Hello skeletal spawn,
ENCHAIN is nearly ready to start Early Access, but again I have needed more time than expected. I want to use this post updating you all on the past year of development.
The year of 2023
Immediately, thank you for your patience in this drought of updates from me. It has been a long year and I have had to take the vast majority of my time away from ENCHAIN. Let me explain my situation a bit.
Since late 2022 I've slowly shifted focus from ENCHAIN to prioritize working, socializing, and taking care of myself. I was naive to believe this wouldn't happen, and I am sorry to delay the game for so long because of it.
In early 2023 I had pretty much run out of money and energy working on the game, and it was time for me to get a full-time job to sustain myself instead. This is the reason I stopped posting updates. I never wanted to make it seem like I abandoned the game, I was just busy adjusting to a new job, moving to a new apartment, and so on.
Luckily, I am very happy with the job I got. Unluckily, I now have very little free time to finish ENCHAIN.
I don't want this to sound like terrible news, though. The game is in a pretty good place and I only have a few more large pieces to put into place. I will continue working on ENCHAIN as my time permits. Please understand it will be a slow and sometimes silent process.
Why have I not committed to ENCHAIN full-time: getting a publisher, managing a team, running a funding campaign, etc.?
ENCHAIN is an extremely special project to me. I want it to be the best it can be. However, I never wanted ENCHAIN to turn into that kind of project (product). I never really planned for it to. It started from a 72 hour game jam entry. For years, before the demo, it was a sandbox of me messing around with things I thought were fun and cool. After trying to be more serious about ENCHAIN after the success of the demo, I feel that my enjoyment of game dev suffers when under the pressure of making money, or under the command of something else. I long ago made the decision to keep ENCHAIN a solo passion project.
Difficulties with the nature of ENCHAIN's world and design
It also might be good to have it on record that some parts of this game have become extremely challenging for me to work with. For example, all the regions being interconnected is a nightmare to put together. The freedom that the game's movement provides means designing meaningful levels is near impossible. On the bright side, I feel that nevertheless tying these challenging things together into a fun game will be really special. It will just take time.
It pains me but due to the above difficulties, it is necessary for me to complete ENCHAIN's development as soon as I can, regardless if it meets the original vision and scope. I'll do my best to update your expectations below.
Early Access
I will stick with my plans to first release in Early Access in order to get direct feedback from you, the community, to help me finish and polish the final game. I even may do a playtest right before. I will need to spend minimal time on this stage of development to ensure the game actually gets completed. So, by the time Early Access begins, the game will be more or less complete. I will likely be doing rebalancing, fixes, and one additional content update for full release. More info to come when I am ready to begin this stage.
Tentative Game Content
ENCHAIN will be a not be a large game. My goal is still to make a 3-5 hour replayable adventure experience. Let me run through some of the exciting things that early access will contain.
"+" indicates things I'd like to expand on during early access. Please remember anything may be changed for any reason.
- 4+ interconnected explorable regions (size of demo = 2 incomplete regions)
- a set+ of small standalone areas hidden throughout
- a couple+ of weapons per ammo type (bullets, shells, chains, rockets, and no ammo)
- a moderate+ cast of varied enemies
- a handful of unique bosses
- a set+ of bracelet equipment to modify gameplay
- 3 grapple lanterns
- expanded player movement tech
- more secrets and sequence breaks
- more than one ending
- tons and tons of minor improvements
Below is a video montage of some of the new stuff I worked on in 2023. As usual I am leaving most things out to keep them as a surprise for release. The clips are chronological, so a handful of new reveals are at the end. Enjoy!
Watch on YouTube
Price
I no longer have the need to support myself with this game's sales, so the game will be priced at a more modest amount than originally planned. I want to still charge some amount as I feel I deserve the compensation. I also don't want to feed the trend of severely underpriced games. I will have this information decided by release.
Release Date
I do not have a release date to share at this time. I won't want to confirm anything until the game is completely ready to play. Something unexpected often manages to draw out development time.
Please bear with me while I finish the entire thing to the best of my ability.
Demo Update
I plan to update the demo sometime near/after release as a free way to play the first few hours of the game (with some necessary limitations).
Thank you
That concludes all I can manage to disclose at this time. I wish I could do more but even finding time to put this post together was a challenge.
I cannot thank you all enough for sharing, supporting, caring about this game, and waiting all these years now since the demo. I hope soon enough the full release will be finally available. Happy new year, and stay tuned for news in 2024.