Hello everyone. I apologize for the long silence, but we've been hard at work in redefining the game. It was clear in the early testing of the game that the look and feel wasn't that great. I personally apologize for this as I was hoping to go with a more minimalist style to convey a more simple type of game. Unfortunately, I think I'm just not good enough at realizing a stylized look and I probably should have gotten someone to help me with it. There's not much I can do about it now, unfortunately, but the goal has always been to provide a good looking game that is fun and not too expensive. This is really no excuse, but good quality art comes at a cost of time and money. Recently, we have a lot of time, but money is just not there. That complicates things quite a bit, so we have to make due with what we have. If it doesn't end up the way people like, then I would like to sincerely apologize. My goal is not to create a bad looking/playing game. Just understand that there are constraints we're working within and we're trying our best to provide something great even with those limitations.
That out of the way, the game is going into 3D. We did a bit of testing with people outside of the game and based on feedback, we've decided to change the look completely. Well, not completely completely. Menus and UI will stay the same, but the world will feel and look completely different. To give an idea of what I mean, here are a couple of screenshots of what the game will look like once the next patch comes out.
As you can see, the new looks gives a completely different feel to the game and more in line with what we wanted to begin with. One of the biggest complaints about the old look was that it was hard to "read" what was going on. This criticism wasn't lost on me. In trying to make things simple, I gave up the "readability". We're going to bring that back. It'll be clear what you're looking at...or at least it should be if we do our jobs right.
Since the game is going 3D, we decided to push up our implementation of screen and performance options. So you'll now be able to select your resolution and things of that nature. This way you'll have more control over your overall visual experience. I'll be adding more options as time goes on, but these things will be included in the next patch.
There will be other notable changes that we're still working on and I hope we can finalize before we can provide more information. Overall, once the new build comes out, everyone should be able to play the game again, but with a whole new look and I hope that improves the overall experience.
Going forward, I'll try to provide more information and updates so that we don't have long stretches of nothing...then BOOM...some big news. As for when this new update is coming, I'm hoping by the end of the year. Most of the game has to be rebuilt and that takes time. I hope you guys can bear with us as we get it done. Rest assured that the game isn't dead. We're still working on it daily. Feel free to leave us some feedback. We're always open to listening to those who are either interested in playing our games or are playing them currently. Don't be a stranger!
With that, I'll leave it there. As more things happen, I'll keep everyone posted. It should be a pretty interesting year end. I hope you guys join us for the ride.
Take care, everyone.
-Garv