Howdy Team,

This is Hunter from Strangest.io. Calling myself a CEO is extremely funny to me because of how cringe it is, really I am more of a wrangler to the unique and gifted minds that fuel Strangest.io. I mainly sit behind the curtain and just focus on what is important: Making games

But today, I am reaching out to our community for their assistance in improving Strangest.io's future games in a myriad of ways.

It has been a long while since we released anything. Our last in-house developed game was Shadow/Shining Gadget which came out almost a year ago. That is going to change very soon. Its also been even longer since we've done a candid "Hey, we need your help!" type post.

It is not often that we take a serious tone, but we have been making a lot of changes internal to our studio - in the hopes that we can make some truly unique, memorable and genuinely fun experiences for our community

One of these changes are geared around what we believe to be our greatest flaws: Quality + Feedback.

We strive so hard to make things wacky, experimental and interesting, in as little time as possible - and that often results in a lot of quality issues with our games. It could be things like Controls (Nightmare), Stability and Design (Bizzarioware, Shadow/Shining Gadget), User Experience (MyFloppy) or even Performance (Kero Kero Panic).

The flip side of this situation, is that because we are a small games developer, we often don't have the resources to fix these issues. By the time a game releases and the community has it in their hands, we have already moved on to the next project. 

We have attempted post-launch support for games like MyFloppy and Shadow/Shining Gadget, but we just end up falling behind.

Moving forward, we are implementing a new program here at our studio to involve the community on a significantly deeper level in our projects. We are calling this program 'Playtesting Applications' (for lack of a more fun/funny/cool term) or 'PA' for short.

Playtesting Applications will be a phase during each of our projects going forward, where we plan to allow our community to access early builds of our projects in order to gather and implement feedback, and fix quality issues.

Here is how it will work:

• Playtesters can apply during limited windows of time prior to an upcoming playtest using the following form: https://forms.gle/5MFYVm8Aob1CmT5a7
• Playtesters will not be aware of what game we plan to have them playtest, and will select playtesters from the pool of applicants based on their responses. 
• When the Playtesting Application phase of a project is ready, we will contact the selected playtesters via email with a link to an early build of the game as well as a testing-key (to unlock the software).
• Playtesters will be able to playtest the game as much or as little as they like, within a given window of time.
• Playtesters will have access to a Feedback Form, as well as a special Discord Server where they can communicate with our team directly during the development of the project they are selected for.
• Feedback Form and Discord Server discussions will be aggregated and used to implement changes that the community would like to see, as well as fix any issues that may have popped up.
• Playtesters will have a DIRECT impact on how the game is developed.

So what's in it for you?:

• You get to play and experience our projects before anyone else does.
• Your feedback will not be dismissed, and you will have a direct impact on the shape of the final game. 
• All Playtesters will receive official credits in the final build of the game (you can use your full name, partial name, an alias, your website - whatever you would like).
• Select playtesters will receive free copies of the final game in a physical format (even if we dont release a pressed-retail release of the game, these select people will receive a special physical edition like the ones we make internally as reference copies). The playtesters who receive these physical copies will be selected randomly.

Thats really it. We appreciate everyone who has been on this journey with us. We assure that you will not be disappointed with our upcoming projects, some of which have been in the works for years at this point. 2024 is going to be great year for strange and unique indie games, and we want you to be a part of that with us.

Our first upcoming playtest is going to be held in mid October 2023. 

If you are interested in joining us on this escapade - please APPLY HERE!

With much love and appreciation 

- Strangest.io