Project update + Final release date + Dev Diary 2
over 3 years ago
– Wed, Nov 25, 2020 at 09:59:46 PM
Hi everyone!
At the start of this month (November 3rd) we released Sword of the Necromancer Prologueas a Free to Play title on Steam. This version includes most of the features for the final game up to the first boss.
To this day, more than 25000 people have played the Prologue. Thanks to the feedback we received (which has been very positive), we've been tweaking the gameplay to make it more fluid and comfortable. We even added mouse support for those who want to play that way (albeit we find it way better to play with a gamepad).
Combos are now easier to pull off, the final hit can be dash-cancelled (thus allowing to chain up another combo) and other little tweaks. In addition, we created a new item to help those who have more difficulties with the game: the Coin of Nodam. The Coin of Nodam is used automatically when Tama is defeated in combat, reviving her and giving the player a second chance.
Release Date
As you know, after a delay our planned release date was December 10th, but Cyberpunk 2077 got delayed to that very same date, and thus releasing on that day is not recommended. You might think that we do not share the same target public, and that should not be a problem for us, but it's not entirely like that.
While it's true that both games' targets wouldn't overlap as much, all the media (and streamers) attention will be focused on Cyberpunk, and if we release on the same date, our game will go unnoticed (and things are hard enough for an indie). Cyberpunk is a very highly anticipated title and will overshadow anything released the same week and maybe even the following.
We worked hard to release the game as soon as possible, even aiming for December 3rd, or were this not possible, releasing on December 17th to avoid the "Cyberpunk week". We sent the game to console certification for all platforms (PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch) at the start of the month (even when the game was ready a bit earlier, because we were improving it in a few areas).
In case you don't know, every game that is released on console has to undergo a process of testing by the platform holders. This means that people at Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo try the game on their platform to ensure everything works well and things like controller disconnection or platform-specific things like achievements/trophies are handled correctly. There is a whole battery of tests and all of them have to be passed successfully for the game to be allowed to release, and if the game fails even one of them, the whole process has to start anew (unless they let you patch it in a day-1 patch).
So, certification for PS4 and Xbox One was passed without much problem, but we failed one specific test for Nintendo Switch. This was a pretty obscure one and (we think) would affect almost no one (the issue being that the game's screen appreared cut when forcing the game to be displayed with a 480p resolution on a 1080p screen). We tried to convince Nintendo to let us fix this issue in a day-1 patch, but they said it was a critical one and thus was not possible.
This means that, after fixing this issue, we had to start the certification process from scratch on Nintendo Switch, and due to the current situation and the start of Holiday season, which make everything slower, the game couldn't be ready for neither December 3rd or December 17th on Switch, but on a later date. As we write this, the game has passed certification on Switch too, but there's still work to do (mostly bureaucracy, that couldn't start until certification ended).
We want to release the game on all platforms at once. Both because it's the fairest thing to our backers (so no one is left behind for choosing a platform over another) and because business-wise is the recommended thing to do. With deep sorrow, we must inform you that we have to delay the release on all platforms.
January is a very bad month to release a game. People have spent a lot during Holidays, there is the Blue Monday and all that. But it's worse to release during Christmas or New Year's Eve (which is the alternative) among all the sales and offers.
Thus, the final release date for Sword of the Necromancer will be January 28th 2021. This way, everyone has time to recover from Holidays, we can contact media with time and have some cool things ready.
To sum up, we first had scheduled the game to release on November 19th (which is the date of delivering you can see on the Kickstarter campaign), which was the original date for Cyberpunk 2077. We were advised not to do so, and thus we moved it to December 10th, only for Cyberpunk to be delayed again to that very same date. We tried to have the game earlier (but not at its original November date, as it was no longer possible) but we encountered an unexpected issue and thus we have to delay again.
With the first delay, we took some time to improve several aspects of the game, and we will do the same with this second delay. We will make sure the game is worth the extra wait.
Thank you very much for your understanding. We are very sorry for having to do this.
Dev Diary 2
This said, we want to show you the second video in our Dev Diary series, this time we'll talk about the art and music of Sword of the Necromancer, with a special surprise at the end!
Cool project: Chrono Sword
Finally, we would like to let you know about Chrono Sword, a promising 2D Souls-like that is currently live on Kickstarter and very close to meeting its goal! Check out this project and help them if you like what you see!
