Firstly: Yes, the DROD 1.7 beta was an April Fool's joke. We ended up getting 23 'testers' altogether - Steve*, Homestar*, Mario*, Frank*, Crash*, Vonnifa*, Fox*, Frank*, Edward*, Zidane*, Rono*, Frank*, William III*, Pippin*, Frank*, Kelly*, Marshall*, a baked potato*, Esmerelda*, Tiaan*, Santa*, Ronald McDonald* and Erik* (* names changed to protect the embarrassed, who will all get a little easter egg in consolation).
The screenshot was clumsily photoshopped together from this image Schik found (10 rank points to whoever can credit the image for me):
The feature list, apart from the new monsters and new surprises, which will certainly be in the next version, are all bogus. The new hold will be one cohesive hold, not split up into little missions and joined together via a map. We won't be breaking the game's main idea of 'big guy with sword kills things'. No-one really wants puzzles based round not being able to see. And we've got our own objections to cutscenes barging in on your game when you'd far rather be playing the actual game.
If you visited the forums, you'd notice the subtitle of the April Fool's post was 'For a solid play'. Now what could that be an anagram of?
What was interesting was how many people almost screamed at me to add them: "
Don't take this a begging, but PLEASE!!! If there is any room left for the Beta testing sign me up!"
(an actual e-mail). I'm putting this down to the DROD.net community's fervent waiting for 1.7, something I fairly deliberately tapped into, and that actually been addressed elsewhere. More and more speculation threads are cropping up, and people are trawling to the ends of the earth to see what little tidbit they can find. There's only one thing I really can say to this:
Please, don't.
People are working themsleves into a tizzy over a game that won't be done for months. The Caravel team are keeping quiet over this precisely because we don't want people slavering over every tidbit they can and building up their expectations, which we almost certainly won't match. It's already happened: some people are so focused on the new stuff that they forget everything that's already here, all the holds that need testing, the competitions Erik's running on a monthly basis, and of course DROD.net (I'm perfectly happy to accept anything you want to add, by the way). This is the entire reason we're keeping quiet; so you don't get so focused on what we're doing that you ignore what we've already done.
Now don't go arguing that it's a failed strategy and tell us everything now now NOW! because we still won't. You'll be so disappointed if we do. I mean that.
On a more positive note, I'm preparing another update - I've got a few things up already, like another Architect's Toolkit and Clayton's Beethro Budkin costume (man, I took a long time to get that up), and in a couple of days I'll have a surprise for you as well. (Not a big surprise, but a surprise nevertheless.)
Matt
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×Lost.
It's King Reubus' Palace, not King Reuben's Palace
