I just recently became a game developer...sort of.
It's a long story and if you don't want to hear all the particulars just skip to the TLDR at the bottom. If you're still reading, you had your chance, but this is a bit interesting even if I do say so myself.
First some quick history. I started playing Everspace several years ago and just fell in love with the game. Rockfish games decided to make a sequel called Everspace 2 and did a kickstarter campaign several years ago to get it going. I signed up for the kickstarter and backed the game. As a kickstarter backer I was given a beta version of the game and then when the game went into Early Access 2 years ago I was given a copy of that as well. I've been playing it ever since.
For the last 2 years I've been very active on the Everspace 2 steam forums. In fact so active that the developers and even the CEO of Rockfish took notice of me and have sent me several messages to thank me for my participation in the forums. In fact the CEO even offered at one time to perhaps name a character after me in the game however that's been awhile ago and I've not heard anything back about that so not sure if that's going to happen or not.
One of the devs reached out to me at one point and asked if I would be interested in writing some game "tips" for them. You know the ones that some games have while on a load screen or something that give you some type of tips on how to play the game. Well I sat down and wrote about 30 of them for the game based on my knowledge. The devs obviously aren't just going to use what I wrote, but I believe they did take some inspiration from my "tips".
The game is set to be released on April 6th, but back in December they updated the game with a pretty radical change to the game. I won't go into too much detail, but let's just say that I was not very happy about the direction they went and I was pretty disappointed and vocal about it on the forums. The devs took notice and we have shared a couple of back and forth steam comments. I've been very polite but have said in no uncertain terms that I think they made a mistake in the most recent direction they took with the game. The CEO of Rockfish then invited me to play test the game before it goes live to see the changes they have made in response to some of my concerns. This is not a demo or a beta, they have some play testers that they allow to play the game and provide feedback and I was given the same opportunity.
After I started testing, it was obvious why they wanted me to test, because they had made a lot of changes to the very things that I had been negative about and had implemented some of my suggested fixes. While I still wouldn't have made the same choice they did, I would have left the game the way it was, I now understand the reasoning behind the changes and for the most part I'm fine with the direction of the game again.
If you are in the mood for a really well done space adventure game, this is your best bet in my opinion. I have played plenty of other space adventure games like Descent, Earth and Beyond, Freespace, Eve Online, Elite Dangerous, No Man's Sky etc and this is far and away the best of the bunch in my opinion. What makes Everspace 2 so good is the combat model, it's like playing a 1st/3rd person action looter/shooter but with a nice mix of RPG elements sprinkled in as well. The story is engaging enough and there's some really good voice acting in here as well as some really good humorous moments that help the game along. There's just enough mining/crafting/trading etc in the game to keep it interesting. It really does have about everything you could want in this type of game, but the highlight of the game is the combat. This is NOT a space simulation. It's not Eve Online or Elite Dangerous which were very boring to me. It's Star Wars with all of it's high speed dog fighting and weapons blazing fun.
One more thing, I have almost 600 hours of game play time into the game and I have not completed the game yet. Basically with every update which have come out about every 3 months or so during early access, I started over and played the game from scratch again. I did this because they were making a lot of changes to all kinds of stuff, not just adding more to the campaign and I wanted to see what had changed from the previous version each time. The reason that I'm mentioning all this is because it's a single player game and I wanted to give you an idea of how much time you can expect to spend in this game.
I'd say the campaign alone will take you about 30 hours of game time to complete. If you want to do all the additional content other than the campaign I'd say that's going to take you around 100 hours of game time. If you want to get all of the legendary gear which you only start getting once you have reached the end game, I'd say figure on another 50 hours or so on top of that. So basically if you are a completionist, expect around 150 hours of game time from the game in my humble opinion. On top of that they have already committed to a free DLC later this year with more content and a paid DLC next year with even more content. Make no mistake, even though this is a small indie developer this is a AAA product in my opinion. It's worth every penny of the $49.99 price tag on Steam and it's also on Gamepass. I highly recommend you try the game if you have Gamepass and there is also a demo you can try on Steam, but you should probably wait until after it releases on April 6th as they have made a number of improvements in the last 2 months since the game was last updated. It's really good. The best in the genre in my humble opinion.
TLDR: Rockfish games asked if I would like to play test their game Everspace 2. Technically I didn't develop anything, but I did get to play test the game and provide feedback and even got my name in the credits, so I think that counts. I also had to sign a non disclosure agreement. I highly recommend the game if you enjoy a space shooter.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1128920/EVERSPACE_2/
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