Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the release of Lost Marbles into Early Access on Steam, and I think you guys are more than due a new entry into how development is going, and what I have planned moving into year two.
First off, let me just thank everyone who has taken the time to play the game, and give a huge shout out to those who join in the discussion to help make the game better. You know who you are, so thank you! <3
With that out of the way, id like to apologise for the lack of communication over the past several months. It has been too long, and this is something I would like to rectify, starting today! There are various reasons for my absence, but rest assured, though I have been silent, I have been working hard on some juicy updates for the game...
Be sure to fire up the game over the coming weeks to score the time-limited anniversary marble, as well as the Christmas marble in a few weeks time. These marble skins are available on both the full game and the demo!
- The Anniversary marble is available 13th Nov - 30th November
- The Christmas marble is available 11th Dec 23 - 5th Jan 24
*The marble skins will be released in the coming weeks, but opening the game will secure the skin once it releases.
Now, lets get to discussing the future of Lost Marbles
Future Map Content
So the decision for when to release new levels has been on my mind a fair bit over the past year. Should I release levels as they are made, or should I stash them away and do a bigger drop? My original plan was to simply release them as they were ready, and that is what I have done for the new levels which have released since launch. Going forward however, I have decided that saving several levels for a bigger content drop is the way to do it moving forward.
There are a few reasons for this decision, but the main one is that it releases the pressure from myself. Every time I drop a new level, It reignites interest from my core players, which then makes me feel pressure to continue producing and releasing new maps in a short space of time. The issue is that I have other features that id rather prioritise at the moment, so I would rather just build new maps at my own pace, and release them as a large content drop. Additionally, these larger content drops make it easier for me to promote the game, which is something I will hopefully be taking a more active role in moving forward.
Challenge Mode
I’ll be honest, the current state of challenge mode is incomplete due to my ideas for a level editor taking over as the main priority. The mode is functional, but lacks many of the features I was hoping to launch with, such as a proper menu and a much larger level pool. On top of this, I had to remove Gem arena maps from the pool of levels because there was a problem with the leaderboards.
I am hoping to get all of these issues resolved in the very near future, but as I said, my priority remains the level editor, as I feel that has the potential to add some real value to the game.
The Level Editor
As you can probably tell by now, this is where my main focus has been over the past few months of development, and I am pleased to say that good progress is being made. I wont speak too much on the topic though as I plan on writing a dedicated dev article specifically about the level editor. I will, however, say that it is coming along very nicely! :)
Thanks for reading, and more importantly, thanks for your support. I look forward to what the next year will bring to Lost Marbles, and I hope you do too!