About the Game


▽ Q: Dead game?

A: No.   As of we're still working on development


▽ Q: What is this game?

A: An in-development computer game project for a game where you can make vehicles (cars, airplanes, tanks, etc.) out of modular pieces, take them into battle, and fight other players in online multiplayer. Damage is modular, so individual components will fall off as your bot suffers damage. A well-designed vehicle will enhance your combat prowess!


▽ Q: My antivirus doesn't like your game

A: Yeah. That's fair. Objectively speaking, it's doing the right thing (a launcher that downloads and runs another program is dubious from an InfoSec perspective).
If you'd rather download the raw game without the launcher, there should be a link on the download page. No auto-updates, but you can scan the zip yourself.
"I promise that I'm not trying to ship malware... as useless as that promise is" -- Brenn, lead engineer


▽ Q: So there's serverside accounts. What's the future of those?

A: For now, the game is in an alpha state. The economy isn't balanced, there aren't enough players to support consistent activity on the game servers, and we've been focused more on infrastructure and flexibility than specific game modes or a progression model.
As a result, the current accounts will get reset at some point in the future (progression-wise, at least; cosmetics will likely stay). After that grand "progression" update, we do not anticipate any further resets.


▽ Q: What's the current status of the game?

A: Somewhere in that nebulous alpha/pre-beta state.
Almost all of the core game systems have been implemented (we focused early on the network backend), and have been recently working on balancing combat and adding more "game content" (guns, maps, etc.).
Still lots of work to do, but the bones are there and we feel there's enough implemented to give a good impression of how the game might eventually be!


▽ Q: Is there a development timeline?

A: Wouldn't that be nice? For all of the devs this is a hobby project. Expect the devs to have full-time employment at any given point in time, so work on Procelio of necessity needs to take a backseat to "real life" obligations.
As such, estimating how much time we'll have in advance is difficult, and the scope of updates will vary based on Dev Vibes™


▽ Q: Are there any plans to work on Procelio full-time?

A: "Give me a $500k/year budget and I'd consider it" -- Brenn, lead engineer


▽ Q: Why can't I use email as my account identifier?

A: Because when Brenn wrote the initial account server GDPR was new and scary.
Eventually, we plan to offer a more modern login experience (Eventually we'll put the game on Steam), but for now you need a username to log in and both username+password for password resets.



Game Mechanics


▽ Q: How many types of weapons can I use?

A: At present, each bot is allowed three "types" of class-based customization:
1. Up to one "primary" weapon (infinite use guns with general-purpose combat utility)
2. Up to one "secondary" weapon (more niche or ammo based)
3. Up to four "modules" (passive or activatable effects)
All parts contribute to an overall "bot complexity" limit, so you might choose to add more of one system in lieu of another


▽ Q: Are you going to have 'big' weapons like that other game?

A: Nope. If (and that's an 'if') the game adds support for larger-than-normal robots in certain game modes, those bots may have special large-size components, but those components would not be available for normal-size robots.


▽ Q: Game modes?

A: For now, the game server runs a capture-point-based mode (first team to 5 points wins) with drop-in/drop-out support.
Once the playerbase can support it, we want to implement additional gamemodes with more variety.


▽ Q: Progression?

A: Progression will be largely horizontal (i.e. unlock new toys of a similar overall power level)
For people coming from "that other game:" tiers unnecessarily split a playerbase and cause myriad balance issues.



Business and Economics


▽ Q: Are you hiring?

A: As much as "join our fun low-budget hobby project" can be called hiring... yes.

Two main roles we're potentially interested in (or someone who does both):
1. "Frontend" developer: Somebody who's interested in building all of the flashy game content -- parts, gamemodes, etc.
2. Unity wrangler: Scene design, map building, figuring out why the @#$% lightmaps won't bake, etc.

Main qualifications required: some baseline amount of skill, interest and ability to dedicate a consistent amount of time to the project over time.
You get: influence over game direction, a staff-level software engineer who owes you a favor, some share of any possible future profits

Reach out on Discord if interested.


▽ Q: What's the monetization model going to be?

A: We eventually expect two main aspects
1. "Premium" -- a time-based subscription that gives you a boost to match rewards as well as other small perks.
2. Cosmetics -- Buy cosmetic items from the shop. No loot crates, no BS.

For the time being, though, the game's not in a state we think is worthy of proper monetization. If you donate on Patreon we'll give you some cosmetic currency as a "thank-you," but for the time being the server costs primarily come out of Brenn's wallet.


▽ Q: What platform will the game be on?

A: We're only planning to have PC support, as we expect the controls to work best with mouse-and-keyboard.
Windows for sure, Linux if we can get Unity to compile for it properly. Probably not MacOS. Too much hassle. ("You can buy me a Mac at my funeral" -- Brenn)
We plan to eventually put the game on Steam, but until the game is in a state we think worthy of Steam release, we're using a home-built launcher.


▽ Q: Any buyouts or exclusivity deals?

A: None planned.
"... but it depends on how much they're offering" -- Brenn


▽ Q: Any random fun facts?

A: