Hey everyone, we hope the new year is going as well for all of you as it has been for us!
The last few months have been amazing for us, as a team. Thanks to all of you the game has had an incredible response which has utterly altered the trajectory of our lives. Back in October, as we were putting the finishing touches on the first demo release, we attempted to plan out what its development timeline would look like. That can be tricky, especially when the whole dev team works full-time jobs to pay the bills, since it really limits the number of hours in a week where we can actually lock in and get stuff made.
So, the original plan we formed involved finding some source of funding which would allow us to cut our day-job hours and work on the game in a more official capacity. We knew plenty of indies who supplement their income using patreon and earnings from Early Access, and that was our plan too. It wasn’t optimal though, since unless things went phenomenally well we didn’t expect to be able to work full-time on White Knuckle. We figured that in the best case we would still be splitting our time with a regular job, though hopefully to a lesser degree.
But, we got lucky, and an even better opportunity for White Knuckle presented itself to us. When we unveiled the game during DreadXP’s Indie Horror Showcase, we managed to get a meeting with DreadXP’s director, who happened to be local to us. The possibility of the publishing route was always on our radar, but we knew that it would have to be the *right* publisher who was aligned with our values and our wants for development.
To cut a long story short, White Knuckle is fully funded! We still have a hard time believing it, but thanks to DreadXP’s help (and it’s wonderful team) the vision we have for the game is going to happen (our vision *does* include steam vents in every room, you’re welcome).
TLDR: We have a publisher (DreadXP), White Knuckle is funded, everything is awesome!
So, what does that mean? Well, we have had a lot of publishers reach out over the past few months and while so many of them have been incredible, we chose DreadXP because we think they share our creative values, they are committed to helping where we need help, and they are willing to let us pave our own way for the game in whatever direction we want to take it. They are also just really cool, which frankly is a requirement for this kind of thing.
This does mean that our initial plan is kind of changing, since the requirements of ‘needing to eat’ and ‘having a roof over our heads’ is no longer a looming threat when it comes to full-time work on the game.
Early Access
Initially, we planned on early access to fund development while opening the game to community feedback. We don’t need the money anymore, but we do think that having the community around during a game’s development is an amazing thing, and we don’t want to lose that.
So we’re going to still do early access. Exact dates are TBD at the moment, but know that since the game is funded it’s going to be developed and will release into 1.0 no matter what. We at Dark Machine are incredibly excited to see how you all engage with new areas, creatures, items, lore, and secrets.
Some sneak peeks of the third region..
Patreon
We are sunsetting our Patreon, the support we’ve received has been amazing but we feel wrong asking for money while having the full funding of a publisher. Don’t worry though, if you are currently or have previously supported the game through Patreon you will still get all promised release perks in your package: The game on release, cosmetics, graffiti, etc. In addition, we are going to create a special discord role for everyone who has supported us on patreon, and you will retain access to the fancy discord backrooms!
Finally for all early supporters, We are going to be adding a section in the game’s credits. We’ll be preparing a form to fill out so you can get your name in there. If you previously supported us on Patreon you should be receiving an email with the form in the coming weeks!
In Conclusion
Thank you so much for believing in us, and we hope you continue to follow both White Knuckle and Dark Machine for everything that lies ahead!!
With love,
-Holly, Jack, Quinn (Dark Machine Games)
Social Links:
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White Knuckle Discord
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DreadXP
Other News
White Knuckle b0.37
As a thank you for 1000 reviews on steam, we're extending the holiday event until the end of the month! Afterwards, you'll still be able to play it by opting into a public steam branch for it, so it won't be gone forever!
In the meantime, enjoy a minor feature/bugfix patch!
New Feature: Hand Swapping
- Added hand-swap button, letting you swap item in your hand if your hands are otherwise free.
Bugfixes:
- Fixed 'Hard Mode' staying on when resetting save.
- Dropped items should now be parented to the bounds of whatever room they are in. (And should despawn properly)
- Gasbag jump achievement should now only happen when you 'jump' off of them, and not when you hit them from the side.
- Screen should now properly fade out on death.
- Fixed auto piton light appearing black.
- Fixed the player getting stuck on the grating in Drainage_04
- Fixed the crushers not killing the player when pushed into the ceiling in the Playground
- Fixed the fan not killing the player in the Playground