🦨The observant of you will have noticed yesterday that we updated Shield Cat's store pages with a new sub-title: The Lost Conductor. What's that about? And what's the future of the game? Let's talk about it.
(Note: We didn't post this announcement yesterday for obvious reasons.)
What Is It?
Shield Cat: The Lost Conductor is a game about Lance's quest to find his romantic partner Parker, who's gone missing. If you played the Shield Cat Chapter 1 Demo, you've already seen a version of this story. The issue we've been facing here is, we released a demo that takes people longer to beat than Blobun, and now that Blobun is out, we see and recognize the length and value of what we created in the past. We put a lot of work and made a completed game, so it's time to work on releasing it.
(Note: Did you know that Shield Cat Chapter 1 has more screens than La Mulana?)
What About The Cat Kingdom?
We know a lot of people were excited about visiting the rest of the Cat Kingdom, but sadly, it's just not meant to be right now. SC:TLC is a reduced scope version of our original vision, and while it will be a fulfilling experience to play, it's not the grand scope of the original, and we apologize.
However, releasing Blobun has made us realize the value of releasing a game, as well as the freedom you get from it. Shield Cat has been lingering over our heads for over 6 years now, and it's become a great burden - one that we need to free ourselves from.
What Changes Will You Make?
At this time, we haven't planned out everything. However, it wont just be "it's the demo but it costs money now." We're gonna go through and polish and fix stuff up, and bring the technical expertise we've learned in the last couple years to the game.
That being said, when we assessed the game a few months back, we realized that we wouldn't be able to expand on it much in its current form anyways without a serious refactor, so don't expect any major changes or additions. Our plans are improved performance, better positioning of certain things (like train stations that are in out-of-the-way locations) and other small layout changes, and graphical improvements, but nothing major.
How Much Will It Cost?
Not sure yet, but considering that the game as-is has taken people anywhere from 4-8 hours to beat, which is longer than Blobun, expect anywhere from $10 to $15. Like I said above, we won't just be releasing the Chapter 1 demo as a full game and calling it a day - there will be improvements and changes, but we understand that some people may feel ripped off paying for something that was once free.
The problem is, we've been stuck in limbo over this for 2 years: expand on the game and make significant changes and spend several more years on the rest of the game? Or spruce up what we put out for free and take the L over people who will be mad about it? We've decided to take the L, just so we can get the game out.
Will There Be A Shield Cat 2?
We'll see. The big thing about this is like, we realized that even if we did get a ton of money off Blobun and could afford to bring more people in to work on the game in its full scope we... don't really want to? Not right now at least. This project has been hanging over our head for way too long, and we need to just finish it and get it out there. Maybe after that, after we've been free of it for a while, we can look into a sequel.
However, as I mentioned above, a lot of changes would have to happen to make a game in a much larger scope. The refactoring we'd have to do to Shield Cat as it is now would effectively make it a new game anyways, so it doesn't make sense to rewrite Shield Cat a third time just for that. We'd rather just start fresh sometime in the future.
When Will It Come Out?
We can't promise anything right now, but since the game is already fully playable as-is from start to finish, we can't imagine it'll take too long. However, we also have a lot of other stuff to do and focus on, so don't expect it any time soon. But, provided things go well, it absolutely shouldn't be any later than this year.
Are You Doing This Out Of Obligation?
Nah like, I know the general tone here is about how we want to get the game out there and be free of it, but we're still very proud of what we've been able to accomplish with Shield Cat, and are looking forward to bringing players a finalized version of it - even if it's not the original scope. We really want to see Lance finally spin clockwise.
What About Blobun?
We still plan on adding the missing features to Blobun (like input remapping) and the puzzle expansion DLC. We're taking a little bit of a break from it, but we'll be back at it before too long, so keep an eye out for news and updates about that.
In Summary
I know that people will be disappointed that they're not getting the full game that was promised, but at least you'll be getting a complete experience. I know that people will be disappointed that, essentially, they'll be paying for what was once free. But, we'll try to put a lot of effort into fixing and polishing up the game, and hopefully it'll be worth your while.
If you have any questions about this, please let us know! There's a lot of stuff we don't know right now though, but we're gonna start planning out how we can get this game done and out there, so hopefully we'll have more news for you soon.
PS: The key art we're using on the store pages is placeholder art until we make new art. It's from the SAGE 2020 demo and, honestly, it was refreshing to go back to that. Reminded us of back before Shield Cat got way over-scoped, and it was just a little project for fun. We want to go back to that.