Hello everyone,
It’s usually pretty hard to write these types of updates, as bringing unhappy news is not something that is easy to write about. But I guess the best way to let people know the news that they might not like is by telling them straight out. As many of you have noticed, we are now in September, and we still haven’t announced a release date. And the reason for that being is that we needed to postpone the launch date of Inkulinati. Here are the reasons why we needed to push.
There are two main reasons for the delay. One being that we are a team that's working on their very first project, and two, the fact that we are placing a high amount of focus on quality with a limited number of team members. But let me explain the two reasons in a bit more detail.
So, we at Yaza Games, we are a fresh studio on the game development scene, with Inkulinati being our first commercial title. And although we are surrounded by people who have been in the industry for some time, the core of our team, well, we are all new to the scene. We are working on the game constantly, and as we work on the game itself, we are also learning how to create the game too. And it’s because of this learning curve, there were moments where we had to start all over again on certain features because we either hit a dead end or we had to re-do them so that their quality would fit with the rest of the newly polished elements of the game. Right now, we feel we have a rather high level of quality when it comes to the visual side of Inkulinati, and also the game’s mechanics. However, content production (more units, battlefields, Inkulinati Masters, etc), balancing, and polishing, well, that takes time. The UI is definitely the feature that is taking the most time and iterations to get right. You have no idea how often it was changed! But we are on the right track and we are close to the final version!
The new Inkulinati UI (still WIP)
The second reason, that of quality, well, that’s a big one for us too, both professionally and personally. We are a small team, so if we want to create something that screams quality, well, we have to be nimble - both in what we do, what we focus on at any given time, and also with deadlines. We want to release a really unique and quality game that has its own feel, vibe, and those little bits of attention to detail that just add that much more enjoyability, and with a bit of luck, some wow factor too. We don't want to cancel some of those little signs of quality just so we release the game on time. We ourselves, we love seeing games that show signs of love and extra care. We want our game to be the same.
New in-game icons
We are also looking at the feedback we received from you through the demo that some of you played, and we are taking it on board too. For example, one of the insights that we gathered from your feedback led us to change the animations of the Tiny Inkulinatis. We decided that through Tiny Inkulinati’s animation we can show players when they are able to use them during the turn, and when they cannot. It’s little attentions to detail like these that will help players just focus on the gameplay itself. It will make for a better game in the long run. Unfortunately, those types of changes once again take time to be implemented, and delays happen. But once again, we feel it’s better to have these changes in the game than to release earlier without them.
New set of Tiny Inkulinati animations - little touch to please the eye (still WIP)
So you’re probably wondering “ok, so when will the game come out?”, and we can confirm that it will be coming within the first half of 2022. We’ve been working on Inkulinati for over four years, and we want to release the best game we can possibly release. We know that for us to have a successful studio, we need our game to be better than average. We have to create something special and don’t feel like we threw all those years away for nothing. We feel that a better game delivered a little later on is worth the wait. I hope that you feel the same way too.
Don’t fret though - work is continuing! Right now we are working on new Battlefields, we are balancing the game as we speak, tweaking the UI, adding new animations and sounds, and more. We are getting closer and closer to the finish line, but we do need just that little bit more time to make Inkulinati the best it can be. Once again, thank you so much for keeping faith in our project. We will be revealing more about Inkulinati really soon. If you do have any questions, concerns, anything at all, just type it down below. Would love to answer any worries that you might have.
Until next time,
Wojtek, Game Designer, on behalf of Yaza Games Team