Hello Everyone,

It has been awhile since we have posted an update, and I know there has been a lot of grumblings going on (rightfully so).

As many of those who read our posts know, we disabled sales on this project a couple months ago because we did not feel we should continue selling something that isn't close to a finished state. While that doesn't help those that have already purchased the product, it was to give us time to re-evaluate the project, see where we are and what we could realistically accomplish for a first release of the game.

So over the past couple of months we have gone through the process of stream lining what we can off as a first release and while we cannot make any promises at this time when this might occur, we are hopeful that this will be around the end of this year (2019).

Things we are currently working on:

- Updated game engine (Almost complete)
- Updating networking
- Adding better Steam integration
- Updating UI and game flow
- Updating economy and progression
- Balancing Mech chassis and Weapons
- Adding new Chassis "skins" (looking to have 2 additional options per 4 different chassis types for first release)
- Updating back-end services

Currently our intended road-map is as follows:

End of Sept - Release the new game client to current owners to begin testing Multiplayer functionality.

End of Oct - Start testing new Squad system and MP matchmaking facilities

End of November - Beta Testing

End of Dec - Initial MP Release

*Note that when we open the game back up for new players, current owners will be moving to what we will call the "Founders Edition" of the game. For us this means that all current owns will receive all future updates and content for free, as well as some other in game bonuses and perks. We are still determining what this looks like, but there will be more announcements in the coming months.

Hey Everyone!

After a long wait we were able to finally release last month BETA 2 (you need to opt into the public beta), Yay!

BETA 2 focused primarily on getting our Multi-Player networking tech working. So far it looks like things are working fairly well. Over time we will continue to look at ways to optimize and make sure game play is smooth, even at higher pings. Utlimately we will be working towards and auto-scaling server infrastructure that will allow us to spin up servers regionally to reduce ping times for players.

SOOO What are we working on next? First I will say that our goal will be to release a new update to the BETA every month until it is far enough a long to replace the current live EA offering. For this month we will be focused on balancing some of the weapons, Improving AI, and general bug fixes.

Other projects that we are working on that will probably not be released until end of January include additional mission environments, a new multi-player mission type, and UI updates.

For those interested in a Single Player Campaign, this is a longer term goal, but understand that everything we are currently working for general game play for our Multi-Player component also applies to things we want to do with the SP Campaign. Currently we are doing SP Campaign design and planning, but MP will come first.

That is all for this update, if you have any questions or general thoughts you would like to share we strive to be as open and honest as possible!

Thanks for your continued support!

For more news follow us on twitter @mgtgames http://twitter.com/mgtgames

To join the conversation hit the forums:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470/discussions

To keep up to date join the official game group:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/dhmc

As promised we have released the BETA 1 build into the beta channel for PC, MAC and Linux. They are available only thru the BETA opt in screen. Instructions can be found:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470/discussions/4/135513901709201653/

The goal of this first BETA 1 release is to look at resolving any issues with three platforms in as efficient manner as possible. This first release has limited functionality and you can find detailed information in the BETA forum.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470/discussions/4/135513901709191397/

NOTE: You must own the game in order to download the Beta.

We are excited to finally be able to start sharing with you the work we have been doing, and over the next weeks and months look forward to bringing the game to its potential.

For more news follow us on twitter @mgtgames http://twitter.com/mgtgames

To join the conversation hit the forums:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470/discussions

To keep up to date join the official game group:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/dhmc

As promised in our PAX wrap up post, I bring news of our up coming BETA release!

Two weeks from today, April 10th, we will be pushing up PC/Mac/Linux builds to the Steam beta channel making it available through the BETAS opt in screen. We will provide more instructions the day of release.

Please understand in our efforts to manage the BETA process and make sure we can resolve issues across the three platforms in as efficient manner as possible, this first BETA will have some limited functionality compared to the live Early Access version.

So what can you expect from BETA 1?

We are focusing on ensuring that the new tech works properly across the three platforms. We want to ensure that the game downloads and installs correctly and that the game launches and plays without crashes.

Since this build is a developmental build, it does include some additional debugging, so we expect the frame rate to be a bit slower than it would be otherwise, but we do recognize that we will still need to do some additional optimizations based on the data we collect.

From a gameplay perspective, we are limiting functionality to only a few single player missions. We will not be enabling multi-player for this pass. We also have the first batch of Pilot Training missions to help new players learn about the game and how to control their Mech.

We will also have a new hangar and mech build process for you to play with. Our hope is that the process of building and customizing mechs will be more intuitive and allow us to expand it as we go a long. When the beta is released we hope to have some tutorial videos in place to help understand the new process until we can add ingame help and tutorials.

Again, the primary goal for this BETA is to resolve any platform issues that we run into. Once we get passed any major hurdles, we will roll out additional functionality, such as multi-player.

Stay tuned for more information as we get closer to April 10th!

