Two Guys Are Back! SPACEVENTURE!

[Tawmis]

First and foremost, to ensure it doesn't get heated - I am not saying you're wrong with your view in any way.
I am merely expressing I definitely understand why people are frustrated.
And I agree, that the overly entitled "super rage" people, need to find a better hobby than focusing on just being an ass.

Gonna snip all the rest of my post out - and just focus on this.

For one thing, what more can they possibly say? "Yep, we're still working on it."

I think people would LOVE to hear that rather than silence. At least it's something.
Even if it's small.

"We're working on the save/load. There's a bug we're trying to figure out. When you save, then load XYZ happens."

Next month.

"We've gotten closer. We've tried a few different things."

Next month.

"Not much in the way of making progress to figure out a way to get around the save bug we've been seeing. But just wanted to let everyone know we're working on it still."

Just that interaction would speak volumes rather than the majority of the time just being silent.

[MusicallyInspired]

People say they'd love to hear that but when they do they get disappointed and just see them as available for more hounding for more answers and demands to live up to their fulfilment promises. He's tried this approach before. Constant updates about nothing made people upset. That's why he stopped. It's easier to just not say anything and then give them something when there is actually something substantial. In this case, the very next step is "It's done! Go download it!" The world and the backers can wait. The ones that don't play it when it comes out don't play it. But that's on them. They wanted a release and they got one (when it gets released). Again, if they don't appreciate it they can fly a kite. Nothing anybody does now will change anybody's feelings on the matter. You're either all in or not at this point. And I firmly believe that the same people who are criticizing lack of updates now would have been equally unhappy had they been getting constant updates all this time. They'd just say nonsense like "just say it's cancelled already" and "you promised this ages ago. Pathetic." I've seen it before. These are simply impatient people who can't be pleased no matter what you do. Like you, I also understand why people are frustrated. But I have long since stopped caring.

Not getting heated or anything. Certainly not with you. Just speaking my mind on the matter.

[Tawmis]

Holy Crowe! (See what I did there!)

A SpaceVenture update -

Hey everyone! First off, we very much realize that this update is really late in coming. After releasing the update earlier in the year, the plan was for this update to essentially be the "official releasing of the game update". Unfortunately the save / load system has continued to slow things down. We continued to hold off on this update in hopes that things would get finished.

A few things I want to make clear. We really appreciate all of you and your patience. We realize some of you are very upset and are chomping at the bits ready for this game to be released. We hear you and you have every right to feel the way you do. All we can say is that this game is going to come out. Not releasing this game is not an option. Please realize we are SO close to the finish line here. All of us have dedicated so much energy, blood, sweat, tears, and not to mention family time to get this game done. There have just been a lot of set backs in this project beyond anyone's control. This is not about making excuses, just stating some facts. Regardless, SpaceVenture is absolutely going to get released!

SO WHAT HAS BEEN THE FOCUS THE LAST FEW MONTHS?

The majority of our focus has been on the save/load system, which has gone through a major overhaul. To clarify on the problems with the save/load system, we had put the original system in place during the beginning of our progress on the game, and it worked okay during that time. During the first phase of SpaceVenture, we didn't have anywhere near the amount of game mechanics as we ended up with when the game got to its final stages. Throughout this process, the save/load system got back-burnered due to us trying to finish the full game. Our thoughts were that it shouldn't be too much trouble to bring the system up to date once we had all the mechanics in. Unfortunately this was very wrong.


The approach we should have taken would have been to modify the save / load system along the way. This would have taken longer to get to the final stages of the game, but we would have not ran into the problems that we have now.


On top of the save / load system being worked on, there has been more polish put into the game as well. Our beta testers did a great job of documenting things that were wrong and team members not working on save / load components have been able to put some time on those items as well.


HOW WILL THE SAVE / LOAD SYSTEM OPERATE IN SPACEVENTURE NOW?

In a perfect world, we would love for the player to be able to just save anywhere, anytime they want and be able to restore and things go exactly back to the way they were. In a lot scenes in SpaceVenture, you will get just that.

There are going to be three things to understand about the system you will experience while playing SpaceVenture:

Normal Saving and Loading: The game lets you save on a scene and you can just restore back to the way they were when you saved.
In certain sequences saving will be disabled: During certain areas of the game, mostly when animation operations are occurring, there will be a red X that appears over the save icon. You will need to wait until a certain sequence finishes or complete some small task before you will be able to save. There are very few cases in the game where you will experience this.
Saving in certain scenes will reset the scene upon reloading: On certain scenes due to the different mechanics occurring, the scene will reset upon reloading. This issue has been the biggest thing we've been trying to solve during the course of this year. Unfortunately there is just no easy answer to solving this problem for every single scene in the game. The good news is, this is just in a few areas of the game and understand that even when the scene resets upon load it will take very little time for you to complete tasks to get back to where you were before reloading. Also, you will know when this is going to occur because the game will warn you before saving.
SO WHATS HAPPENING NOW?

