Salutations, backers!
I hope you're all keeping well. Today we'll be walking you through some stuff we wanted to share with you!




The finalization of the navigation system has been a priority for us lately, and we spent many days and nights drowning in spreadsheets to make sure every last planet in the galaxy has the correct location, visuals and lore and is triggered appropriately in the story.

Our programmers have also been busy smoothing out the look of the systems and the feel of the Mary Celeste's movement so you all have a great time using it to explore every last nook and asshole of Prodigium.





You can look forward to finding some fun sidequests while you do, and we're in the process of finishing up the script for these events. Word to the wise - don't pursue these unless you're up for memelording of the highest order.

In terms of game design, making sure the game's RPG loop of exploration, combat and loot is solid also received a lot of attention this month. We've come up with some exciting ideas to make everything tie together in a fun way and will be testing them very soon.




In terms of other core systems, we've also been optimizing the Dialogue Input System (DIS) and nailing the visuals of how it portrays the plot of Subverse. Since this is a long, plot-driven game (no, really) you're going to spend hours and hours starting at this screen and it's critical that we get it right.





What we're putting together is something that we've never really seen before. Most RPGs using a text-based system just opt for sprites with a few tweaks here and there, but Subverse utilizes 3D characters that have fully-animated emotion states based on the dialogue playing. Because of this, a lot of care needs to be paid to animation interpolation (aka the transitions between these poses).

Getting all of this in place means you will engage with the characters and action in a much more meaningful way, and it's necessary to bring the game to life with the quality you deserve.




And of course, when it comes to foundations no other system is more prevalent than the UI as we want you to find what you need on the screen easily, and have all the tools at your disposal to wreak havoc upon the Prodigium galaxy. We recently finished creating the layout for every required screen in the game and our talented graphic artists are currently assembling the final drafts so the programmers can integrate them.



In keeping with our Q2 2020 Roadmap projections, the next dev diary will detail the release of two new factions for the SHMUP's endless mode - the FUCCBOTTS and the KLOI!

Though you've already tussled with the Fuccbotts in Dallick's recruitment mission, that scenario utilized their DEFENDER A.I. This is the first time you'll fight them when they're only fixated on plunging their dicksabers deep into the F3N1X's hull.





Who are the KLOI, you ask? If you recall, they're the same species as Elaisha Sorn. More details about their lore and nefarious combat tactics will be revealed on the 28th!




And when it comes to nefarious tactics, you can look forward to some from the Captain himself in the next manga. Make sure you join our Discord and Twitter so you know the minute it releases!





Sincerely,

Mr. Kristoff

- Senior Producer

IT'S NUDIE MAGAZINE DAY!






We're pleased to present twenty-two pages of R-WADE's fine work in FULL FUCKING COLOR! Let me tell you, seeing Lily's asshole blush a lovely shade of red as it gets destroyed is just all sorts of bueno.

While the previous manga was pretty dark, this one is about as lighthearted as you can get while featuring a woman impaled by a manticore cock the size of Dallick. If you're a fan of gang bangs and massive insertions, then this one's for you!

Just like last time, we can't post a link here due to the rules. You can find the download links on our Discord server or simply search for Subverse on Luscious hentai, Pururin or Sad Panda.

And now I'll turn things over to one of our talented programmers to tell you about another one of our recruitment quests.






Greetings, perverts. Professor Bang here, and I've brought you some ALPHA screenshots from one of the most unique SHMUP sequences in Subverse. Let me tell you about the Temple of Defilement - it's dark, full of traps and sentries, and it certainly doesn't help that you have a hungry little catgirl aboard your ship.





We made this mission with stealth in mind, so you can't just whip your cannon out and blast all over the place to get through it. In this old, crumbling temple there are sentries marching and scanning the area for intruders. You will also have to deal with pressure-sensitive walls, trap doors, and since this is a video game there are of course plenty of hazards made of molten lava.

We'll be using lava or magma-like surfaces in many different environments and scenarios, so we decided to make a universal lava material. With some noise and rock texture we were able to achieve a good boiling look. Also, a lot of panning and distortion had to be added to the logic, and we even added some vertex displacement on top of it so the surface will actually be moved by the waves.





Illumination is sparse, so utilizing the headlight on your ship for navigation will be crucial. You can either play it safe and learn the sentries' movement patterns or just be fast enough to zip through them. Though it is tricky, don't worry - checkpoints are aplenty so the experience is fun rather than frustrating.

