Keeping Sierra On-Line Alive
https://forums.sierrahelp.com/
Probably from whatever little money the pirate game is generating.Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Fri Jun 06, 2025 10:28 pm I'm glad that they're making progress with Microsoft. I wish there was more worth mentioning, though. :-\
If their finances are still so ugh, how can they keep going? I am confused.
Summer Highs And Lows
Another northern hemisphere summer is upon us, and it’s a hot one! Stay safe in those scorching temperatures, everyone.
We are off on break at the moment, but will return soon to continue making some progress with our games - bit by bit. There are some good things to report this month, and some rough things as well… but let’s just get right into it.
Bow Down To The Store Gods
For those of you reading this newsletter for Laura Bow 3 news, we’ve got some good, albeit minor, news for you. We have officially put up a Steam store page for the game! It’s still a work in progress at the moment, so we haven’t officially announced it anywhere yet. But since you all are big fans of the series, we’d really appreciate it if you could pop on over and give us some early wishlists. Every +1 helps out!
Laura Bow 3 on Steam
As per our talks with Microsoft, we’ve agreed to do an “Xbox First” release order of the game. But they’re not against us releasing on other platforms too (and in short order, so don’t worry about that). So we’re going to start the process of trying to build up an audience and wishlists on some of those platforms - Steam being the main focus, for now.
Industry Turmoil Continues
More major project cancelations and full studio closures have been going down in the game industry - including some of which we used to work with. It’s really a dire state out there for the industry as a whole!
The biggest blow this week, however, is the 9000 person layoff by Microsoft, mostly within the gaming sector. Whether this affects our projects or contracts with them is yet to be determined. But, regardless, it’s not good as a whole.
Everyone is tightening their belts, and the USD is still in a free fall. All of these things mixed together is just going to make things more and more challenging in the long run for us - and many others like us. Yet, we still have hope that with a little determination and grit, we will be able to get things across the line - much like what has carried us this far.
Most of these things are out of our control, though, so we’ll just have to wait and see how it all pans out.
Will It Be Adventure, Or X?
The AdventureX registration has opened up for the upcoming in-person London event in November. We have submitted Laura Bow 3, so hopefully they select us as an official exhibitor this year - we’d love to let some serious fans try out the game. Hopefully, by the time of our next newsletter, we’ll know if we’ve got a spot.
And, if not, we do still plan to attend. In that case, we’ll see if we can get an iPad version of the game going, and bring it along that way for people to try.
If you’d like to attend, keep an eye out here for tickets, when they’re available.
https://www.adventurexpo.org/
Not Done Yet
We’ve still got more things in the works for Tile Tales: Pirate. The next chapter of puzzles is still in development, and will feature a slight new mechanic. We’ve also got some other new features planned, like a way to skip ahead to other puzzles if you really want, notifications for the mobile version, more languages, etc.
So look out for those coming in the near-ish future, matey!
Oh boy, oh boy. I truly hope they get this over the line. The description ("a mystery set in historical fiction"), and what little we've seen of the game so far, sounds and looks exciting. (I've written some historical fiction novels myself, including one with a half-serious, half-comic mystery. Please forgive my understandable bias). 
No News Is Good News?
Hey NineZymers... welcome back to another monthly newsletters. Not a whole ton to chat about this month, so we're gonna just do a few quick bullet points this time and let you all move along with your day.
- In July, we had a nice little peak of interest in Tile Tales: Pirate... the highest since launch. It was a common spike across platforms, so we must have had a nice write-up, review, or stream somewhere. We're not quite sure who it was, so if anyone noticed anything, please let us know so we can send them a nice "Thank you" message.
- We were up for a free exhibitor space at Gamescom for August, but unfortunately we didn't end up getting it - so we unfortunately won't be attending this year. Hopefully next year!
- We still haven't heard from AdventureX yet on their 2025 exhibitor selections. We're hoping they have space for us this year to officially show off Laura Bow. Hopefully we'll know next month.
- We've got a chat this evening with some interesting folks which could potentially result in another project for NineZyme. Can't talk too much about it at the moment, but we'll keep you posted if it turns into something interesting.
- Since Tile Tales isn't really paying the bills, we've also been doing some interesting work in games-for-science (with a local university) in order to help researchers study various mental health disorders. It's a rewarding experience and a very nice group of people to be supporting. We're very happy to be lending our expertise in another field!
- We finally took a look at a new Gabriel Knight game pitch from Jane Jensen and Robert Holmes. In August, we're going to try our best to help advocate for this project by getting it in front of the right people at Microsoft and see what happens. Given the recent industry turmoil, it may not go far - but it's worth a shot to see what happens. Wish us luck!
That's about it this month! Let us know if you have any comments, questions, etc. We're always happy to chat!
Yeah that surprised me too.
Whhhaaaa!?
No, no... you're not dreaming. "But, it's not even September yet..." you're thinking. Yes, we know. This is probably just a one-off thing though, so don't get too excited. We just happened to have some free time and thought we'd jump in and get September's newsletter done and dusted.
