Finally news!
Its been a while and sure time passes slowly if you are waiting and nothing happens. Eventually people start to worry. On my end however time passed much more quickly - which is how time works I guess if you are in head over heels. My first intend was to delay news just until I g
Its been a while and sure time passes slowly if you are waiting and nothing happens. Eventually people start to worry.
On my end however time passed much more quickly - which is how time works I guess if you are in head over heels.
My first intend was to delay news just until I got everything sort out and something solid to present. Shouldn't take too long - right?
STEAM Early Access put a lot of pressure on us. More then some of us could handle. We worked insanely hard for month before Early Access even started and even more after release. People who are with us since ever know we are no quitters - we are used to work hard but his was beyond our design parameters as humans.
Slowly I started to loose sleep and for the first time in many years I had no idea how to fix things since I'm a technical guy yet the problem was not primarily of a technical nature. In a tragic way we fell victim to our own initial success and the nature of STEAM itself.
My plan was to successfully launch on STEAM and build up a small team with its own office etc which would have reduced the pressure and work hours. The first few weeks it looked promising. Early Access went up like a rocket but just like the law of physics: "What goes up must come down" It wouldn't take long until it came back crashing right into my front yard. At times it felt like being a small fish in a pool of sharks trying to survive. I don't want to point fingers but darkfalzx's words in his Legend of Iya Newsletter #31 make much more sense to me now: "To make matters worse, the once mighty STEAM has become a cesspool of shovelware and asset flips, where good games go to die."
I by no means want to imply KOL is a good game but darkfalzx's "Mystik Bell" totally is.
STEAM may not be the right place for us - and even if we manage somehow at some point - for now we have to withdraw the game.
Maybe we can relaunch as free to play, maybe we have to leave STEAM entirely and go back to our own website and game service. I don't know yet.
Whatever comes next there are some changes to the game which we would need to incorporate in order to reduce workload and incorporate the feedback we got so far. The biggest change would be a much more simplified art style, procedural generated maps, double the view distance by reducing the assets size or double the game engine resolution, re-code the player control module ... just to mention a few.
I know its still pretty vague and more so most certainly not what most of you signed on for but at least this puts an end to all of you worrying about the people behind the game more then for the game it self. I'm deeply sorry that I have no better news for you.
Presbyter & his Team.