This has been posted for backers on the forum already, and been the subject of a lot of internal discussion, but it's time for the official announcement.
We're shelving our overlong-in-development flagship game Smugglers of Cygnus.
This has been quite a while coming, as it's become harder and harder to keep up with what is needed to get the game where we feel it needs to be in an economy where all of us have had to put this on the back burner in order to make enough to survive. We were never able to convince a publisher to back us (though a certain publisher who shall not be named rejected Smugglers then turned around to release a suspiciously similar game...), and realities had to be faced.
We’re going to roll on with other smaller games in the Cygnus galaxy - to be announced here on the blog when they're in late beta stages. Fun, focused experiences are more our forté, and the world we've created, all the assets, art, music, and story, is going to be explored in more tightly-focused experiences. Much like when Waypoint Station had to be shelved in its early stages.
We’re sending a copy of Starfield to all of our Pizza Pilot+ backers, and Starfield Premium to our Commodore-tier backers, and then calling Smugglers ‘retired’. The AAAs have done the game concept better than I could do it more-or-less singlehandedly, and it’s just gotten to be more than I can manage.
Active Commodores, of course, will still get every game, book, or other media released for free as always. The signed copies of Final Lap have already been sent if I was able to get ahold of you.
If you have not gotten your copy yet, let me know. I don't have valid contact information for some of you, and I can't send games via steam if you're not on the friends list for Indie Imprint. Most of you are active on the blog and so you've already been sent a copy of Starfield (or cash equiv if overseas, since Steam is just "like that").
What does the future hold for Longplay Games and the Cygnus Galaxy? Fear not - the books, stories and wallpapers will continue. Game development will continue as well, though now with particle beam focus on what can be built, polished, and shipped in months instead of years.
Thank you.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://blog.longplay.games/shelving-smugglers
