Arcade Galaxy — Alpha Milestone
ONE MASSIVE DEV LOG
AN INSIDER PREVIEW FOR FANS
This month, we’re especially excited to bring the latest developments from the Arcade Galaxy team — we’re hitting Alpha! There are some huge developments that have been in the making for quite some time, and we are about to open live playtests with the community.
If you are just joining us in our development journey, Arcade Galaxy is an online multiplayer gaming platform that aims to empower both players and creators. With a suite of exciting tools and modes inspired by our favorite games, Arcade Galaxy will also support a next-generation, in-game economy that rewards users through community ownership. Publish custom content, compete in tournaments, and create a unique identity in a universe that’s all fun & games.
As a start, we’re primarily showing off the game’s last-man-standing mode, along with a map editor, where players race vehicles across colorful obstacle courses as “Cubs!” These creatures are a hybrid between a race car, animal, and just the sort of mascot that keeps getting into all sorts of action in the galaxy… Interested? Well, there’s no better time to join in on the fun!
PLAYABLE FEATURES
This live build encompasses Arcade Galaxy’s core gameplay, an early version of our Creator’s Tool, and an extensive customization system for Cub avatars.
Race with friends, challenge players online, and master a selection of diverse obstacle courses!
Want even more variety? Then check out the map editor and arrange your own tracks with all of the different components from the maps you see in-game.
With in-game avatars, we’re allowing testers to edit their Cubs from a range of animal types, materials, and accessories. Stand out from the competition and build your own character!
Now, for those wondering about wallet integration; we made a decision early on to put our focus on game mechanics for this early version of Arcade Galaxy. A project like ours has many moving parts that affect its functionality, balance, and overall presentation. At this time, we want to prioritize the player experience by collecting as much feedback as possible. This is so that we can respond to any critical design issues before any proper launch that incorporates an in-game economy.
We are encouraging all testers to try out the Creator’s Tool and sharing features. While the level editor is a work-in-progress, we’ve already seen a lot of imaginative creations through internal tests. We can’t wait to see what other people create, even at this early stage.
BUILDING THE GALAXY
The development timeline for alpha has seen many changes and adjustments since our last update.
It can be a great challenge to create fun gameplay that takes advantage of simulated physics in interesting ways. With our driving model, we have been working with the collision geometry to increase the level of fidelity and the stability of the model itself. When it comes to adjusting control systems, the issues always come in the details.
The team has spent a lot of time, particular in playtests, fine tuning the general feeling of “driving” Cubs. It’s funny, but we want to acknowledge that sometimes realistic physics can actually be a detriment to the fun factor of features meant to function within the context of a game. That is why our design philosophy leans towards fun over realism, just as in arcade tradition.
As a more generic example, all of the colliders for Cubs are actually longer and lower than the mesh of those characters. This is because the actual geometry of the 3D mesh causes issues with flipping and high-speed movement on surfaces. With every high-level feature, the team has to design, code, and accommodate for any problems that might manifest across the game framework. Starting out with a basic implementation can help accelerate the development of better solutions over time. This is where regular testing and improvements can push the quality of the experience further.
On multiplayer, we’ve tried Photon’s Fusion networking library to extract better performance with real-time gameplay. Unfortunately, with the build running on WebGL, there is only support for WebSocket rather than UDP. Unfortunately, due to limited optimization with WebSocket, the user experience is still not where we would like it to be.
The team spent quite some time trying to make networking improvements in time for Alpha, but it is just not feasible at this point in time. So, we’re rolling back to our previous solution until the next Fusion update.
As for the Creator’s Tools, we have a lot of things cooking at the moment, although some things are just not at a state that we feel ready to push to Alpha. The Logic Editor is one such feature that will have to wait for now.
However, we did not want to leave players without a few surprises. We’ve included a simple item inspector which allows the user to adjust the parameters of certain objects, such as the spinning speed of obstacles and axis transformations. We’re planning to conduct another test focusing on the Logic Editor once it’s ready.
THE VALUE OF FEEDBACK
Every player that participates in these early alpha sessions will have the chance to report bugs or any other issues they might encounter throughout the preview period. Additionally, it is a prime opportunity to have the community share direct feedback to the team as early as possible — whether you request a feature be included, improved, or balanced differently, we hope to facilitate substantial additions to make Arcade Galaxy the best place to play.
Another important point is that the team can get a fresh pair of eyes to see the game in-action. This alpha is not just a way to share work that has been completed, this is also a means of opening up this project to the community.
Designing Arcade Galaxy has been our primary focus for many months at this point, and it can be difficult to see the bigger picture over many iterations as developers. That is why including the community in our play sessions is vital during this phase of development.
The team also wants to highlight the value of feedback regarding gameplay balance, the user experience of the editor, responsiveness of driving controls, and the apparent potential of user generated maps. If you personally encounter any issues in these areas, do not hesitate to let us know.
Technical issues surrounding networking and connections are expected, as the current implementation is not final and is still prone to major changes.
“If you had a magic wand, what would you like to change?” — this is one of the team’s favorite questions, and with that mindset, we are very excited to hear from our players.
A MESSAGE FROM THE TEAM
First and foremost, thank you for supporting us! We hope this alpha version offers a sense of what Arcade Galaxy can be. The market has been challenging for many of us in the past few months, and the potential of GameFi has also seen a lot of critics given these conditions.
However, we are lucky to have a very strong team dedicated to building something that is both special and aims to exceed expectations from users in this space. We are incredibly grateful to have investors which trust us in delivering on this strong vision that emphasizes fun, accessibility, and creative ownership.
This alpha is meant to be the foundation of Arcade Galaxy as a gaming platform. With this foundation, the Arcade Galaxy team is looking forward as we explore what this platform can grow into by including the community — starting now.
