Hello Everyone,
I’m sorry to announce that GemCraft chapter 2:: Chasing Shadows will be released in January 2014.
I’ve talked to Armor Games about this last week, I gave it a few more days to see if there’s still a way though to get there this year, but, sadly, there isn’t.
Why:
- Releasing this year would have meant releasing no later than on the 9th of December (19 days left), it will be a busy month at Armor Games and some time frame should be given before Christmas to rake out the most critical errors (to prevent things like the mana cheat build I accidentally left on the server for the weekend, back then with GCL).
- ~400 mg caffeine a day has no use anymore (apart from ringing ears and inverted sleep cycle), what I should get is more sleep to regain some working speed (but that takes time).
- I have written to some of you that it would be great to release the game as it is and add missing content and fixing errors later. I’ve run through the task list to see what would I be happy shipping the game without. It’s still a long list of half-baked features, and the only thing I found to be less critical are the story illustrations, and putting them alone on hold wouldn’t turn the situation.
- With a January release, there are 4 to 6 extra weeks to make the final moves, and that extra time is really needed right now. Making this game was a long journey, I really don’t think it would be worth to just huddle the game together in a hurry and present you a game that is broken and inferior to what it could give with that extra few weeks.
I’m sorry to let you down and not making this game a holiday gift, I hope you understand and that when the day finally comes, you’ll agree it was worth the ~+4% added development time.
In the mean time, I’m sure there will be lots of games you can kill time with, released timed for the holiday season, but let me recommend you a game series I really enjoyed playing through the years and which recently had its latest title released: If you’d like to get into a desperate fight against a faceless, endlessly flowing enemy, you should check out the Creeper World series, and if you like it, you might consider voting it up at Steam Greenlight too.
Talking of which, many of you asked about a possible Steam release. Well, as an avid Steam player (and achievement junkie) myself, I was happy to see that Steam has opened their Greenlight platform to give games a chance to be highlighted by the players’ votes. So, yes, there are plans to try going for Greenlight, but first the game has to be finished. I don’t know how long it will take to get the game to Steam (if it will get there at all, it depends on both player votes and Steam’s consideration), but shortly after the Flash release I’ll start working on the materials needed to set up a Greenlight page for the game, and I’ll keep you posted.
Kongregate and other sites: the game will be exclusive to Armor Games for a yet uncertain amount of time, but at least 3 months after release, as part of our updated contract with AG. If you desperately want to play the game on other sites, you can still give the game a try at AG and go for Kongregate badges when the game arrives there. The first few weeks will surely be spent on fixing major bugs anyway, hopefully by the time the game gets global, most errors and flaws will be resolved.
I should be able to give you the exact release date when the new year starts, right now I’m keeping on rushing to get the game almost content-ready by the 16th of December, so balancing, stress testing, optimizing can go on under the Christmas tree. I’ll keep you informed as we progress towards the launch day.
Sorry again, I wish all of you a great winter holiday, and a new year starting with chasing some shadows already!
