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Throw a wrench, change the galaxy.
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John Winder
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Tom Francis
John Roberts
Gunpoint Exclusive Edition Owners Now Have A Two-Week Alpha Of Heat Signature
If you own the Exclusive Edition of Gunpoint on Steam – or the Exclusive Extras as DLC – you now have access to a Windows-only, very rough and time-limited alpha test version of Heat Signature!
If you don’t, though, I don’t recommend buying it just to get in on this! This is very unfinished, very unoptimised, and time-limited: I will close it down in two weeks and then you won’t have it anymore. It exists purely to help me find problems with the game and get people’s thoughts, not necessarily to give them the best experience or one I’d charge for individually.
In case it’s not yet abundantly clear: this is not like early access, getting in on this alpha does not get you the game. As with Gunpoint, I’ll also be doing free closed alphas too, and I’ll let everyone on the mailing list know when they can sign up for that. This first one is just a perk of the Exclusive Edition, part of what I promised to say thanks to those who supported Gunpoint so generously. I did the same thing with Floating Point – Exclusive Edition folks got the first alpha, then later ones went to people who signed up.
All that said, if you are in on this test, I hope you like it! Please do follow the link in-game and fill out the feedback form at some point in the next two weeks – I’ll be keeping a list of all the people who actually give me feedback, so I can include you in some future tests if I want to make sure I get responses.
Daxar:
Apparently I already bought the exclusive edition of Gunpoint without realizing it, so hooray! Downloading now. I tend to find zillions of bugs in every game I play, so apologies in advance.
Chris Davies:
I tried my best to play it and produce some useful feedback for you, but I’m afraid it seems to leak GPU memory at an extraordinary rate, and crashes fairly quickly. I submitted what little I could glean from my experience. Sorry!
Causeless:
I can’t wait to try it! Is there any possibility that’d you’d keep an the alpha stages of this game open to Exclusive buyers, like you did with Gunpoint, or do you think the game won’t change sufficiently mechanics-wise to justify it?
I would like to cover this on my YouTube. Was linked here by a friend and I like what I see.
TooNu:
Oh my goodness! I have the Exclusive Gunpoint edition, I bought it on the link from this site so where do I find my alpha key? I am very keen to play Heat Signature
TooNu:
…I feel a bit silly, found it
Bobafett:
DANG IT! I thought I had the Exclusive edition but I must only have the Special Edition!!! Curse my cheapskate ways! Sigh, I guess I’ll just wait until youtube let’s plays come out…
Yodamerlin:
Couldn’t get it to start using Wine on Linux via Steam (memory error). A native Linux version would be appreciated!
Anyway, feedback. A true person. The name of the command is “Heat Signature.” with the full stop. Properly done!
Grendizer:
Tom, thank you for making a game I was wanting to play for about 15 years now.
Still, I have to nag you with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vObSEL57n2I
Bobafett – ha, I just had the same thought process. Nevermind, hope I can be on the next test run. I’m glad Tom’s made so much progress to be releasing test builds!
Tom Whitney:
So I wasn’t going to buy the Exclusive Edition just for this, because you said not to, even though I am really looking forward to HeatSig. Then I realized that when I sent in my art application for HeatSig, you gifted me the edition of Gunpoint that will allow me to play this. So now I’m going to do that. Thanks!
I played this, I liked it, I submitted feedback, mostly asking for hats. I played some more, the game crashed, I submitted that in a form, too. I hope the second didn’t overwrite the first, because I’d put a lot of feedback into the form and I’d be sad if it was lost.
Mechlord:
Who needs a pod anyway?: https://youtu.be/dpiC3-0Svs0
Daniel McNeese:
I’d love to get in on this, but the game keeps crashing to an “out of memory” bug a few seconds in.
Chris Davies:
Yeah, the game runs at the raw edge of how much memory a 32 bit exe can use, and there seems to be a memory leak that happens when you zoom all the way out to the map view.
You can play the game more or less just by never viewing the map (including never getting a mission), but it’s really something that needs to be fixed.
Daniel McNeese:
@ Chris
Except that I’m on a 64-bit system with 8GB. I still haven’t lasted long enough to pick a mission.
If this isn’t fixed in the next day or two I hope Mr. Francis will consider extending the deadline.
Chris Davies:
It doesn’t matter that it’s a 64 bit system, the executable is 32 bit and uses 32 bit pointers, so its address space is limited to 2GB.
Daniel McNeese:
Yeah, I realized that’s what you were talking about right after I posted. Just a few seconds too late to avoid embarrassing myself. Don’t you hate it when you do that? :P
wwarnick:
I’ve had the memory error as well, but I was able to board a couple ships and knock myself out with my wrench. The best one was when I had snuck aboard a big ship with tons of guards, and I was sneaking up behind a guy and threw my wrench only to realize that there was a guy in a chair between us, so I hit him instead. In my panic, I clicked again and fired my pistol and everyone on the ship came running and shot me up. I love that Tom focuses on producing funny random situations in his games.
CoolioGuyMan:
I dunno where to ask this, so I guess I’ll ask here:
Is this playable on Windows 10? I upgraded today and now the game is unplayable. Does anyone know if this is fixable? Will I have to wait for the next playable build?
Thanks!
Oli Wright:
Same as you Shaun (except for the hats). Hoping the multiple bits of feedback haven’t overwritten previous submissions! Keep finding myself drawn back into the game and then breaking it in new ways. If it’s this addictive in alpha, I’m dreading the final version.
Arle:
Of course I find out about this alpha(I have exclusive edition) literally THE DAY AFTER IT ENDS. Ugh, this luck of mine..
The fact that the guards shoot on sight (instead of saying “FREEZE” before shooting from time to time, like in Abe’s Exoddus) and the fact that they don’t signal their state of mind (with a question mark or an exclamation mark, like they do in Deadbolt, for example), makes them feel like lifeless robots. Gunpoint had a similar problem. I consider it important, but maybe most players won’t.
In any case, thank you for pushing game design forward.
Grendizer:
And it was so sweet a time!
Heat Signature alpha is now open for Gunpoint Exclusive Edition owners | Joy Stick Report:
[…] and time-limited: I will close it down in two weeks and then you won’t have it anymore,” he wrote. “It exists purely to help me find problems with the game and get people’s thoughts, not […]