Outsider Playtest 6 is out! This is a private build available only to our wonderful playtesters, but it’s a major milestone because it’s the first published version with radically new content since Outsider’s 2015 release and because it has a lot of new music and graphics!

With 40K+ new words and a good deal of polish, playtesters can now experience what this game is really about… Humor, philosophical discussions, retro gaming, BBS anecdotes, early Internet life, hard sci-fi and a broad range of topics covered throughout the 7 new chapters. Getting these out of the door is what motivated me to work on Outsider, and now some people get to see it. Exciting!

Last month, then, was about doing graphics, polishing the audio, reviewing the writing, fixing bugs and adding new features. The game engine is nearly done, with just a single major feature missing… Something that requires me to get closer to the end of the story. Currently, it feels like 70-80% of the work is complete.

In the last email, I mentioned SteamFest but decided against participating in the June edition even though the game was ready for it. The Fest is about free exposure; the more wishlists you have before entering, the more free exposure you get. As the game continues to get wishlists, I decided to postpone Outsider’s participation to the next SteamFest in October. That will work well because I can release the game to the world right after and maximize its momentum. Doing that is a best practice anyway, so it all worked well.

Beyond the playtest version, I released a new demo with the latest engine and graphical improvements. If you check the demo now, you’ll get an experience very close to the final game. It still has only 4 chapters and the tutorial, though.

I also made a key decision regarding our Linux support. The demo and playtest builds are now fully supported on Linux through Proton, Valve’s Windows emulation layer. This required a few changes, but the game seems to work perfectly. The community is still discussing whether Proton compatibility is better than a native Linux version, but for now, I’ll side with those who believe that Proton is the future. Not only will I have to do less work in the long run to support Linux, but it is likely a better idea for game preservation and compatibility. Ensuring the game runs on the “emulator” today helps ensure it will keep working decades from now.

With all that stuff out of the door, I’ll try to avoid pushing myself too hard in the next month. It will be my version of a summer break. In May, I started adopting a new policy where I would no longer pack as many hours as humanely possible every week. When I finish my planned work earlier, I “go home” earlier. This was great for energy management, and I haven’t noticed any decreased productivity, so I’ll probably keep doing that in the next few months.