I'm excited for all of you to explore the Temple of Defilement with your eager kitty companion who unfortunately doesn't always care if it's the appropriate time to play."

But that's not all...I'm also excited to welcome one of our veteran FOW animators to the dev diary for the first time!







"God kväll, Moneyshot here. I've been with the studio since 2014, back when we had to survive the pain of animating throbbing horse balls in Source Filmmaker. For my services to smut, I was rewarded with the title of lead animator for Subverse.

I just got sent a note with the daily lowering of the bucket providing me sustenance.

It read: “For legal reasons I need written proof that you are still alive, so write something for the backers down on this piece of paper. And don’t eat it, you fat fuck.”

So here I am. Let's talk about poses first.

The hentai magic starts with getting all of the necessary characters into the scene. Both for technical reasons and easier workflow, each character and their accessories gets uniquely named rig prefixes: Demi1, BigDude1, SmallDude1, BigDude1Dick etc.

Depending on the need for the poses and animation, these rigs are altered to give a better workflow. For example, Killi's tail may need to grab something and thus the gripping section works better in FK (Forward Kinematics) while the rest is in IK (Inverse Kinematics).

The poses are blocked up either with reference images or greatest tool of all - a pervert's imagination.





Not only does the pose have to bring out the star of the show's best bits, it also has to work with the three different sex speeds: SLOW, FAST and CLIMAX. Whilst not all sex scenes follow this formula, its still good practice to consider speed variations.

With the pose finished, we animators add a placeholder light setup to spot anything that might look weird during animation. After all, shaders work in mysterious ways.

The camera is also finalized by the director during this phase. Obviously, we animate to the primary angle chosen, otherwise this game would take 16 years to make.





Now for the animation!

If the scenario requires loops for things such as handjobs and thrusts, those are firstly blocked out to get the timing, power of the thrusts, and jiggle correct so they can be checked for feedback by the director. Once the loop is finalized and cleared they can be copy/pasted and have their timing tweaked.

On top of that, the loops have some variation added and a lot of other customized animation for the bodies and whatnot gets blocked out. There is yet another round of feedback required for this step, because it's much easier to make changes if needed at this stage as what comes next is finalizing the animation. All these tiny details are just half the work for the entire process.

If the scene doesn't really require any loops, the long custom animation is blocked out and checked for feedback a bit more often in Sequencer. These kinds of animations usually take longer to make so it's best to be sure it's heading in the right direction.

The final step is handing off the anim asset for the production team to insert full lights and post-processing. Animating natively in UE4 is real-time, so even if some bugs are discovered during this process, fixing them is easier. Real-time is something we value highly due to rapid iteration and is a big part of why the transition from SFM to UE4 was chosen. The engine is very powerful and makes SFM look like a kindergarten toy. Seeing the final clip on max settings is pure instant gratification. Every artist wants to see their work finished without having to wait for a VFX team to finish it one year and $50 million later."





We'll see you all next month when we'll have even more programmer entries and an update on our navigation system.

Stay safe!

Sincerely,

Mr. Kristoff

- Senior Producer

Good news, FOW fans...we've got a big, steaming pile of tentacles and lady dicks to make your happy fappy quarantine all the better!








I'm elated and erect to announce the release of the first of our four Subverse manga, created by none other than the legend responsible for the Hunter no Seitai series - the mighty Makari Tohru!!!

We told our mangaka that we wanted them to really push the limits with these stories so our fans that enjoy darker, more intense content than will be seen in the Subverse game and it was CERTAINLY delivered.





Obviously we can't post a link here, so visit a Luscious hentai website of the .net variety or the mirrors at Pururin and Sad Panda to enjoy 50 masterful pages of top-tier non-canon fap material!




The disgustingly obscene Dallick vs the Fuccbotts fight is now available for all closed beta participants!





This is the first SHMUP mission we've released that features our special DEFENDER AI, which means your enemies will be focused on attacking a specific ship or structure rather than you. In this case, the Fuccbotts are looking to rip Dallick's Keisterstation a new exhaust port and it's up to you to stop them and earn the trust of the six-balled stoner so he'll join the crew of the Mary Celeste and serve as your loyal mechanic.

In terms of balance this mission is still very much a WIP, so we're mainly looking to make sure everything is functioning properly. As always, please use the in-game feedback tool to let us know how your sessions went!