For more news follow us on twitter @mgtgames (twitter.com/mgtgames)

To join the conversation hit the forums:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470/discussions

To keep up to date join the official game group:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/dhmc

WOW! What a great time we had showing off DHMC at PAX East in Boston. It was great to meet so many Mech fans out there and even a few of you that either own our current game or have played one of our previous Mech games.

At PAX East, we showed off out latest demo that runs on the new game engine and updates we have been working on for the last year and a half. Our main goal was to show off our accomplishments to date with the new build, and garner more feedback on the direction of the game. We also wanted to get a better idea of where we were with the demo build so we could start gearing up for our first BETA release!

Based on feedback and play testing, our next goal is to spend the next 3 to 4 weeks polishing up some items and doing some additional optimizations. This should put us in a good place to launch a build on the BETA channel around the end of this month or first week of April.

We will make another announcement in a couple weeks of what all the BETA will entail, but you can expect it to be a limited play set with a first pass on the new Mech hangar, a single player mission or two, a basic first past tutorial and be available for PC, Mac and Linux.

Again we really want to thank everyone who came out to PAX East and tried out the game. We met a lot of awesome Mech fans that gave us some great feedback!

For more news follow us on twitter @mgtgames (twitter.com/mgtgames)

To join the conversation hit the forums:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470/discussions

To keep up to date join the official game group:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/dhmc

Hey Everyone,

We know things have been a bit quiet around here as of late, but rest assured that we are working hard on the new version of the game that is a total rebuild from the ground up.

These past few weeks we have been working on several aspects on the new version with the goal of bringing it to open Beta by March to coincide with us packing things up and showing the game off at PAX East in Boston the weekend of March 11th 2017.

Things we want in place before then that we are working on:

- UI overhaul to make things more user friendly and visually updated. At minimum for Beta we want to implement our new design for the Hangar to make things easier to customize mechs.

- First time user experience improvements including a new pilot training program (tutorial)

- Optimizations! Right now our FPS for the internal version is not where it needs to be for players to host multiplayer games, but we are working on this.

- AI improvements, having bots to play with and against are an important part of what we do! AI won't be perfect in the initial Beta release, but we want them to work as well as possible in the time frame.

- For Beta we want to have a hand full of single player missions available plus a front line skirmish mode multiplayer mission.

If you have not been following us over the past several months then you might not know what we have been up to. We have taken the past year or so and have worked on rebuilding the game form the ground up in an update game engine (The live game uses the old Torque 3D engine...). We have all of the ground work in place to start polishing things off and adding fun game play elements. With the new version you can expect vastly improved visuals including revamped weapon models, new Mech shaders, effects, environments and much more. We also hope to build out a much deeper game play experience as this year goes on.

As always, thank you for your support!

The weekend of October 29th we had a great opportunity to partake in the local game development exposition TheGDEX[www.thegdex.com] at COSI in Columbus, Ohio. For us, it was an chance to get a lot more people in front of our new version of Dark Horizons : Mechanized Corps (DHMC) for some play testing. Shows like this really gives us a great insight into where we are with the product and how well it plays for players experienced with the geand newcomers a like.

Many of the attendees that we spoke to had remembered playing a lot of the old school Mech games of the past, and were excited to see a new entry in the genre. Even speaking to the younger crowd that have not had a chance to play a Mech game before, the impression that we have come back with is that they are pretty excited about our game and what we were trying to do. Feeling their enthusiasm is refreshing to hear and really gives a sense that, yes there is still a market for mech combat simulators.

It should be noted that the version of the game we demo’d at TheGDEX was an early Alpha build that contains several new features and enhancements and is not the same version that is currently live on Steam Early Access. As many of you know from our past posts, we have been revamping the entire game (art and code) to bring the visual quality up to where we expect today’s games to be, and to add in some cool gameplay ideas and features. Our hope with demoing at TheGDEX was to get a feel for where we are with the new version, start laying the groundwork for planning on a BETA release on Steam to let those of you who already own the live game a chance to help us play test and be more involved with the process.

Overall we thought the feedback that we received was phenomenal. The biggest compliments that we received were with the new art and environments that we had available to play (we had 3 new levels in this build for TheGDEX). People also loved many of the features that we already have in the live version that is currently up on Steam right now, such as Mech customization and opportunities for strategic gameplay. Overall though to our team, the biggest and most telling set of feedback that we got was that people had fun playing the game, despite many features not being fully implemented yet.

So where do we go from here? Now that we have a solid pool of feedback, we are back in the office and getting back to work so that we can get a BETA release on Steam in the near future. We have a long list of bugs we compiled during the show and have already fixed the major ones we ran into. The goal for BETA 1 is to ensure that the game is at a similar state from a functionality standpoint as the current live version on Steam. Then we can begin optimizing, fixing issues found in BETA, and begin implementing many new features that we want to put in the game, including implementing a tutorial system to help players that are new to the Mech genre get into the game and succeeding faster.

