TLDR; I failed the community, I failed the game, and I failed myself. I shut down and ran. I sincerely apologize. TD’s Development will be paused for a while.
I’m sorry.
My absence has been due to my debilitating depression & anxiety. I shut down completely. I was afraid to leave my own house. I was afraid to talk to friends and people I knew. I was afraid to face the criticisms over my inactions and broken promises.
I did not deliver on the promises made around Terrytorial Disputes.
TD started as a side hobby project to master coding; When I got laid off I decided to commit 100% to it. I had a little bit of money saved up, so I took the risk.
I’ve been designing games, maps, and scripts for close to two decades. This was my first time making something of this scope & complexity. I bit off more than I could chew. Technical debt from the old code was built up making bug fixes nightmarish; decisions made years ago prevented changes I want to make. I did not plan nor organize myself as much as is required for a project of this scale. Combine that with the additional effort of all the marketing, community, cold emailing youtubers all day. It’s more than I could do. I ended up losing money on the game through my own mis-investments on assets, advertising, and some freelance work.
I feel guilty about saying that I was going to do something, and then not doing it. It was wrong, a mistake, and I want to be clear that it’s my fault. I recognize I am part of the problem of Early Access Indie games that end of abandoned, I am one of the cogs that made Steam create a special disclaimer.
I’ve taken this failure so seriously because everything in TD is a projection of Terry, who I am, what I like, my creativity, my taste, me. So, I feel like I’ve been a failure.
I still want to continue to make games, making TD is probably the most fun I’ve had on a creative project. I hate that I only see TD as a failure. I want to give myself the freedom to acknowledge the +2 years of effort and the thousands of hours of work. To acknowledge the part that I did do, how drastically the game changed over time. I want to be proud of what I made, instead of viewing it as an all-encompassing failure.
I am grateful for the time this community has invested in the game, the bug fixing, playtests, and suggestions.
Terrytorial Disputes will be on hiatus while I get back on my feet mentally and financially, I do hope to come back to it. I want to learn from TD and come back with a TD V2.0 someday.
I’m sorry,
-Terry