Summary
We have the past month been working on a patch to fix the most serious issues with Crest and to give it some love before we move on to the next exciting project (more on that below). Unfortunately we haven’t been able to save your old save files (sorry).
Patch Update
Major Fixes
- The major bug causing the majority of the saving errors has been fixed.
- Fixed the bug that blocked players from upgrading expertise buildings.
- Fixed a bug that caused followers not to be able to mine mines.
- The water consumption has been balanced so that it will be much harder to get desert islands.
Bugs
- Fixed issue with completing achievements.
- Fixed the issue that caused mini map clips to be skipped.
- Visual bugs for Mac has been fixed.
- Fixed the issue with UI elements being triggered by hotkeys while being in menu or saving.
- Fixed the camera so it doesn’t forget the last position when switching between scenes.
- The bug causing animations for all living things in the game get stuck in one short loop has been fixed.
- Re-connect to Twitch is now working.
- A bug causing the prompt “Write a commandment!” to get stuck has been fixed.
- A bug causing the word “socialise” not to raise social need is now fixed
- And other smaller bug fixes.
Other
- Performance fixes.
- Added new Steam achievements.
- Teachings that were almost impossible to complete has been balanced to be easier.
- A follower can no longer die of starvation if the city has plenty of food unless they are starving themselves due to commandments or interpretations.
- Condemn is now more effective.
- If the player clicks on a city nameplate it now opens the city UI window.
- Added a popup that tells the player if a save or load error has occurred.
- Faith meter in World Overview UI window is added.
- A new speech bubble has been added that shows the player when a follower is following an interpreted commandment.
- The misfortune: “Dry rivers” do not happen as frequently anymore.
- And other smaller improvements.
Moving On
The game is now complete, there will be no major updates to the game. The reason is that the game has sold a lot less than we would need to make the development cost back. We have sold around 14 000 copies since we entered Early Access back in 2015, we would need to sell around 50 000 copies to even make back the development cost. Compared to how much games on Steam sell in general we did better! But that's because the average is 2000 copies, which no one can live on.
The relaunch in December, 2018 was our way to fix the game, since we think you, our fans, deserved a better game. But it was also an attempt to make Crest more appealing and get a second life and sell more. If the game would've sold better we could've continued with updates. But the relaunch didn't give us huge numbers to encourage more development time.
So it's a simple answer, we didn't earn a lot of money and working more on the game would only drive us into bankruptcy, we have to eat too. :)
Next Thing: Among Ripples 2
A small team at our studio has been working on a prototype for Among Ripples 2, our upcoming sequel to our first game. It will be an ambitious management tycoon game where you shape lakes and oceans, ravaged by pollution, and make them habitable for fish and other animals.
We're pitching the project to publishers and investors right now and hope we will be going into full development within a few months, until then we do contract work to stay afloat. We will be releasing a new trailer for the prototype really soon, here's the old one we have used to pitch the game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1XDRuKvov0
Support for Crest in the Future
We will keep an eye on the game and if you find game breaking bugs or balancing issues that completely break the game experience we will patch that of course. But there will be no new features.
Follow the Development
If you want to keep tabs on the future of our studio you can do so by joining our other social media:
https://twitter.com/AmongRipples
https://twitter.com/EatCreateSleep
https://www.facebook.com/eatcreatesleep/
https://discordapp.com/invite/ecs
https://www.youtube.com/user/eatcreatesleep
Right now we mainly use our Discord to talk about Among Ripples 2.
Thank You!
Making Crest has been a wild ride, we have learned a lot, and the game would not be half as good without your feedback. Thank you for your support and patience. We hope that your time in Crest was worthwhile and that you would want to support our future games.
//Martin & Eat Create Sleep Team
