I can hardly believe it, but Chasm officially turns five years old today! On top of that, it was over 10 years ago now that Chasm's Kickstarter was successfully funded. Where does the time go? In celebration of the anniversary, we'll be doing a giveaway today with our last copy of the Switch Deluxe Edition by Limited Run. Please join our Discord if you haven't already, and get your entry in!
I'd like to once again thank both the team who worked their hardest to make Chasm a reality, as well as all the fans that helped make it such a success. But just how big of a success was it? Well, I'm honored to say that to date Chasm has sold 200,000 copies worldwide! That is a huge achievement for an indie game, and far beyond what we ever thought would be possible for our first major title.
So, what have we been up to since launch? Immediately after launch in the fall of 2018 we focused on the Switch and Xbox ports, while trying to fix all the major issues that were reported by the community. New translations, game modes, content and much more were also released. Then in 2019, Chasm's engine & tool programmer (and longtime friend) Tim decided to leave the company. It was a major blow for me, but I continued working on Chasm throughout that year fixing bugs, adding content, and generally improving the experience until the last major update was released in the fall.
Engine Improvement: Vertical Transitions (Bonus: 8-bit style Daltyn!)
Going into 2020, I was back on my own again with no clear path forward. In a lot of ways, it felt like I was starting over from scratch. During that period, I worked on a few different prototypes while I improved the engine with new features and optimizations to speed up content creation. Among the prototypes were a sequel to Chasm that picked up right where the last one left off, a "pick up and play" Spelunky-ish spin-off, and, finally, a hand-designed Metroid-inspired game.
A character creator for a scrapped prototype.
While all the ideas showed promise, I was burned out on both fantasy and procedural generation, so the hand-designed idea seemed the most appealing at the time. All the pieces started to come together as I worked on it, and by the summer of 2021 I had a brand-new team assembled with a 30-minute prototype showcasing the intro and first area (similar to Chasm's that I used to pitch at GDC and the Kickstarter). After proving to myself the concept was solid and the new team could realize the vision, I decided to commit to it and officially went into pre-production on my next title.
Jumping up to the present, the game is now a good way into development and I'm bursting to finally announce it to the world. However, there is still that pesky little problem of the right timing! Unfortunately, it's not quite here yet, but we're getting closer every day now. Thank you again for your continued support over the years, and I'll be back in touch soon!
-James