So, March has come and gone, and with it, our hopes to release 1.0 around the one year in EA mark. Unfortunately, today's update is not 1.0. And we feel that requires a bit of explanation.
As our credits page hopefully makes clear, Endless Dark has a number of lovely contributors and lots of wonderful talent behind it, but the core team is exactly two people: Soulmata, and myself (Coolguy).
Soul and I work together very tightly and complement one another in very fundamental ways. It is what has allowed us to keep up with development despite both of us having full-time jobs and heavy family obligations. It's a fantastic cooperative dynamic that I really treasure. This makes it especially painful when one of us gets knocked out.
Unfortunately, starting in late January, Soul had:
1) COVID
2) Bronchitis
3) Flu
4) Pneumonia
One after another, in that order.
I kept trying to push the game's development forward for a while by redoubling my own efforts. However, after it became clear that this was a very serious illness, I came to the conclusion that the only humane and sane thing to do was to was to just STOP and let the process happen.
In hindsight, that was the correct thing to do. It has been an absolute nightmare watching my friend of over 20 years struggle with a series of serious infections, any one of which could have easily taken a turn for the worst. I don't pretend to be able to contemplate the nightmare Soul went through actually living it.
I was generally unwilling to come out with details of this story until it was behind us for a couple of reasons, but first and foremost was that the matter was very stressful for both Soul and I. Discussing the matter required energy that he was better off spending on healing. And considering we lost almost three months to this battery of infections, I am further convinced that was the correct thing to do. If we were a larger studio, there would have been more considerations, but with the size of the team as it is, I strongly feel it was the correct call to prioritize health over everything else.
The good news is that the team is now healthy again, and we intend to prove it by releasing today's patch! This patch is not large, but it does fix a large fistful of bugs that we've seen from various streamer friends showing off the game the last few months, and bugs we have identified from our own playthroughs on Twitch. This version of the game has almost 40 hours played publicly with zero observed bugs, even minor ones. There's definitely still number of balance and design issues we want to work out, but this version of the game is as rock solid stable as it has ever been.
So what now?
Now, we are back to work. The scope and ambition for 1.0 - the completion of the story of the Custodians, the fulfillment of our functional promises for modding and content, and the fleshing out of all the little systems and pieces we have built around the mythos of the ship - all of it remains unchanged. We are fired up and excited to get it to you as soon as we are able. Only the schedule has been pushed back.
After the immense run of terrible luck that cost us pretty much the entire first quarter of this year, I have learned my lesson about making commitments on exactly when. For now, I only ask that everyone bear with us just a little longer. The game will be done as soon as it is practical - which is different from the kiss-of-death "when it's done". We know exactly what done looks like, and we are both capable of getting there, and eager to get there fast.
The only question that remains is how fast the universe will allow us to get there.
Each and every one of you are deeply appreciated for your love and support along this odyssey we've shared together.
See you soon, Custodians.