Firstly, a big thank you to those of you who joined us for our Alpha Playtest and inaugural Tournament. We’ve been processing your feedback and suggestions and we can’t wait to share our newest updates with you. 

Once again it was a big task to go through all of your feedback! But we got through it in the end, and we’re hard at work to fix bugs, evaluate suggestions, and tighten up loose bolts.

In our survey, we asked about experiences in the menus, during combat - as pilot and crew. Our focus was on our newest map, Omicron. The one with ice caves.

• You’re all looking forward to the real tutorials! Good news, you’ll be able to try out our first pass at the main tutorial in the next playtest. It won’t cover everything we plan to do for tutorials, but will cover some initial onboarding, so players can get their bearings.

• The party system is very important! We never intended to split up friends during casual play, and the unfinished party system is largely to blame. We’ll make sure you’re able to stay on the same team as your friends during the next playtest

• The fog on some maps can be hard to maneuver through. We’re looking at thinning out those clouds (at least, on the inside) in future playtests.

• Our HUD layout and amount of information is in a good place for the most part. There are a few specific things, like direction of incoming fire, which we are looking at making more clear.

• The Loading Bar needs more to do - We’ve heard suggestions ranging from playable minigames, to pool, to extra tables. We want to make the cantina a fun place to spend time with your friends, so we’re taking all of your suggestions into consideration.

• Omicron is a great addition to our map pool, with unique hazards and layout.

With this being the first tournament we’ve hosted in Stars of Icarus, there were a few bumps along the way. In particular, there were a few UI bugs which caused confusion about which team was which!

It was incredible to see teams competing at this level, and it gives us the opportunity to see what kind of tactics Stars rewards. We got feedback from the streamers, too on how we can improve the spectator tools and experience for future tournaments.

Overall things went very smoothly, though, and we are looking forward to the next one! (Start brainstorming your team name now.)

Congratulations to Treatise to Injustice for flying their way to the winner’s podium! In case you missed it, you can watch how the tournament went down below:

https://youtu.be/UZw0eaRF7qY?si=UQLohwK7nGxvS7XrWe have a busy month up ahead of community events, so if you missed our last playtest and tournament - don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

We’ll be holding our next livestream on July 10 @ 2pm EDT. Please drop your questions in Discord #dev-ama[discord.com] and we’ll answer as many as we can! You can catch the stream on Twitch[twitch.tv]. Be sure to subscribe so you get notified when we go live.

We’re opening Stars of Icarus for playtesting again from 16th July to 3rd August, so it’s the perfect opportunity to start organising your crew.

This time, we’ll be including these features:

• Cargo King: In this new gamemode, teams compete to control a moving cargo ship as it flies around the map. You will be able to try it on Cleaved Canyons and Keyport Station. We look forward to your feedback!

• Tutorials: Actual, interactive tutorials are finally ready to be added! Whether you're returning from a previous alpha or a brand-new player, we look forward to your feedback on these tutorials.

• Bug Fixes: We've made tons of little tweaks and changes based on your feedback.

As always, we’re looking forward to hearing from you, so be sure to join our Discord[discord.gg] and tell us all about your experience.

To round out our playtest, we’ll be holding a community tournament on August 1st! If you want to sign up your team please post in #signup[discord.com] on our Discord.

We hope you're as excited as we are.
See you in the Stars!

• Muse Games