Optimus Beta!
UPDATE II
We have enough testers for now, sorry for those we can’t accomodate, and many thanks for all who have sent in an application. If we need addititional testers we will pick from the many people whose emails we have received but could not include in the Beta. The response was very good, my inbox is a disasterzone at the moment. 
Thanks all!
UPDATE
Whoa! Nice response people We will need some time to sort through all the emails we have been getting, so don’t worry if you have had no reply yet. Also, even more diversity would be great, so non males are encouraged to reply as well.
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Hello friends,
We are getting pretty close to our release date, and the game is shaping up rapidly. In fact there is so much content now that we feel it is a good time to start getting some feedback on all the new stuff. The game is nearly content complete with regards to levels, and most of the gameplay features are in, so we are about to hit beta. In our excitement we decided to let people test the game now, while we still have some time to make changes, and in honour of this optimisation process we are not calling this a beta, as that would be too boring. Instead, we are calling this beta:
“OPTIMUS!”
So, in order to make our Optimus BETA a success and get a good range of feedback we are going to pick some testers from people who have already volunteered previously, and some additional people responding to our call for help. We are looking to get a good mix of people, so we want to encourage people of all persuasions, newbies and veterans, to help us out. So, We would like to assemble a small group of very diverse Optimus testers, whose work will be very important to making the final game as good as it can be.
Testing takes a fair bit of time, so any participant needs to be aware of this and other challenges. The process will mean exposure to bugs, placeholder narrative, missing help screens, crashes, and other creaky pitfalls of a title that is in development. If you are interested nonetheless please drop us an email titled: “Optimus Beta Tester”
The email should include the following info:
- Tell us a bit about yourself, and if you have any experience playing our game (It is fine if you don’t)
- List your hardware specs
- Tell us why you want to participate
- How long you can participate
- What games you normally like to play
Once the Optimus testers have been assembled we will let people know not to send in more requests. Regrettably we won’t be able to take on all volunteers, so please don’t hate us if you don’t get picked from the hat. At least you won’t hear spoilers about the game.
Thanks everybody! More news soon.
Rudolf
Am I just wron or the ETA have been delayed until october? I thought it was going to be aug. 31…
M4 - August 22nd, 2009 at 11:32 amFinally the beta! I hope you guys give me a chance to participate *hands shaking*
Dainius - August 22nd, 2009 at 7:16 pm[...] good friend and fellow indie developer Rudolf has just started the Optimus Beta for his delightful indie game, Dyson. In honor (and lazyness), I’ve decided to devote this space [...]
Dev Diary 50: Dyson Beta - August 25th, 2009 at 8:54 pmHi I’m Xeno, I have 2 years of professional experience as a game designer and tester “with a knack for breaking things” according to my former boss. I’m also the tigsource poster who suggested um.. something regarding the interface, I think it was distinguish what nanomachines from which planets you’ve got when you pick a planet (ie show 12 from planet A, 30 from planet B) and you said it was a good idea
.
Got access to an older WinXP machine, newer Vista and a new Macbook Pro (I’m developing indie iPhone games!!).
Be happy to help out, glitchtest, offer feedback on balance and controls etc!
Xeno - August 26th, 2009 at 5:57 amI really like your game
... - August 29th, 2009 at 11:48 pmLove the game to bits. Running a Win7 machine if you wanted a tester for that.
James - September 2nd, 2009 at 10:35 amOh damn, I’m out =/
Hope the beta goes well!
S - September 4th, 2009 at 8:58 amwhere can we find out about how its going and is this going to be a game we pay for or donations or what? i am terribly excited to see what has changed!
llama - September 11th, 2009 at 7:50 amHello,
first of all thanks for this great game!
And then … you write “even more diversity would be great, so non males are encouraged to reply as well.”
Well, I know your beta call has ended now, but how’s this for diversity: German, teacher, age 52, runs Dyson on a Mac w/ Parallels Desktop on diverse Virtual Machines: XP, Vista, Windows 7. And sometimes I boot into BootCamp with XP.
Plus I have beta testing experience (big vector graphics app, handsigned NDA and all, I admit that was a decade ago).
Cheers, and keep up the good work!
Tom
Tom - September 13th, 2009 at 9:53 amDang, the blog software took out my tag
Tom - September 13th, 2009 at 9:55 am