We are very close to having the save / load system working for the whole game but there are still some troublesome areas that we are fighting. These areas need to be 100% working with the system before we release the game.

WHEN THE GAME IS RELEASED WHAT SHOULD WE EXPECT?

The game will be released on Windows first. As you all probably remember, we are using Unity as the game engine so porting the game over to the other systems shouldn't be a big problem, but we do expect there to be some issues that need to be worked out for that to happen. We also realize that you all may report bugs and we will try to release fixes for those as well.


After all of that, we will be working on shipping rewards. Please do not message us your updated address information for rewards. We will eventually send out a survey that will allow you to put your updated information in there for us.


So that's it folks. The next update WILL contain info about releasing the game and how it will be going out. Thank you all for your patience and hope you will find the game to be worth the wait when you get it.

[Tawmis]

SpaceVenture update.
http://larrylaffer.net/archives/4033

[Collector]

This update is probably because of that Facebook post that someone made questioning if the project is dead.

[Tawmis]

This update is probably because of that Facebook post that someone made questioning if the project is dead.

Well, also on the Space Venture site itself - people were chatting - and I'd reached out to Chris about it, last week.

So it could be one, all, or just - "Hey, we have an update."

[Tawmis]

A release date!
http://larrylaffer.net/archives/4043

[Rath Darkblade]

Well, huzzah! It's done. What's next for the Two Guys from Andromeda, hmm?

This is interesting ...

Q. Since we have a DRM-free version of SpaceVenture, can we share it with everyone in the world?

A: We can’t stop you, but we would REALLY appreciate it if you didn’t

Indeed! Let's hope nobody does - but I'm sure some scalawag will, somewhere, at some point.

But if this scalawag paid for the game, why would he share it?

Q. What about bugs?

A: Though there may be some bugs in the game, we have it in a state now to where we feel comfortable with releasing it to everyone.

I'm far happier to wait for a bug-free game - or as bug-free as possible - than having the Two Guys release a game with game-breaking bugs.

I know some people's attitude seems to be "Release the damn thing already!", but I'd rather not. Remember the notorious Error 52? Or the legendary "Oops! You did something we weren't expecting"?

[Tawmis]

"Oops! You did something we weren't expecting"?

-grumble-

(Because of how I hit that in my recent Laura Bow 2 ...)

As for the bugs - having been in Alpha, Beta, Omega, Etcetera testing phases - there were numerous bugs in the game.
The last version they released still had bugs (normal game play bugs, along with the ongoing save game bug) - but they were always hammering away at it.
And in the latest version, if you were patient enough to repeat certain things, you could actually finish the game, which I managed to do.
Even wrote a walk through for it on the SpaceVenture super secret site.

But I am eager to play the (less) bug free version of the game.

Because it really is an amazingly fun game.

[Rath Darkblade]

Will it be available on Steam, GOG, and all the other usual places?

[Tawmis]

Will it be available on Steam, GOG, and all the other usual places?

Q. Will the game be coming out on Steam?
A: Yes! After we release the game to you backers, we’re planning to release it on Steam. And our goal is to get all $15 and up backers Steam keys as soon as possible.

[MusicallyInspired]

Well, huzzah! It's done. What's next for the Two Guys from Andromeda, hmm?

Sadly, I'm thinking they'll never develop another game again after this incident. Which is sad, but...hey. It is what it is. I do remember them saying that they were starting up a game company and wanted to start making games again. Looks like this will probably be the one and only. At least we got that, though!

[Tawmis]

Well, huzzah! It's done. What's next for the Two Guys from Andromeda, hmm?

Sadly, I'm thinking they'll never develop another game again after this incident. Which is sad, but...hey. It is what it is. I do remember them saying that they were starting up a game company and wanted to start making games again. Looks like this will probably be the one and only. At least we got that, though!

Agreed.

So weird how we had brief spurt of Sierra again...

Al Lowe came back and did LSL:Reloaded, but that blew up because of Paul ...
Jim Walls came back, but his died before it ever got a chance...
Two Guys came back, took forever, got hell, finally coming putting it out (but will undoubtedly call it quits)...
Jane came back, gave us a few games, then her entire site/company (Pinkerton Road) collapsed...
The Coreys did Hero-U, and so far, seem to be the most successful at maintaining...

Ken & Roberta, got their Colossal Cave remake, and I am curious if that will be enough to perhaps lead to more games from them...

I wish someone (from Westwood) took another stab at Legend of Kyrandia...

[Tawmis]

Well, I already submitted a report - but looks like SpaceVenture has an early bug that prevents moving forward (bathroom when it "floods").
Now a known bug, but didn't explain when the next release would come out in the email I got... >.<

[Tawmis]

Found a way around the bug thanks to the SpaceVenture backer form; and was able to beat the game. It still has a few bugs in the game, but man - it's such a fantastic and fun game. I could easily see replaying the game over and over.

I am uploading my gameplay to my Let's Play Sierra Games channel right now.