Happy Halloween!

Halloween is finally here!


As promised, we are releasing our first public Alpha build of Andrecca! Our first build is a demo of our Haunted House levels for Halloween! For those of you not familiar with Alpha builds, they are a pretty early version of a game that is still in development. A good amount of the core features have been implemented, but there is still more to add and almost everything will change, at least a little, before the final version. There's a lot of information below about the current state of the game, but here are some of the highlights:

• Please keep in mind that this is an early version of our game.  There is a good amount of placeholders for music, art, etc. and these will be updated as time goes on.  You will run into some bugs and some features are missing, but we still feel you will enjoy yourself and get a taste for what Andrecca will be like!
• Please note that Andrecca is being made for the Wii U, but we are opening a PC build for people who would like to try it before it comes out.  This means that there may be some PC specific issues that may not get fixed.  When choosing a resolution to play in, we recommend 1280x720 in windowed mode if you have a monitor that is less than 1920x1080.  If your monitor's resolution is 1920x1080, we recommend choosing 1920x1080 in full screen mode.  Anything else may stretch the screen in undesirable ways.
• The only Game Type that is open right now is our "Haunted Demo."  This has 24 "Classic Mode" style levels with our Haunted House theme.  The objective is to clear the board of all enemies and spawers without losing all of your lives.
• The default controls are
• Player 1: WASD movement, Q for the "A" button (which is Push in game), 1 for the "Minus" button and 2 for the "Plus" button (which is Pause in game)
• Player 2: Arrow keys for movement, Keypad 0 for the "A" button (which is Push in game), Keypad 1 for the "Minus" button and Keypad 2 for the "Plus" button (which is Pause in game).
• These can be changed in the main menu by pressing tab. You can also use joysticks if you have them!
• Up to 4 players can play together locally.  Online play will be coming in a future build. It's not *quite* ready yet.
• If you run into any issues, feel free to post on this blog, chat with us on Twitter (@TeamAndrecca), or send us an email (TeamAndrecca@gmail.com)!  We'll try to help you out as soon as we can!
• Hope you have fun!

More details:

How to Play (We're going to have a video tutorial up soon):

• If you'd like to change the keybindings, press Tab in the main menu to bring up the Keybindings window.  Once done, click "Back to Game."
• Create a character in the main menu and select that player.  If you aren't sure which buttons you have assigned to what, hit the Tab button to see your keybindings.
• Once selected, navigate to Local Only -> Haunted Demo and your game will begin.
• Move your character around by using your assigned movement keys (WASD by default).
• Flip tiles by pressing the "A" button (Assigned to Q by default).
• Flipping tiles can reveal bonus tiles underneath them.
• When you flip a tile that has an enemy on it, you will push that enemy backwards. If they smash backwards into a wall, they will die.
• An enemy will keep spawning as long as their spawn tile is showing.  Flip these spawn tiles to make them stop.

Special Tiles (None of the art is final and will be updated as we progress):

Spawner:  This tile spawns Zombies.
Spider Web:  Walking on the edge of this tile will slow you down as you stick to the web.  Get caught in the middle and a spider will try to grab you! Try to move around to break free!
Rock:  This tile acts as a wall, so you cannot walk across this until you flip it into something else.  This will also kill enemies if you push them into this tile.
Flip Direction:  Walk on the center of this tile to flip all of the tiles in the direction that it is pointing.  This can kill enemies if they get caught in the path.
Flip Four Directions:  Walk on the center of this tile to flip all of the tiles above, below, and to the sides of this tile.  This can kill enemies if they get caught in the path.
Boost:  Walking on this tile will fling you across the board in the direction it is pointing.  Slamming into enemies while boosting will kill them, but watch out for any that might fly your way!

Since this is an early Alpha build of the game, there are some missing features and items of note:

Items of Note:

• This is an Early Alpha Build: Much of the art and sound effects are place holders until we finish them up. Gameplay is subject to change and we're bound to run into bugs. Please try and keep this in mind as you are playing :)
• Saving Progress: Your progress will be saved automatically on a per character basis. Unfortunately, there will be no way for you to select levels, so the level that will be played will be the furthest progression of Player 1. So if Player 1 has made it to level 5, but Player 2 has only made it to level 3, the level played will be level 5. Player 2's progression will remain at level 3 to allow them to play from level 3 if they wish. Both players will get credit for completing level 5 and Player 2 will not have to re-play level 5.  This system is not ideal and will be revamped in the future.
• PC/Mac Builds: Feedback on any errors you come across is always welcome, but please keep in mind that the main focus of development right now is for the Wii U. We can't guarantee that we'll be able to fix any errors that are specific to your platform.

Not Yet Implemented:

• Online Play: About 70% complete, it was really close to being in this build, but we weren't happy enough with it's current state to push it out. - Campaign Mode: You're getting a taste of it with this demo, but there will be quite a few more levels all with their own unique themes and enemies!
• Other Game Modes: We're really focusing on the 'classic' mode right now, but we'll be opening up more as we go along. Survival and Team Survival are the next modes that will get pushed out in a future build.
• Items: You may notice on some screen shots that there's an item icon next to characters on the UI. This feature will allow players to collect and use items found in the game.
• Local Players Joining Mid-Game: To do this, you will need to leave the game (your progress will be saved!), let another player join, and then restart the demo.

These are just a few of major items that we think you should be aware of. If you have any questions, suggestions, comments, feel free to post on this blog, chat with us on Twitter (@TeamAndrecca), or send us an email (TeamAndrecca@gmail.com)! Thank you for your support and we hope you enjoy!

Download:

*11/8 Edit* Find all current builds at our Game Information page, here.


As we update the game, we will update this link and post on our twitter and here on this blog about the new updates.


Happy Halloween!