We started the development of MiniGolf Mania way back in the Fall of 2015. Inspired by Rooster Teeth's mini-golf let's plays, we developed it over the course of a few months before deciding to put it up for sale in March of 2016.
In hindsight, the game was not at all fit to be released, especially as a non-early-access title. However, had we not released it, we probably would not have spent 3 more years working on it, and it probably would have been abandoned without ever seeing the light of day.
The past 3 years have been a tough journey, both for us and our players. We attempted to keep communication consistent, but we ultimately failed. Life has slowed down development much more than we would have liked. However, our journey has been leading up to this moment.
MiniGolf Maker
In the last news post I mentioned that we might be going in a new direction. Now, I can say that this new direction is MiniGolf Maker, the new title we will be releasing in Early Access. We want to re-brand and have a fresh start, learning from our mistakes to build a much stronger community and deliver a much better game.
Firstly, I want to reassure existing customers that you will receive a free copy of MiniGolf Maker. We will try our best to make this automatic, but if we are unable to do so we will do it manually via email. Also, your custom courses created in the Beta will be able to be imported into MiniGolf Maker, albeit with some missing elements.
MiniGolf Mania
As for the future of MiniGolf Mania, we will be ceasing development. The beta branch will be discontinued, the workshop will remain disabled, and it will become free to play, if not removed from the Steam store entirely.
Lastly, we want to give a huge thank you to all of you who have provided us with encouragement to keep working. We would not have made it this far without you. The future of MiniGolf is bright with MiniGolf Maker, and we can't wait to see what it holds.