Many of you have asked us what is going on with the development of Warblade Mk II, so if you'll bare with me a while i'll explain.
Simon here...
Warblade Mk II is EMVs most ambitious project so far and it is going to take a while to make this game. Considering Warblades long development cycle no-one should expect this game any time soon. That is not to say that Mk II is going to take as long as Warblade did, the development process is now quicker and easier with Unity, but also the vision for the project is bigger and equally as complicated. We want it done and being played by you as much as you do, but we cannot compromise on the vision for the game or the polish that we hope you agree comes on all EMV games.
Work has been constantly ongoing with the Mk II project albeit much slower lately as we have been focused on making a smaller game in the hopes of generating some income for the business. We planned for this game to take only a few weeks, but Edgars illness and our need to make it as perfect as we always strive for our games to be, stretched this to 7 months. EMV is more or less a 1 man company with myself (Simon) and Kevin helping out. Having Kevin on board with his great art skills is a real boost for us leaving Edgar more time to code, but he can only do this when he is well enough.
Other older EMV games are no longer generating income and Edgar does need to support his family, so the teams entire time cannot be devoted to a long term project with nothing in between. Dots Adventures is very close to finished now, we believe it holds all the same gameplay values and quality as any EMV game to date and hope you can aid us in promoting it and maybe giving it a try yourself. It is free to download and play and comes with a full "RETRO" map. Then, if you enjoy it, there are in game maps you can purchase if you want more. We plan to let all Ulule pledgers get this game for free with the added maps.
The money pledged to us on the Ulule page was excellent and gratefully received and has been used to buy the pro version of Unity, all the platform plugins and some other Unity game development plugins or libraries. It has also paid for some development hardware so we are able to test on different platforms such as a Nexus 7 for Android version testing. These things used up most of that pledged money, Unity is certainly not cheap but these are the things the money was always intended for. There is enough money left now to fullfil the extras promised to the pledgers such as the postcards and poster bonuses etc.
With Dots Adventures almost done it will be back to full swing on Warblade Mk II. We plan to get things sent out to the Ulule pledgers next and will work on letting all pledgers get Dots Adventures for free somehow, partly as a thankyou for the pledge, partly as a thankyou for your patience. We will either give you download links to a PC or MAC version (with the added maps) or an itunes voucher to download the game and maps for free. We're not sure how this will work yet, but we shall work something out.
We hope you understand why we have had to make a different game, we thank you for your patience and we hope you remain interested in the Warblade Mk II project. We are sorry this current game took longer than expected, but with all of us soon to be working fully on Warblade Mk II again we should have much more regular development news and screenshots in future.
Simon.
And Edgar wrote a personal message to everyone...
From me (Edgar): How can I excuse the long delay and silence? I don't think I can, but I am very very sorry for this. Sadly I have little control over my health problems and my health sort of controls what I can do. I have now started exercising (wow!!) and get better help from the doctor and others. I had to find some quick project early this spring to generate some income, or it will be game over for EMV Software. Simon had this old Amiga game he has wanted to make for years. I finally gave in and thought that it would be a quick project to do. A few weeks or something like that, but as always we could not stop fiddling with the game and added all sorts of stuff and made it play perfectly (!!). All this took way way longer than was planned, but now we see the end of it and we hope to have it out in a few weeks. It will be available for PC, Mac, on Mac AppStore, IOS (iPhone, iPads with OS version 6 upwards), Android, Linux, maybe also for Windows phones and Windows tablets. And maybe more platforms later like PS4 and XBox One? This game has learned me a LOT about Unity and that will help a lot on Warblade MK II !! Unity may be quick to make a concept of a game, but to do a whole complex game takes much longer. Unity has also been plagued with lots of bugs in the latest version (The latest version is unusable for me, crashes all the time), but I hope it will get better. Many more platforms has also been added to Unity, so that is all good for our games.
For all Ulule pledgers, Kevin is now working on new concepts for the art on the postcards and posters and we hope that will be ok and ready soon. The other stuff will also be worked on as soon as possible.