A few protips - the charge drive (SPACEBAR) is extremely effective against approaching waves of Prick Lancers, and when Dallick gets his EMP countermeasures charged up...RUN AWAY!





Empress Celestina's character bio page is now available on our website along with her 3D model! We know this is one everybody's been requesting for some time now, so enjoy your ogling. She is voiced by Sarita Belle, who is a newcomer to the FOW team but certainly earned her place with this role! It's no easy feat to play the RULER OF THE WHOLE GODDAMN GALAXY.

That's all for this diary, so we'll see you next time. And of course...whether you're simply taking precautions or cleaning up after a particularly shameful display of masturbatory prowess, don't forget to wash your hands!

Sincerely,

Mr. Kristoff
Sr. Producer

Hello everyone! HungryJJ here, this week I’ll be discussing some of the space combat-related tech that I’ve been working on. I hope not to bore you all too much. 😊

I want to share some insight on how we handle environments that are associated with the various levels you will encounter during space combat gameplay.

The goal was to make it easier for us to design cool-looking backdrops more efficiently so that when a player starts a space combat mission, the environment is relevant to the nebula and anomaly you are exploring.

As the space combat developed over time through prototyping, we noticed a trend of the most common environmental elements that we primarily used. Some of the examples are dust clouds, debris fields, relevant background scene objects (i.e. planets, suns, derelict ships, skybox), post processing effects, skylights and fog effects. With each element, we exposed corresponding properties so that anything can be tweaked. Depending on the element, these tweaks can manipulate color, scale, position, rotation, quantity and much more.



The tool is setup in a way that all the compatible settings are exposed so that environment designers with limited experience can jump right in and begin creating a scene. Once a designer is happy with their scene, we can populate the configuration onto any mission and override the look if necessary. They can also serve as templates for a specific type of mission. E.g. a mission through an asteroid field in the Hydra nebula would generate asteroids with a green nebula backdrop

It was important to us to provide some variation in the environments to the player, in order to make their experience cohesive whilst traveling through the Prodigium. Even subtle changes in the space scape like tweaking a star’s intensity can provide a different visual experience. Enough talk, here are some example screenshots of the settings we use, and how it translates into a procedural environment ingame thanks to the streamlined tools.







The modeling team in the meantime has finished up Empress Celestina. She’s looking good, check her out below.



We've also been finishing up some "Mantics" (your pets, or should I say Lily's pets) that the player evolves and breeds inside the Lab. Ugly critter, ain't he?



I hope enjoyed this small insight on what we have been up to. Look forward to sharing more results in the future. Later.

-HungryJJ

We promised we'd tease what the succubus secretary supreme looked like in her human form, so here's Fow-chan just in time to warm your crotches for valentine's day!




And when it comes to new models, make sure you check out the CHARACTERS section on our website - we've put up new pages for Sova and Dallick as well as revealed one the main villains - Blythe (aka the Corrupt General). She's an important character in Subverse that even leads her own faction, so we hope you all enjoy theorycrafting the plot from the information we've provided in her bio.

While you're there, you might as well get an eyeful of the Captain's new business casual duds. Oh, and if you check our twitter, there might be some juicy space dwarf ass to slobber over.




But it's not just character models on display today...get a load of these bad boys our SHMUP expert HungryJJ hacked together himself from various sex toys discarded by Fow-Chan.




It's time to meet the Fuccbotts! These rogue A.I. constructs are one of the five major enemy factions that can be fought in both grid and space combat. The Mary Celeste will have an unfortunate close encounter with them relatively early in the script, but unraveling their nefarious origins is one of the great mysteries of Subverse.

The focus of this chaotic, horny hive mind is to swarm the player and overwhelm with their numbers and deadly, personal-space invading close-quarters attacks.

You ever take a supercharged cock lightsaber to the face? No? Well...GET READY, FUCKERS!

Expect to see these guys in the closed beta relatively soon.




We'd also like to once again thank everyone that pledged to take part in the closed beta that is also providing us with excellent feedback. We're parsing over the data from the last boss fight, but overall it seems like a success. The majority of concerns focused on the last phase's design not being as well-implemented as the first two and Tibold's difficulty being slightly too high for a first boss, so we'll see what we can do about that.




Bringing this big, perverted galaxy to life has been no easy task, but our modeling team has been working hard putting together the backdrops environments that we'll be telling the story of Subverse in!

We're currently working on finishing up the last of the major set pieces that appear consistently throughout the story. Here's a sweet WIP shot of the Holy Imperium Palace where you can find Empress Celestina sitting her fine ass upon the throne, ruling over all of Prodigium.






