It's been a while since our last update, and as always in Hash Rush land, a lot has happened. In this update, we'll discuss the end of the pre-alpha, our recent recruitment efforts, and we'll cover some articles from our blog. Let's begin!
A Short Review of the Pre-Alpha
Our pre-alpha ended on 18 January and saw people from all over the globe playing Hash Rush for the first time. We received a lot of feedback through our forums and Discord server, but recently also sent players a survey. We're very happy with the results and had people from over 24 countries participating. This confirms what we already knew: Hash Rush is truly a worldwide phenomenon. If we consider specific feedback, respondents were very happy with the graphics as well as the look and feel of the Ernack planet, with one person saying:
The graphics of the game is above my expectation. I very much like the design of the planet, from the look of ground surface to the surrounding environments to all the living creatures, such as trees, stones, rivers, Ernacks, etc.
Similarly, over 80% of people enjoyed exploring the map and the terrain, and we're really happy to see that the design and exploration parts of the pre-alpha have been received so well. Also, respondents gave us some great feedback on aspects such as controls, navigation, resource gathering and requests for the inclusion of a mini-map. You'll be happy to hear we're actively working on this, and that a mini-map is part of our plans.
But it's not just feedback we aimed for; we also wanted to provide pre-alpha players with entertaining gameplay. So we're glad to see that many of you had a lot of fun, considering notable quotes like:
My 65 year old mother would play this game all night long if she had it.
While another respondent commented:
I really enjoyed it and hope it blossoms to something highly recognised. Thanks for the fun.
There's not much more we can wish for as game developers — and it's comments like these that drive us even more to do our best.
Growing Hash Rush Further
In order to fully incorporate all feedback and generally create an awesome and immersive strategy game, the Hash Rush team is constantly expanding. Over the last few weeks, we've been actively looking for and hiring a game producer, a narrative designer, a Japanese community manager, a UX designer and a marketing manager.
For some of these roles we're in the last stages of interviewing, and hope to finalise our recruitment efforts soon. However, if you think you could be an invaluable asset to the Hash Rush team (or know someone who is), don't hesitate to contact us!
The ICO Gold Rush, Wooden Toys and more
In recent weeks we published a variety of articles on our blogs on Medium and Steemit. For instance, we recently discussed the ICO gold rush and wrote a comprehensive report on safety and cryptocurrencies called The Beginner's Guide to Staying Safe in the World of Cryptocurrency.
In addition, our Director of Marketing Craig Ritchie published an article introducing Hash Rush on his personal Steemit account, which you can find here. And last week, we published an interview with one of the members of the Hash Rush community, Pepe Hiller. Pepe is an amazing artist and if you're interested in 3D-printing, wood working and gaming, do check out the interview.
That's it from us for now! If you have any questions or concerns, comments or feedback, please contact us through the official Hash Rush forums, Discord or subscribe to our email newsletter.