The latest Founder’s Update on the Crowfall website contains some pretty big news:

Very exciting update this week —

This morning we sent out a press release announcing the start of our combat pre-alpha testing!  For anyone just catching up, our combat test is actually a playable module – a single elimination, team-based deathmatch that we call The Hunger Dome.

Since we don’t have an NDA in place, this means that (very soon!) you will start to see screenshots, videos and live streams of Hunger Dome matches… compliments of your fellow backers!

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The last few months have been an absolute blast.  It’s been a whirlwind of activity: building the combat system, keeping you guys informed about the details – while, simultaneously, keeping a lid on theHunger Dome rules (we have to keep some things in our pocket!) – and, of course, staffing the company and planning the project as a whole.

We expect to start sending out Hunger Dome test invitations to Alpha 1 testers soon (in groups of 50 to 100 at a time, ordered by pledge date.)  If you’re in that group, please make sure we have your up-to-date email and check your spam filter to make sure our emails (newsletters, etc.) aren’t getting filtered.

Also included in the update are some sundry notes on the ongoing fundraising efforts ArtCraft Entertainment has been engaged in (including crowdfunding, but not limited thereto):

• Our fundraising efforts were an enormous success!  We set out to raise $1m, and we now have all of it committed.  In addition, our AngelList allocation (which is being offered through the Moonshots Capital syndicate) is still active for accredited investors, and will remain open until Sept 11^th.  We are currently at over 50% of that allocation; any additional funds that come in at this point will actually put us over our target raise amount.
• We crossed $2.3 million in total crowdfunding!  That means you guys hit another stretch goal, and thank goodness for that since we jumped the gun on this one and hired John G, our videographer.John’s contribution is already being felt, as evidenced by the burst of video content we released in August.  Thanks to you guys, now we don’t have to fire him!  Hooray for John!
• With that stretch goal achieved, we’ve added another: the Halfbreed Assassin, male counterpart of the Fae.  We’ve been inundated with requests for a male assassin since our Kickstarter ended, and decided it was time to step this one up in priority.  So, once total crowdfunding hits $2.35 million, we’ll officially announce the Halfbreed Assassin and add him to our roster of archetypes!  (You might not have to wait long, since as of this writing we’re 20% of the way there already!)

Finally, they’ve also posted a video showing off the development progress on Crowfall over the last five months, from its inception as a series of written design notes to the first pre-alpha build that backers have begun testing.

And just today, ArtCraft also posted their September Q&A video, so do check that out as well.