With a sexy space opera epic of this scale, we've been up to our elbows in lore since the start. Organizing all of the information has been a hell of a task, but now our in-game Codex is looking mighty fine. You'll be able to access it at any time to read up on additional lore for every single major and minor item in the game once you've unlocked their corresponding entries through progress.

The Codex also been a blessing for all of the staff working on the game as we use it for reference and for getting newer members up to speed on the universe.






Did someone say comic books??? We cannot stress enough just how boner-riffic these goddamn manga are turning out to be. We also want to remind you that they will be made available to EVERYONE as a thank you for meeting the stretch goal.

Here you can see a lovely preview of Fortune enjoying some ice cream. DC will have more news on the manga in the coming updates once he emerges from the hell that is the localization room.





The next dev diary is going to be a big one, going into depth about our 2020 strategy with a comprehensive roadmap marking the target dates we intend to hit for every major milestone throughout the rest of the year.

Want to know when grid combat should hit the closed beta? Or how about when we expect Subverse to release?

Be here on the 28th and all will be revealed. As always, we understand asking legions of nerds with throbbing erections to wait isn't the easiest thing, so your patience is appreciated.

Sincerely,

Mr. Kristoff

- Senior Producer

Hi folks!

As promised, this week's (Oct 28th 2019) dev diary will focus more on the technical side of things and lay out how we solved the issue of populating our galaxy with planets. Stalwart code-junkie One Eyed Jeremy here, and I'm here to explain everything in gory detail.

Our resident madman/director DC came down to our basement some time ago (was it weeks? Months? It has been so long we last saw the light of day…) and asked us to write some form of development tool to help us efficiently put all of your awesome planet ideas into the game. Because there are over 600 planets and nearly 100 systems in Subverse we needed a kind of easily-usable-editor to plot the galaxy out for the benefit of progression. The editor would allow the director to populate the world, essentially. He named it the Planet-O-Matic.



Eagerly we obliged and started work on it. Since we’re all about Data Driven Programming (a quick explanation for those of you who don’t know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data-driven_programming), we figured we only needed to write a GUI to display/edit data: planets, and other orbiting objects, their respective loot events, their encompassing solar systems and nebula. All of these were already described in different Data Tables (Unreal Engine’s equivalent of good ol’ Data Sheets: https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Gameplay/DataDriven/index.html).

Logically, we came up with the architecture depicted in the stack diagram:



Figure 1 Planet-O-Matic Stack Diagram

Possibly one of the least complex systems we devised, the Planet-O-Matic strives for its simplicity: It features 2 levels in the UI layer (depicted in green), 3 in the application layer (shown in blue) and one data layer level (illustrated in yellow). The first layer, the UI, strongly depends on Editor Utility Widgets (https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/UMG/UserGuide/EditorUtilityWidgets/index.html). These utilities allow us to extend the UE editor and even run Editor-only code. They even come with several convenience methods (e.g. changing assets’ names, selecting all actors inside a umap, save a umap, etc.). In our current architecture, this widget-type comprises several other regular widgets, responsible for input and showing the planets/objects/solar systems’ attributes. However, it is worth noting that, Editor Code cannot run on regular widgets, even if they are components of Editor Utility Widgets.



Making our way toward the second layer, we start with its upmost level: Widget Blueprints. As you Unreal Engine techies already know, user widgets (and their editor utility counterparts), already come equipped with the ability to edit/run blueprint logic. This is where the magic happens, namely which widgets to show, what happens when you click on a button, reading Data Tables, etc. Unfortunately, while Editor Widgets have some exposed code to manipulate aspects of the editor itself, it didn’t have available what we wanted. As such, we developed our own wrapper to expose ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) what we needed. This came in the form of a C++ Blueprint Function Library (so we could reuse this on other dev tools). This was easily achieved by creating a class deriving from UBlueprintFunctionLibrary and writing static methods for it (As a side note, editor-only code cannot go with code used in the game or the project won’t build, our solution to this revolved around creating an Editor plugin: https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Programming/Plugins/index.html).



In the end, we were able to write methods that allowed us to update data tables, delete assets, access UE4’s color picker and asset selector, play a umap in PIE mode, etc. While the latter 2 tasks helped improve our tool’s usability, the first one, updating data tables, provided us with a means to write on the data layer since UE4 already exposes data table reads.

