

Hopefully we'll be able to wrap it up as soon as possible and let you personally check out every improvement and fresh content we added to this build.

There'll be a return to a tightier update schedule and regular content preview once this'll be all sorted.

We ask you to hold tight just a little bit more, all things considered, we won't disappoint!

XYDONIA FOR EVERYONE

Backer collaboration content work is also still going strong, we're excited just thinking about all the weirdest stuff you guys are gonna make us put into the game! Check out this behind the scenes sneak peek of a mid-boss you'll have the honor of obliterating.

Expect us to keep getting in touch in the near future to talk about your own custom stuff and craft it together!

That's all for now, thanks everyone for your huge support.

DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

Hey shmuppers!

We had little chance to keep you up to date lately, so we'd like to clear things up a bit.

Pretty serious, unexpected personal issues have come up in our lives, and the game's development has inevitably slowed down slightly, therefore the backer-exclusive build we're currently preparing isn't quite ready yet. We decided to push back its release date because we don't want to give you a buggy, unrefined mess, but something that resembles a slice of the final product. A solid  gameplay and a polished presentation are our main priorities, and always will be – even during these WIP stages – so we ask you to bear with us.

So, even if the development is slowing down a bit for now, the main reason is that we are still keeping our highest standards possible no matter what, to always bring you the best stuff. We will definitely get up to speed as soon as we get those aforementioned issues sorted out.

Don't worry though! You won't have to wait much longer: we'll try our best to finish the job ASAP.

INCOMING DISTRESS CALL

We've been in touch with some of the backers regarding their in-game rewards, starting with the design of their assist characters.

However, while we completed some of them without a hitch, a few of you didn't answer to our call, so please check your inbox (we will eventually send you another private memo) to let us deliver your in-game rewards!

Speaking of which, the assist characters that are already done will be included in the upcoming backer build!

PLAY XYDONIA @ MODENA NERD & MILAN GAMES WEEK

Check out this short teaser we made for one of the upcoming events we're going to attend!

Two new gaming events are ahead of us: Modena Nerd (16th-17th September) and Milan Games Week (29th-30th September, 1st October).

We're already among the confirmed expositors and we'll be showcasing the latest build updates at both events, so everyone who'll meet us will be able to test them!