I am happy to announce that the first alpha build of Virtueror is now available for testing!
To be part of the alpha testing you can join the Discord server of the game, where you will get access to a Windows and a Linux build.
People who will take part in alpha testing and will provide useful feedback will be rewarded with a Discord role and mentioned in credits.
Welcome to the devlog of Virtueror: The Virtual Conqueror, a Real Time Strategy game with RPG and 4X elements I am developing on my own.
The project is still in early stage, but I am going to release a first alpha build soon. If you want to try it out and take part in a very open / community-driven development make sure to join the Discord server of the game as that's where all the alpha testing will take place.
I am going to use this dev log for all kind of news related to the project during the development, so keep an eye on it if you like it.
The game will also be available on Steam, so if you use that gaming platform you can wishlist and follow it too.
Obviously the game has also a page on itchio, that you can add to your collections to track my progress.
MAIN UPDATES
It's March and I published a new dev log here on itchio that describes the progress I made during the month of February.
The main news is the creation of a map editor, even if for now it's at a very early stage and its features are extremely limited...
The editor will be fully integrated with the game, so everyone will be able to use it to create new maps.
Other changes involve the addition of a new unit, new in-game UI elements, more work on some RPG features of the units and a few of other minor changes. You can read the full details in the dev log.
Feel free to post your comments or any question here or in the dev log page.
As pre-announced in my latest dev log, I am pondering if using procedural generation for the maps of Virtueror or not. I also asked to the people in the Discord server of the game what they think about it.
Click on the image to see the options, then feel free to join us on Discord or to comment here if you want to express your opinion.
Despite the slow period, I have been working on some new features recently.
Now defensive towers are fully working and they start to shoot at enemies as soon as one is in range.
Another new feature is that when objects are hit they emit small particles.
Keep in mind that GIF compression is not really making justice to the animation, but I promise things look better in game.
Currently I am working on some improvements for the in-game UI, in particular I am focusing on the actions panel that allows to control units and structures.
I will post more as soon as I finish with that.
You probably know this already, but... indie development is hard, especially if you have a day job.
Recently I have been struggling to do much in terms of development and marketing and as result in the last 3 weeks I did less than what I used to do in a week the previous month.
The main difference is that this month I didn't have any day off from work and I also had to put some extra hours into my day job because of a deadline.
That, combined with temperatures up to 35C/95F for many days, kept me too tired to do anything relevant.
At least things are looking better now.
I spent the whole weekend working on 2 new features (that I am going to show you soon) and I took 1 day off per week (starting from this one) for the rest of the month.
I also put up a poll in my game Discord server to ask if people wanted to try the game as it is now or in 4-6 weeks to have a better experience in terms of gameplay.
Not everybody voted yet, but it's clear what people prefer and that's what I am going to do.
If you want to follow my progress from close and if you would like to influence the development of Virtueror, you can join my Discord server too.
I have recently introduced a new building in Virtueror: a radar startion.
After you conquer it, you have to connect it to your base to activate it. That's a core mechanic of Virtueror as I have already shown you when I explained how resource mining works.
In the future it will also be possible to build it with your units and to expand its range with upgrades.
If you want to find out more about this game check out its itchio page.
I am happy to announce that Virtueror is now on Steam!
I would appreciate any feedback you might have on my page and I hope you will wishlish and follow it if you like what you see. 
I have also managed to bump the completion tag to 20% thanks to the latest effort in development. I will probably show you something new in my next post.
Obviously there's still a lot to do and I know well it will not be easy, but I am excited for the progress so far. 
The itchio page will be live very soon as well. I just need a bit of time to check everything is fine and to make it public.
I just created a new page for my project and I set its visibility to "restricted" as I want to show it to a few people before going public.
I followed the documentation and I created a download key URL, but when people try to use it and click on the "Game page" link:
All they get is a "404 not found" error page with a frog.
Everything works fine if I set a password to view the page.
Is there any way to give access to my game's page without setting a password?
Reading the documentation it seems that should be possible, but I can't get it working.