Once again: SORRY!!!
Simon here...
Warblade Mk II is EMVs most ambitious project so far and it is going to take a while to make this game. Considering Warblades long development cycle no-one should expect this game any time soon. That is not to say that Mk II is going to take as long as Warblade did, the development process is now quicker and easier with Unity, but also the vision for the project is bigger and equally as complicated. We want it done and being played by you as much as you do, but we cannot compromise on the vision for the game or the polish that we hope you agree comes on all EMV games.
Work has been constantly ongoing with the Mk II project albeit much slower lately as we have been focused on making a smaller game in the hopes of generating some income for the business. We planned for this game to take only a few weeks, but Edgars illness and our need to make it as perfect as we always strive for our games to be, stretched this to 7 months. EMV is more or less a 1 man company with myself (Simon) and Kevin helping out. Having Kevin on board with his great art skills is a real boost for us leaving Edgar more time to code, but he can only do this when he is well enough.
Other older EMV games are no longer generating income and Edgar does need to support his family, so the teams entire time cannot be devoted to a long term project with nothing in between. Dots Adventures is very close to finished now, we believe it holds all the same gameplay values and quality as any EMV game to date and hope you can aid us in promoting it and maybe giving it a try yourself. It is free to download and play and comes with a full "RETRO" map. Then, if you enjoy it, there are in game maps you can purchase if you want more. We plan to let all Ulule pledgers get this game for free with the added maps.
The money pledged to us on the Ulule page was excellent and gratefully received and has been used to buy the pro version of Unity, all the platform plugins and some other Unity game development plugins or libraries. It has also paid for some development hardware so we are able to test on different platforms such as a Nexus 7 for Android version testing. These things used up most of that pledged money, Unity is certainly not cheap but these are the things the money was always intended for. There is enough money left now to fullfil the extras promised to the pledgers such as the postcards and poster bonuses etc.
With Dots Adventures almost done it will be back to full swing on Warblade Mk II. We plan to get things sent out to the Ulule pledgers next and will work on letting all pledgers get Dots Adventures for free somehow, partly as a thankyou for the pledge, partly as a thankyou for your patience. We will either give you download links to a PC or MAC version (with the added maps) or an itunes voucher to download the game and maps for free. We're not sure how this will work yet, but we shall work something out.
We hope you understand why we have had to make a different game, we thank you for your patience and we hope you remain interested in the Warblade Mk II project. We are sorry this current game took longer than expected, but with all of us soon to be working fully on Warblade Mk II again we should have much more regular development news and screenshots in future.
Simon.
And Edgar wrote a personal message to everyone...
From me (Edgar): How can I excuse the long delay and silence? I don't think I can, but I am very very sorry for this. Sadly I have little control over my health problems and my health sort of controls what I can do. I have now started exercising (wow!!) and get better help from the doctor and others. I had to find some quick project early this spring to generate some income, or it will be game over for EMV Software. Simon had this old Amiga game he has wanted to make for years. I finally gave in and thought that it would be a quick project to do. A few weeks or something like that, but as always we could not stop fiddling with the game and added all sorts of stuff and made it play perfectly (!!). All this took way way longer than was planned, but now we see the end of it and we hope to have it out in a few weeks. It will be available for PC, Mac, on Mac AppStore, IOS (iPhone, iPads with OS version 6 upwards), Android, Linux, maybe also for Windows phones and Windows tablets. And maybe more platforms later like PS4 and XBox One? This game has learned me a LOT about Unity and that will help a lot on Warblade MK II !! Unity may be quick to make a concept of a game, but to do a whole complex game takes much longer. Unity has also been plagued with lots of bugs in the latest version (The latest version is unusable for me, crashes all the time), but I hope it will get better. Many more platforms has also been added to Unity, so that is all good for our games.
For all Ulule pledgers, Kevin is now working on new concepts for the art on the postcards and posters and we hope that will be ok and ready soon. The other stuff will also be worked on as soon as possible.
Once again: SORRY!!!
To err is human, to forgive is divine