Internally we are aiming to release a BETA version of this new overhaul to the game onto Steam in January 2017! So keep an eye out for some additional information as we get closer to the end of the year.

As always our team would like to thank each of you for continuing to support us and being patient while we go through this long process of updating and enhancing DHMC (much of which requires some core system and engine upgrades) . We hope that o you will be proud and excited for the work we have put into it and will understand the amount of work and effort that we have done over the past number of months. It is always a challenge for a small team to put together a game of this magnitude and we couldn’t do so without your help.

Thanks from the Max Gaming crew!

For more news follow us on twitter @mgtgames (twitter.com/mgtgames)

To join the conversation hit the forums:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470/discussions

To keep up to date join the official game group:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/dhmc

Over the last couple months we have been showing the Alpha version of the next major release at small shows and festivals to get feedback and some play testing.

We also have shared screen shots and various notes from those shows and now we wanted to share with you some in-game video of our latest internal build.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZJLPQGa80I&feature=youtu.be

This video shows new environments, gameplay against improved AI for the persistent campaign system and some new visuals.

Whats next?

At the end of October we will be attending a larger conference in Columbus, Ohio call The GDEX (www.thegdex.com). At the conference we will be making some announcement, including projected date for this new version of the game to hit Steam as a beta.

For more news follow us on twitter @mgtgames (https://twitter.com/mgtgames)

To join the conversation hit the forums:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470/discussions

To keep up to date join the official game group:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/dhmc

Max gaming has been steadily improving its weapons over time, because we know how much you love customization. A big part of any mech game are the weapons and we want to make it right.

Scott is the one responsible for creating unique and functional weapon designs. In 2007, he downloaded 3DS Max and taught himself how to create models, he started modeling stuff for Max Gaming soon after. While modeling Scott became frustrated with the limits of Photoshop and decided to learn Substance Designer and Painter.

"I use Substance Painter and Substance designer exclusively for all the DHMC weapons models. Substance Designer lets me create completely custom PBR materials that I can then import into Substance Painter and with its ondestructive workflow and its ability topaint full materials in real time greatly reduces the time that the texturing process takes. I begin by importing the model a setting the project size to 4k. Then I will paint in details just in the height channel with the symmetry mode on. Once I have the height information painted on I will export the data with a custom configuration that exports as Normal DirectX (RGB). I’ll then bring the exported texture into painter, use it as my normal map, and disable the height map.

Next I’ll bake the ambient occlusion, curvature, world space normal, position and thickness textures using the normal texture. I’ll then begin painting across the color, metal and roughness channels at the same time using full materials I created in Substance Designer and imported into Painter as part of a custom DHMC smart material. Finally, I add in and paint the emissions, increase the level of the ambient occlusion slightly, paint in small details like burns or added wear with a particle brush, and export the textures using the Unity PBR metal configuration at 1k.-Scott"

Scott has always liked weapons, ever since he was a kid, he really cares about the function of the weapons. Scott doesn't want to be influenced by other games, like mech warrior online, and tries not to look at google images for various weapons. He wants to be innovative with his weapon design, trying to create an original look and feel for each one.

Types of questions he asks himself as he works on a piece:
- Would you face it in battle?
- How would it mechanically work?
- How would it animate?
- What parts does it have? Nuts, bolts, access plates, switches etc.

Dark Horizons takes place in a dystopian future, where nuclear war has ravaged the land and greatly disturbed our way of life. This means that Scott is not designing weaponry of an alien species, and instead of designing over-detailed glamorous animations or weaponry with lots of particle effects and moving parts. Dark horizons is more focused on a western vision of what mechs would be like with most of our inspiration coming from modern day real military hardware.

Scott's process for designing weaponry:

Scott brainstorms and comes up with a concept that he wants to pursue, he begins work and settles on a basic design. Scott will then take it to the rest of the team to get design feedback, he works closely with the artists trying to give the weapons and other art continuity. 

Scott will discuss the concept and function of the weapon with the lead artist. Scott will use the feedback from his colleagues to refine the design and eventually create a final product.

The process may seem simple but it can be quite complex and require many iterations before the everyone is happy with the final product. For example, The lead artist and Scott had to design versions of the port turret, requiring a great deal of interaction before they came to a decision on the look and animation.

"As far back as I can remember I have always being obsessed with weapons. How the function and what their role on the battle field is. As I got older my passion for weapons turned to the future of weapons and mechs and let’s face it, that’s the way the we are heading. Being in and around military families and playing games like MW2 and Chrome Hounds just to name a few fueled the fire. Add in my experience of drafting, mechanical design, and being a former architectural model maker and it is a perfect fit for DHMC. Being on the DHMC design team lets me fulfill a passion of creating futuristic weapons as well as using them to wreak havoc on the battlefield."

Check out some more of the side-by-side comparisons!

To join the conversation hit the forums:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470/discussions

To keep up to date join the official game group:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/dhmc