At 1am this morning, my toddler woke me up, as so often he does.
To tell the truth though, I couldn't sleep much either. So after putting his blanket back on, I headed to the computer room and sat down, and pushed the 'Launch Game' button on Steam.
I was going to wait until this morning, but I was so wired - and I haven't slept a wink since. It's now 8am, and I'm still yet to exhale. The game is live.
It's funny, there isn't the same sense of extreme trepidation and dread that comes when you first launch a game on Steam ( in this case into Early Access ), but there's this other sense of both dread and finality to it all. Although you can of course update your game, patch it forever and bring in DLC, the 'Full Release' window represents a psychological milestone to both the developer and the player saying, this is it. This is the game now, for better or worse.
As the great Gandalf so wisely said , "The journey doesn't end here...", and old greybeard was right. There's more to do on the game. Hell, even today there are bugs to fix, some new, some old foes that have resurfaced. There are new and interesting game suggestions for me to implement. There is a mobile version of the game to build.
I'll be patching the game probably daily for the next few weeks at least, with more stuff to add and fix - you can be sure of that.
And yet ... realistically, I cannot work on this game forever. I'm a solo game dev with a wife, a mortgage and two kids, 5 and 2. I need to be agile, I need to keep building games. Eventually the well runs dry on a game like this (unless you have Vampire Survivors-esque success), often a lot quicker than you'd hope - and you need to start making money again, and fast.
With S&S Immortals, I've taken the series about as far as I can for now, and this year I want to take a little break and try and build a new game , perhaps start a new franchise, perhaps make a bunch of different games. I do hope to return next year, I'd like to remake Swords and Sandals III with the Immortals Engine ( perhaps even S&S 4?) - and then who knows?
So with that said, the road for Swords and Sandals Immortals, and I guess in a larger sense, the Swords and Sandals franchise, comes to a pause. Not a dead end, or a sheer cliff face, but instead a respite at a cosy tavern with a crackling hearth, fine beers and the company of those fine gladiators who have taken this journey with me. My artist Bokkimi. My musicians Alyctro and Tekl Ikogea. My business partner Aram Fuchs.
Not least of all, you guys - the fans who have stuck with me through the launch of so many of these games, the fans who have battled all the pain of the bugs, balancing nightmares, crashes. The fans who have suggested the features that have turned the game from a bad game to a potentially great game.
You are the real Arena Champions.
Cheers,
Oliver Joyce,
Whiskeybarrel Studios.