"Restitched: Gameplay Test" Announced

We're excited to announce a new testing phase is on the horizon! This will be our second hands-on initiative where the community can share feedback to help shape the final experience.

The "Gameplay Test" will be a short but sweet movement-focused experience, available to a limited number of community members and supporters.

Testers will be invited to try a playground focused on sandbox physics, gameplay objects, primary movement, and secondary abilities. Those may include running, jumping, falling, crawling, pushing, climbing, swinging, hookshotting, bouncing, wall jumping, and more...

We understand you may have lots of questions, and we'll do our best to answer them below!

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Why Gameplay/Movement Testing?

We need to be certain that Stuffy feels good! Movement is the core experience of any game, and it's how you'll interact with everything.

Over the years, we've been refining and rebuilding Stuffy to fit our needs. Now it's the community's turn to voice some feedback. We'll use it to adjust and fix things until the gameplay is better.

We'll use your feedback to decide if each ability truly belongs in Restitched. It'll also help us tune specific values, like run speed, acceleration/deceleration, swinging behavior, assistive layer magnetism, and more.

As with any game in development, there will be incomplete work, weak spots, and features that some players might dislike. Our goal is to find a good feel that satisfies everyone.

What Will Testers Do?

During the test, players can provide feedback to us by completing a survey. We'll ask about the overall experience, gameplay feel, favorite mechanics, and so forth.

There will also be a tester role and private channel in our Discord server. We'll use it to report issues and discuss the test privately.

Who's Invited?

This test is a little different than the last one. It's a smaller slice of the game, and is only meant to gather quick feedback on basic movement abilities and gameplay objects.

Because of that, we'll only invite a small group of community members to participate.

We understand this might seem unfair, but we're also a small team.

We want our time and energy to go toward making meaningful changes to the game itself. Having a smaller test will help us manage your feedback easily, and be more hands-on.

Because gameplay contains so many mixed features and areas for feedback, it would otherwise be overwhelming for us to host several dozen players here.

We'll be looking at our top-performing testers from the Wardrobe Test, active community members who may not have been in the previous test, and several longstanding trixel+ supporters (with priority for Legacy members).

What's Included?

Testers will play a prebuilt level. It will be a sort of 'development playground', and not a proper level. 

Some areas will be dedicated to basic platforming and gameplay motifs, like mixing the Needle 'n Thread with Trampolines, or wall jumping and ledge climbing.

Testers will not have access to other game modes -- including the Level Editor, Wardrobe, and Workshop. The focus for now is simply on refining basic movement and gameplay!

The test will not feature multiplayer options, as that's also not quite ready.

How Long Will Testing Last?

We plan to host the test for a few weeks, at most.

After that, access will be revoked, and we'll focus on addressing all feedback collected.

We may extend or shorten the test as needed.

Are There Rewards?

Yes, and we'll track each tester's name during development.

When the final game launches, we intend to reward each tester with a special DLC Steam Key to unlock an exclusive "Testing Constructor" outfit.

What Are The Terms?

When players are invited, they'll receive more info regarding the test and its terms.

There will be a privacy agreement in the EULA.

This means testers cannot show the contents of the test, including footage, specific details, or otherwise.

This is not just a quick chance to play the game early!

It's an opportunity for you as a community to help us understand and improve what we have. When we eventually put it in everyone's hands and showcase more, we want to feel confident that a group of trusted players have signed off on it.

The game build will be distributed via a Steam Key for Windows PC.

Linux may also be supported through your emulation, but we cannot guarantee its stability.

Will There Be Other Tests?

Yes, for sure! We still plan to host a more generalized "Beta Test" in 2027.

The full beta would allow players to experience all of the game's main modes (level editor, wardrobe, gameplay). We're simply not ready for that yet, but hopefully soon!

This Gameplay Test will be a strong step toward that next milestone, which is when we intend to gather feedback on the level editor. When Stuffy feels right, other features can follow.

When Will Testing Start?

We're aiming to have this "Gameplay Test" ready in the coming months.

Due to the holidays and potential development obstacles, it could be pushed slightly further out.

We'll have more information as the testing builds begin to form. We'll also privately reach out to some folks when we're ready for them to join the test!

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The Future...

We understand there's a huge desire to get your hands on the game, and especially its level editing tools. We promise we've been super busy working toward just that!

There are many moving parts to a UGC game, and we really don't want to start off on the wrong foot after all this time. All the ingredients are more or less there, but we still need time to finish cooking them into a proper meal.

Even basic things can easily add up to weeks of extra work! This is why development can take so long. We're a small hobbyist team building the game in our spare time. Everything you see was created purely from passion, and we're still learning as we go.

With a game of this scale, it's also very possible that our ideal vision for the game may not be 100% there at launch. Things are in late stages of development, but we still need to finish a couple main features, polish and optimize, bug fix, host a future beta, and start work on story levels.

Time will decide how these milestones play out, how much of the game may be available by launch, or to what extent some of our ideas will be realized...

As long as there's ongoing interest, we're also eager to support Restitched as an evolving experience after its release. Our goal is to get something in your hands sooner than later.

With that said, the game has already shaped up to be quite a neat tool for creativity! We can't wait to see what you'll manage to make when it's ready.

Until then, we look forward to when players take control of Stuffy for the first time. Thank you for all the support, and for helping us reach these exciting milestones!