So I am ready to launch an Alpha build for one of game development projects. To my surprise, there really isnt a lot of information on this subject online. I was hoping to find, perhaps, a platform that will publish the alpha, provide private invites and keys, add some forms for community feedback, maybe even a forum and of course the ability to update the alpha and distribute the update to all the members that performed a download.
I’m not sure that I am asking for much here, but yeah, kind of dissapointed at this point lol. I know there is Steam Early Access, but I am not so sure Steam is the right platform for my little game dev project. I even considered possibly publishing the game through Gumroad because of its awesome integration with community management, email subscription and distribution.
I have settled on ITCH.IO, which is by far the best platform I have seen, however, I did not see any features for early access or playtesting. Nonetheless, it may need to suit the bill for now. For the time being, I have created a private Itch.io page, and am manually distributing keys. Now, I just need a way to streamline key distribution. Maybe Discord?