This way, we could directly transcribe the user-inputted values on the layer’s data-tables without having to open them. In the end, it allows for users with limited UE4 experience to design rapidly and iteratively. With the foundation in place, our directors and artist can get down to the fun part, designing and implementing all the planets for you guys to explore. Thanks for reading!




- OneEyedJeremy

Due to a Steam bug, I have been unable to post announcements with the authoring tools. This has been fixed, please note that all dates in the following announcement were made on October 14, 2019.




Huge thanks to everyone who participated in the beta of our SHMUP module! The biggest surprise was the overwhelmingly positive response of the backers to the gameplay. Out of the 3,200 or so current participants, I can count the number of people who didn’t have fun on 1 hand, which says something about how well we nailed it. Still, there is still a long road ahead so we have to stay humble and focused. The dev team and myself read all the feedback so keep ‘em coming – and if you haven’t claimed your beta key yet be sure to head over to Discord and do so. (Note that you have to be a Beta Backer on KS).

The beta will keep running and we’ll add more stuff to test independently. There will indeed be more weapons and loadout configurations - based on which waifu you take with you as your copilot, no less...

And of course, style is paramount to these babes, so your copilots will get cute helmets when they’re in the cockpit with you…







Squidgirl modeling actually went much smoother than anticipated. I expected us to have a lot of trouble due to her…uhh…unique anatomy but as usual Dzung and his team did an exceptional job. I’ve attached a collage below so you guys can see her model from more angles. Like a true bounty hunter, she’s got a tool for every situation. Having a melee weapon as well as a ranged pistol means we can experiment with making her a “hybrid” type unit in grid combat. Can’t wait to see her in the beta testers’ hands once the tactical combat is ready for testing!


We’re gonna take a crack at Empress Celestina’s model next, since she appears much earlier in the game than Sova. And she is actually a hugely important character in the game, and somebody I feel needs special attention, so it’s important to dedicate a bit more time to her model than originally planned.


A lot of you have asked about the soundtrack and I’m here to reassure you that we haven’t forgotten about it. Music and sound play an integral part of our movies and we want to continue this trend into Subverse as well. We’re working with several talented, young and hungry artists who will be contributing to the game’s soundtrack. One of them is Fadent, whose “Time Apart” track will set the scene for some of the game’s key moments. It’s great to have him onboard and contributing to the Prodigium Galaxy! In addition, we'll have character themes in place for each waifu, navigation, grid/space battles, and some bosses! We've got it all covered!





On a personal note it’ll be great to have the main actors back for Chapter 4 and I can’t wait for recording to get started. Samantha has been doing a great job setting everything up and making sure we’re prepped for the mammoth task ahead. Since we’ll be recording remotely for the most part, giving the actors as much lead-time as possible is important, especially for the newer cast members.

Next update we’ll hope to give some more technical insights into the game from the programmers themselves, to give people a break from all the art-stuff. See you then!

-DC

Due to a Steam bug, I have been unable to post announcements with the authoring tools. This has been fixed, please note that all dates in the following announcement were made on September 28, 2019.



It was a busy September here at StudioFOW and it’s the first full month where I could see all the new additions to the team fully integrated into Subverse’s workflow, and I have to say – I like what I’m seeing. We’ve been careful and recruited very intelligently to make sure we have the right personnel in place to deliver the game. As a result, everyone is gelling and we seem to finally have a nice little indie studio vibe going on. There’s even a token gimp leashed to Yagskie’s desk who refills his coffee. Who needs a $5000 espresso machine?




Next up on the waifu conveyor belt is another one of the promised Kickstarter stretch goals, the infamous “Huntress” aka squidgirl. She is a departure from our usual bevy of stacked femme fatales, offering a... flatter alternative for the discerning Captain. Don't let her cute looks fool you, she's a relentless space combat boss that hunts you throughout the game, and we took great pains to integrate her into the main storyline so that she doesn’t feel like a tacked on KS reward. As a result, I think you guys will enjoy her recruitment mission which is an exciting riff on 80s action movies all the way through. We’re applying the finishing touches on the model now and she will be viewable on the StudioFOW website in October.





