It is my pleasure to announce the completion of GearCity.
I welcome everyone stepping into the game for the first time. I hope you have an enjoyable and profitable experience. Be sure to do the tutorials, and feel free to ask if you have any questions.
For everyone that has been with me for some time, I would like to say thank you.
When I started making this game twelve years ago, I had limited expectations that anyone would play it. I thought it was bound to be an unfinished open source game rotting in a repo somewhere, but the game did find a small but dedicated audience. Through your feedback and suggestions, GearCity's development continued well past its anticipated expiration date.
During 12 years of evolution together, we handwrote 431,941 lines of code, 416,733 lines of GUI script, and 225,771 words of content (a 650-page paperback book). Many of you helped translate that into several languages. We also recorded 2.5 hours of interactive audio tutorials and 4.5 hours of video tutorials that have been watched and listened to by countless people over the years. The user manual is about 100,000 words and still growing.
The community has posted 1,689 threads and made 7,193 posts on the official forums. On Steam, you all made 3680 threads. Sadly, Steam's forum system is very limited, so I can't pull up the post numbers. However, I can say that I have replied to you all 13,587 times via both forums. You all sent me 13,874 emails, but by keeping my email account public and clickable, I got 57,533 spam emails. Even with all that typing, I continue to look forward to communications with you all.
The game has seen 186 updates: 6 in Alpha, 15 in Open Beta, and 165 in Early Access. While I can't guarantee future updates, I imagine that number will grow, although more slowly, post-release.
That brings me to our future plans.
While GearCity has reached an important milestone that markets the end of continuous development, computer software is rarely ever truly completed. I will continue to provide customer support and bug fixes for as long as I am humanly (or contractually) able. I also plan on launching a Development as a Service system to raise funds for additional features in the game. It is called the "Feature Bounty" program. There will be no Steam Announcement when I launch this system, so please follow us on other platforms.
I will reopen the official forums with the launch of the Feature Bounty system. I hope that many of you will join us there.
So, what am I doing next?
After I get the user manual completed, I'm taking a few days off. I haven't had a good vacation in a few decades. After that, as you may have seen in GearCity's magazine, the next game is called AeroMogul. It is an airline business simulator, that should have as much depth, if not more, than GearCity. If everything works out as planned, it could revolutionize the spreadsheet tycoon genre.
I anticipate development to speed up substantially by retiring Beardgine (our engine) as a front-end engine. However, it will still power the backend of the new game.
Please join the community for this game on our official forums when it reopens in the coming months. I'll be sure to make an announcement here when the Steam store page is ready in a few years.
Finally
There are so many people I want to thank for helping me make this game. The list is way too numerous to publish. Thank you to the people who worked on the game, whose names are in the About window. Thank you to the folks who worked endlessly to translate the game. I did not give you as much love and appreciation as you deserve for your hard work. (If I didn't have to change the translation system so many times, I would enter your names into the game.) Thank you to everyone who showed friends and peers the game. And thank you to those who bought the game as gifts for other people. Thank you to those that posted the game in various forums and communities for discussion. And thank you to everyone who chatted about our game on our forums. My heart-filled thanks to everyone who offered suggestions and gave bug reports. Without you, the game wouldn't be anywhere near as good as it is today. A tiny thanks to everyone who has pirated the game. And a pat on the back to those that bought it after pirating it. I thank everyone who has bought the game and enjoyed it. And my apologies to those who hated the game after they purchased it.
And last but not least, thank you to everyone that has had to put up with me non-professionally in the real world and the virtual one.
In short, thank you.
Good luck and enjoy the game!
ːEricBː