Tweaks
We now store your money in the campsite, too, so it's no longer quite such punishment when you die - before, you'd always start the game with no money at all.
A few melée weapons have been nerfed a bit as they might have been a bit more powerful than they should have been.
A bit more adjustment to the way you find loot without the torch should see you looting reliably in the dark, but hopefully unable to just brush past things at full tilt and hoover up all the things.
The Start of the Game
There is now a prototype start to the game! For most of the next two weeks we will be iterating on the start to make it more complete and explain what's going on, but the basic concept of the start is working nicely.
We've got some experimental "quips" from the player avatar by way of hinting what to do next but I'm not too keen on them myself. I'm hoping that we can get some NPC scientists in the laboratory for you to talk to which should guide the player along at the start. Well, until they all get irradiated.
Release Day Is Coming
Release day is still 30th March 2018, with a pinch of good fortune. Prepare to be shocked at its outrageous niche pricing of $29.99. We don't expect to sell tens of thousands of copies to idle tyre kickers, we're hoping that'll be picked up by fewer, more discerning gamers.
After release we will be updating the game regularly every two weeks while the money's good, adding new levels, new monsters, new items, new characters, and new scenery, and we would rather like to add more story. So we can but hope that there are enough people out there who want to play it to add all the things that we want to add!
Why Not Early Access?
Because it's a complete game now already. What we're going to add over the months is essentially free new DLC. Of course, Patreons got the Early Access deal already :) If you're shrewd you can still get Basingstoke (and more besides!) for $5 if you sign up to the Patreon...