Another promised reward was the delivery of the Subverse hentai doujin. Over the last few months I’ve been working closely with several prominent mangaka in order to bring this to life and I’m thinking you guys will enjoy the fruits of our labor. The doujins play to each artists’ established strengths, whilst keeping with the themes of the game...meaning that both fans of the mangaka and fans of Subverse will be hype for it. And if you're fans of both...well, then you're in for a real treat. Another great thing about these doujins is that they allow us to explore darker content we are not able to in the game. As we get closer to releasing the manga next year I am getting more and more excited to share snippets with everyone. And of course, the reward will be free to all StudioFOW fans and backers.



At long last the entirety of the script is locked and ready to be recorded by the sultriest VAs we could find. Clocking in at over 400 pages, this is about 5 movies worth of galactic debauchery - full of twists, turns, romance, drama and more toilet humor than you could shake a Chutt’s dingleberry at. We split the writing into three phases

1) Main script including all the new cinematics

2) All onboard dialogue including post-mission conversations and reactions to galactic events

3) Loyalty quests and side missions for each waifu

As you can see, there is a LOT to record. Normally I would have liked to save this until the end, but due to the massive lead-times associated with recording a script of this size, we will start recording sessions as soon as October in order to get as much voiced content ready for 1.0 as possible. I’d rather be slightly inefficient than to miss the 1.0 build being voiced, because the performances really bring everything to life.





The long awaited beta of the space shooter is live this weekend (September 28, 2019, original posting date.) – right on schedule as promised. Eligible backers (£75 and up) need to head on over to the Discord and register your key with the awesomely named “Masterbeta” bot which will assign you a key. Once you have your key you’ll be able to opt into the beta on Steam if you own Subverse in your library. Remember, this is just a bare-bones build so whilst aesthetic feedback is noted, we are honestly looking for feedback on mechanics e.g. does it feel responsive, are you having trouble with a particular enemy type, do the hitboxes feel right for you?

Testers have an important role, but it’s also important to be laser-precise with your feedback. Because there are so many of you, it will take some time to sift through all the feedback and get to the critical issues, therefore patience is appreciated. Heading into the Fall we are really excited to be finishing up the last few remaining waifus and getting deeper into the gameplay elements, working together with our 4000+ testers to create a worthy adult game for pervs everywhere to enjoy.

-DC

Welcome back to another thrilling addition of the Subverse dev diaries, a series of creator updates with dirty words and even dirtier space girls.

Meow!



As you can see, we've put the finishing touches on our catgirl infiltration specialist - Taron Kraask! Taron was one of the first stretch goals for Subverse, and the whole team was super excited to bring her to life.

Taron's species is known as the nikith (nigh-kith), which are obviously the Subverse equivalent of the feline humanoids so prevalent in the hentai world. Most nikith are content remaining in the hunter-gatherer phase of their society, but Taron fell in love with technology as soon as she had a fateful close encounter with an alien vibrator.

Since she is still relatively young and doesn't have much experience with culture outside her primitive planet, this can cause Taron to come across as socially awkward in many situations. However, her radiant positivity, eagerness to please and genetically inherent addiction to the pheromones of solar males like the Captain make her a shiny beacon of endlessly horny hope aboard the Mary Celeste.

That previously mentioned and almost inconveniently powerful reaction towards the protagonist of Subverse leads to all sorts of hilarious and fun interactions in the game, especially during her recruitment missions. But don't worry...despite her seemingly whimsical characterization, this kitty has claws and sick ninja moves that will allow you to stealthily shred through the opposition in both grid and space combat. She is voiced by StudioFOW legend Milly Stern, who also voiced 2B in our most downloaded movie ever: Nier First Assembly (yes, even more popular than K3).


As we previously mentioned, the closed beta begins on Saturday, September 28th!

To make sure you are ready to go, use the following checklist:

1.) Have Big Bang Theorist backer status (donation of £75 or more).

2.) Redeem your Steam key that was previously provided so that Subverse is in your Steam library.

3.) Join the Studio FOW Discord server and access the Beta Oasis room.

4.) Send a DM to the bot "Masterbeta#1202" after it is launched on Saturday, September 21st, and follow the instructions to receive your beta key.

5.) Redeem that secondary key on Steam to add the beta download branch to Subverse.

6.) Download the update when Steam states it is available on the 28th.

7.) Open the first closed beta build and have fun!

Bug reports and feedback forms are available in-game and will be sent to Studio FOW's internal servers for review. It is immensely helpful if you can provide the context of what happened when you experience any bugs so we can potentially recreate these situations and analyze them, so please be sure to include as much specific information as possible!