The fact that I am posting this update on a Saturday night at almost 1am should give you an idea about how busy my week has been...
On the bright side I have also some important news to share, but let's start with the update.
Early this week I have published a new monthly dev log recap on the blog of Virtueror. This one covers the progress I made with my game during the month of May.
One of the latest new features is defensive towers:
You will find more details and also a new bug of the month in the blog post, so I'll leave you to it.
I mentioned some important news and here it is...
The Steam page of Virtueror has been approved and it will go live soon, on the 9th of June:
I know this is just one more step of a very long journey, but it feels like things are getting real now and it's scary and exciting at the same time!
That also means that the itch.io page is almost ready and it will go live on the same day (if not sooner). Ill make sure to post an update when it's live.
Yesterday I spent most of my day playing my game and taking screenshots for the upcoming Steam and itchio pages.
I wanted to share with you one that I am probably going to use:
It's been pretty time consuming, also because I only have 1 test level at the moment and showing different things has been pretty challenging, but I managed to get 6 decent screenshots in the end (after taking about 40...).
I also coded a few little debugging features that will help me in the future and I started to think about game balancing and spotted a couple of new bugs.
Overall it took more than I anticipated, but putting all together it's been a good step forward toward my long journey!
I published a new dev log video to show the main new features I added to Virtueror in the last month of development:
For this month they are:
Map navigation - that's something I previewed with a GIF in a post from a couple of weeks ago. Now you can see it in action on video.
New units - now it's possible to create different unit types and each has its own attributes, RPG style. There's also a new dedicated dialog to do that:
Combat and shooting - I implemented some very basic combat and shooting mechanics. There's still a lot to do, but it's nice to start to see some more interaction in game!
I should have probably have done it earlier, but I finally set up a traditional web blog for Virtueror.
I am planning to use it for posting monthly updates about all the changes and new features I worked on during each month, but also to post major news and events related to my game.
The other week I published a first post that highlights all the main development news for the month of April.
People who have been following me here and on YouTube are probably already aware of a good half of what is in that post, but there are also new features like the brand new map scrolling:
I am also revealing the "bug of the month", which I won't spoil you here, but you can find at the end of my post, so happy reading. ;-)
I also want to point out that I will keep this dev log alive and I will continue to post weekly here. The game blog is more for bigger posts and announcements and it's not going to replace what I write here.
I always planned to involve gamers in the development of Virtueror and that's why I created a Discord server and invited a few people I know when I started to work on this game.
Now I am getting to the stage where I can finally open the doors to even more people!
If you like Real Time Strategy games and if you would like to influence the development of Virtueror, you can join me in this journey by signing up here.
After doing that you will receive an email with an invite to join the Discord server (check your spam folder if you don't receive anything within 5 minutes).
There you will be able to:
All that in preparation for the first alpha build that will be available only to Discord members in early June.
Make sure to sign up soon as tomorrow (Friday 30) we are going to vote for the initial Steam capsule and that will be your first chance to influence the destiny of Virtueror!
Feel free to reply to this post if you have any question.
As a solo indie developer I have to do more than coding and designing game mechanics and new graphics, I also have to take care of production and marketing.
Recently I focused especially on these other sides of game development and I wanted to share with you a couple of important results from my efforts.
About the production department, I am proud to announce that I am now registered as Steamworks partner.
That means that I can finally start to work on the Steam page of Virtueror!
My goal is to have a page up by the end of May, but I'll try my best to get it done even before that. I doubt I will have a trailer since day 1, but nothing is sure yet.
You might be asking what about an itch.io page? Well, I am working on that too of course... ;-) and I am planning to publish it on the same day the Steam page goes live, if not before that. I will try to plan a date in a week or two, so follow this dev log to find out more.
I also achieved a tiny victory in the marketing department.
Since yesterday my YouTube channel, where I post all my dev log videos, passed the first meaningful mark: 100 subs.
I know that's far from impressive, but considering that is all organic traffic and that my game is still in very early stage I am pretty happy with it.
If you want to support and follow my development you can subscribe to my channel and help me pushing that number even higher.