So wipe that sleep from of your eyes, grab a cup of coffee, and dig in why don't ya.
Nom, Nom, Nominations
Here's some exciting news for our little studio. We've been nominated for some awards! One of the biggest mobile games sites out there has taken quite a liking to us, and has put us up for Indie Mobile Game Of The Year 2025 (for Tile Tales) AND also Mobile Game Studio Of The Year 2025!
Isn't that amazing!? And we could really use your help!
Please click on the links or images below and vote for Tiles Tales: Pirate, and NineZyme OÜ. Every vote helps, so if you have multiple email addresses... go ahead and do a little sneaky-sneaky, and vote twice, or three times, or twenty if you have that many emails for whatever reason.
https://gamingonphone.com/gamingonphone ... -the-year/
https://gamingonphone.com/gamingonphone ... -the-year/
Surely a couple of wins would go a long way toward improving our chances at survival in this ever tumultuous industry.
Micro-Dealings
We are still making some progress with Microsoft. As you all are aware, our Laura Bow 3 project has been approved for development, but there are still a lot of open questions that we're trying to get answered before we can comfortably decide to continue spending money on it. And it's been very slow going.
Unfortunately, the layoffs did impact us a bit. Our more personable contact that we've been dealing with was sadly one of the affected. That said, he's still been very kind and helpful... and is still providing us some tidbits of advice as we attempt to right the ship.
We've made another bold go of it with the higher-ups at Xbox, and we've thrown in the Gabriel Knight 4 project from Jane Jansen into the mix as well. There are still some tricks up our sleeves, and we're going to expend them all if we need to.
Anyway, look forward to some more news soon on that.
Adventure-X Woes
Again, we've been turned down by AdventureX to exhibit there this year in November. That said, we're planning to do what we always do when we're told we can't do something... do it anyway!
We're going to rock up with a laptop and show off Laura Bow 3 to anyone who wants to give it a go. So, get your tickets, come to London and keep an eye out for a NineZyme or Laura Bow related shirt, computer, sign, or whatever... and stop us for a chat and demo. We'd love to meet you!
Might be easier this way anyhow... since we won't have to drag around so much gear to the event! Ha.
I hope everyone here did too! Here's hoping they win! I thought they were all in eastern Europe. It'd be expensive to fly to London. (Even more expensive for me to do from here, in Australia). Not to mention security at the actual airport ... Several ways.Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Sat Sep 13, 2025 12:06 am Also, how can they just rock up at AdventureX? Aren't there security people there (like bouncers at a nightclub) to check tickets and registrations and things? Just wondering.
The End Of Year Rush
Ok, I know what you're thinking: "Last month you sent the newsletter early... and this month you're several days late! What gives, man!?" Well, what can we say? As soon as October hits, it's a mad rush until the end of the year. And it's a particularly busy one this time.
So let's go over what's keeping us busy...
Falling For Conferences
Now that Fall has arrived, a lot of interesting conferences are coming about. We just attended Nexus, at Google's offices in Dublin. It was a nice event and had some refreshing thoughts and discussions on the future of gaming and game development. We definitely walked away with some new thoughts spinning through our minds.
Then, next week, we are off to Gamescom Asia in Thailand. As we mentioned last time, we have been nominated for two very significant awards by one of the biggest mobile games websites (Indie Mobile Game Of The Year 2025 (for Tile Tales) AND also Indie Mobile Game Studio Of The Year 2025). So we felt it right to make an appearance, even though the chances of us winning are quite slim -- we're up against some significantly more established Indies, with much more successful games. Regardless, we think that it's a good idea to be there in person, and hopefully kick off some good conversations to help keep our projects going, and maybe start some new ones.
Then, in November, we'll be off to AdventureX. We didn't get selected to officially exhibit, however we're still going to make an appearance and show off our Laura Bow 3 project to anyone who wants to try it out. We're really looking forward to being around 'our people' at this event. It will be our first time there!
Adventures In Licensing
We're still in the grind with Microsoft regarding finalizing this new licensing platform that we're attempting to kick off. Given all of the layoffs this year (which unfortunately affected some of our more responsive contacts), and the release of the new handheld Xbox... we're not exactly high on the priority list right now (never have been really).
That said, we are hoping to hear a bit more news this month and take another tiny step in the right direction. Who knew this would be a several-year endeavor, eh? But we're still persisting and aren't willing to back down just yet. Ha. Wish us luck!
Gaming Science
Our games-for-science project is getting close to release! We've built an updated version of an old application from the Neurology department at Trinity College Dublin, and the first major version should be out sometime this month -- and then we'll have some further updates (new games and assessments) occasionally being released over the next year or two.
This project is all about neuroscience research. If you, or someone you care about, suffers from any brain related disorders, get in touch with us and we'll try to point you toward some resources which may help scientists study the causes and effects of these issues. Maybe you'll even end up in a cohort using our application!
Anyway, it's a worthwhile cause and we're happy to use our set of skills for something meaningful like this.