On that note, we're starting the party with our SHMUP-tacular gameplay! The first closed beta build will include three sections:

1.) SHMUP tutorial level, administered by DEMI

2.) The first space gameplay mission of Subverse

3.) "Endless mode" for testing purposes

While the first two sections are obviously intended to give you a gentle introduction to how space combat works in Subverse, the third is our little gift to the community that will allow you to play to your heart's content and hopefully uncover some bugs for us to fix in the process. The first pool of enemies is limited to pirates but we'll add more dickheads to the builds as beta progresses.

For now, you will be playing the game mode that we refer to as ANNIHILATION (kill everything = victory). As we continue development, we will also make additional modes playable such as the previously revealed DEFENDER where you are responsible for protecting objectives.

So how exactly does space combat work in Subverse? Here's a mini-instruction manual and rundown of the gameplay:




Your ship is guided with WASD movement. Subverse is primarily one of those rare free-roaming SHMUPs that allows you to wreak havoc all across the map rather than forcing you in one direction.

Hitting the shift key will activate cruise mode, which gives the F3N1X a speed boost to help you dodge attacks, flank bad guys or get to a defensive position much faster.




Aiming is accomplished by moving a targeting reticle around the screen with the mouse. You can open fire on any targets acquired using the left mouse button, which is the trigger for the F3N1X's basic repeating particle cannon. It has unlimited ammo, so you can blast away and kill things real good all you want.

You'll also have access to the first special attack of the game, which is a precision-strike missile. It can be fired with the right mouse button. Should the projectile collide with anything, it will instantly detonate. However, you can also manually detonate it in the middle of clusters of enemies for a big sexy multi-kill. Note that this weapon reduces your ship's energy, so you must wait for it to recharge before it's ready to fire again.

Speaking of energy, the F3N1X has access to another attack tied to the space bar called the charge drive. This will send your ship speeding forward at lethal velocity, either destroying or causing heavy damage to any enemies dumb enough to not get the fuck outta the way. The charge drive can also be used to dodge enemy projectiles in a pinch.




With two attacks tied to the energy resource system, you're likely to run out fast if you spam them. However, lucky for you, energy pickups will be available from fallen enemies.

Note that there are two levels of ship integrity in Subverse - shields and hull. Shields regenerate automatically after a period of time when no additional damage is taken, whereas hull does not. You can pick up health packs to get your hull back into shape.




You'll be throwing down with the pirates, which are the first enemy faction in Subverse. We guarantee these guys are all complete assholes, so don't feel bad about reducing them to wreckage and racking up points in the process.

You can increase your score in Subverse by defeating enemies, and each enemy has a different score value attached to them. There are currently five unique rival vessels in the build, and each of them can be found in escalating levels of difficulty (distinguished by color schemes).

Each one will require a different strategy to defeat. It's when you have multiple different classes of enemy on the screen coming at you at the same time that Subverse really shines as an arcade shooter that rewards quick-thinking, resource management and defensive movement combined with aggressive attack patterns.

We're all thrilled to see how the initial gameplay is received! However, please keep in mind that we are still barely in beta (its more like an alpha) and we have a long way to go before the game reaches its potential.




More excellent news! We are very confident our digital art rewards will be ready on time for their estimated release dates (End of 2019 for the calendar, early 2020 for the art book). Both projects are turning out even better than we imagined, and we can't wait to send them out to our loyal supporters! Expect a few teases here and there as more dev diaries are published.


We're working around the clock like usual to finish up the last few waifu and main character models, so we'll have updates about those soon.

We hope you all take care and look forward to working with you throughout the rest of Subverse's development!

Sincerely,

Mr. Kristoff

- Senior Producer

Greetings once again to our loyal backers! I'm happy to be bringing you the most important dev diary yet.

By the way, Fortune says hello.




We're delighted to announce the closed beta will begin for all Big Bang Theorists (backers that pledged £75 or more) on September 28th, 2019! Make sure you have your keys retrieved and activated in your Steam libraries so you can access it.

As previously mentioned, this first build will include the SHMUP tutorial and the first mission of the game. However, we're also adding an endless combat mode for testing purposes. If you're eligible, Make sure you drop by our Discord server and sign up for the Beta Oasis room so you can give us feedback and report any bugs there.


Here's an updated WIP of Taron Kraask's model, which includes her color scheme. We're putting the finishing touches on her fur textures to make sure she's extra fabulous before her first appearance on the cat walk.



For all you Studio 69 VIPs, we're pleased to reveal the club itself in all its glory! Now that it has had a final pass done on the lighting and assets, it's up to the quality we first envisioned for it. We hope you all look forward to chilling, having a drink and playing a few bar games with your favorite waifus here.




And now, at long last, we are proud to present our unique and powerful system of customized hand-holding in Subverse - PANDORA!

Pandora is a tech tree that allows you to send your lap rocket on a fucktacular journey into the black hole of your choice. Remember how we talked about the XP capsule system (aka PP/Pooter Points) last week? Every time your waifu levels up, you get one PP. You can insert your PP right here.


There are three pools of hand-holding from which you can unlock scenes:

CAPTAIN - 1v1 fun with the panty-faced protagonist, both in POV and cinematic poses.

CREW - The ladies of Subverse get to have futa fun with each other courtesy of Dr. Lillian Margaliss's insta-dick technology as well as some group poses involving other Mary Celeste denizens.

XENO - Big old sloppy 100% certified organic Manticore meat monster hogs for your waifus to enjoy. You can look forward to fiends of both the bi and quadrupedal variety to play with.

All of these options also contain categories hand-animated by our artisan fucksmiths, and our animations are tailored to each waifu's unique personality, i.e. Killi will be more dominant with her teases.

Here are the categories below:

TEASE - (Pre-meal Cocktail) Good old fashioned animated pinups.

FOREPLAY - (Appetizers) Basically any kind of lewd act ending with "-job."

SEX - (Entree) The meat and potatoes course of the night where you can enjoy a variety of orifices.

AFTERS - (Dessert) The creamy, cuddly icing on your waifu. A great way to end the night.

You can insert the scenes you've unlocked into their corresponding Pandora Player slots (e.g. unlock a TEASE with Lily, it goes into the TEASE slot). This allows you to essentially assemble your very own custom short movies. Different scenes from different trees can be mixed and matched to create a smorgasbord of depravity. You can even save presets of your favorite combinations or just hit randomize and go to town on whatever Pandora has in store for you!

While you will gain enough PP throughout the course of Subverse to unlock every single scene, you are free to specialize in just a single tree if you wish. This gives you unlimited power over your own fetishes.



- Spend PP to unlock scenes of your choice

- Assemble the scenes in Pandora

- Generate scene and hit play to enjoy!



We are so thrilled to announce that two full-time software engineers with AAA gaming experience have joined the Subverse team. They're already making a huge impact on production, and we couldn't be happier to have them here.

During the past few months, we've also been in contact with several world-renowned game producers that have been acting as mentors for us during this process.

Their advice, along with that of our new engineers, have caused us to audit the current release strategy and pipeline. This brought us to the conclusion that Early Access would not be beneficial for Subverse.

Please note: THIS DECISION WILL NOT EFFECT THE CLOSED BETA IN ANY WAY.

The other good news is that this decision will actually allow us to significantly speed up production of the full release because it won't be necessary to constantly update and maintain the numerous Early Access builds. We're currently ahead of our internal production schedule and we see no issue with maintaining this pace.

This decision wasn't taken lightly. Subverse is currently 13th global on the Steam Wishlist, We could've easily taken the cash grab route and put out the unpolished Early Access chapters, but Studio FOW has always been committed to creating products that we are proud of and we know the fans will thoroughly enjoy.




1) Single-player, story-driven RPGs don't tend to do early access. Early Access is typically utilized by FPS games, rogue-likes, and MMOs that have gameplay loops and dynamic online components that need to be thoroughly tested.

2) One of our advisers made the excellent point that we have almost 4,500 eligible closed beta testers. This is a huge pool that we can tap into to make gameplay tweaks, thus nullifying the whole point of Early Access for the general public.

3) Subverse is a story-driven game meant to be experienced as a whole, not in the stop/start fashion that is forced by Early Access. Having to wait potentially up to a month for the next chapter to be released will really hurt the momentum of the overall game.

4) Internally, we've seen the difference between a fully completed section of the game and an Early Access one, and it's night and day in terms of quality. We feel it would be a disservice to you guys and the project to release it before the quality you deserve can be achieved throughout the game.


We'll be releasing public gameplay footage following the start of the closed beta and keeping you guys in the loop with our Youtube channel, so please don't feel left out even if you don't have closed beta access. We'll make sure everyone has a ticket aboard the hype train for the duration of the project, and we're extremely excited to take the trip with you.

Sincerely,

Mr. Kristoff

Senior Producer