MOAR NEWS + RELEASE DATE + HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Good day, Heralds! Ri Ra, the game designer, is here. As mentioned in our last update, we have accumulated a lot of news about which we would like to talk separately, without mixing them with progress reports.

In today’s update, we would like to provide answers to the issues that are most critical for backers - the release date for the game and for the demo, and the current state of the development part. There won’t be much gifs and art today not to distract you from the main topics (:

Check the following:

I. UnDungeon is a relatively large-scale project, primarily by the standards of indie development. It is much more ambitious than any of the team members expected at the beginning of the journey. Such an underestimation of our resources and volumes of work is an eternal indie disease: we are not the first, we are not the last.

However, we have never even considered the possibility of cutting out the content or making changes to the concept to accelerate the development. Our primary goal is to deliver the same game that we’ve promised.

To achieve this ambitious goal, we’ve signed an agreement with a partner a few weeks ago which helps us with further development funding and assists in obtaining a good platform deal. The fact that we are in search of a deal means that we can not officially announce UnDungeon’s release on the consoles at the moment, although the work in this direction is carried out together with the already announced platforms (PC/Mac/Linux). When/if such an agreement is concluded, it will entail a guaranteed announcement of console versions, attracting more attention to the project and participating in major game dev events. But until then, we must keep our mouth shut on the consoles and the name of our partner. ~~We ask you to treat with understanding, since after he took our passports and the “indie” status we must be obedient…~~

What does this partnership mean for the team (and UnDungeon, respectively) and our fresh-baked partners? The logic is very, very simple for both sides.

For us:

1. We receive all the necessary funding to complete the project on a full scale, realize all the ideas and fill the game world with content in the originally planned volumes, fulfilling our obligations owed to the backers.

2. As a small team, we have very limited opportunities in promoting the game and attracting new players. The appearance of the publisher allows us to partially shift these functions to him and concentrate on the development.

3. The possibility to strengthen weak points in the development. For example, we have already added a second programmer to the team to speed up the prototyping of the mechanic and gameplay features, as well as the level designer, because of the abundance of tasks, your humble servant did not have time to pay enough attention to the levels. Now we count on a notable progress in these aspects.

4. The last, but the most important. We still maintain our “independent” status and fully retain control over the development of UnDungeon, as well as the adoption of all critical decisions. Don’t be afraid of the intervention into the development by the partner - our agreement turned out to be very democratic.

For them:

1. As in any other similar situation, the partner/publisher receives % of the project’s sales after the release of the game.

2. The opportunity to replenish the portfolio with such an unusual and hopefully promising project as UnDungeon.

II. As mentioned in the previous updates, we are going to prepare a demo version for the backers. The demo will be released approximately in April 2018. It will include several hours of a raw gameplay and 3 (maybe 4) playable characters.

III. The release of UnDungeon is scheduled for December 2018 - January 2019. At the moment, we are working following a plan in close cooperation with the partner/publisher, so no further shifts are supposed to happen.

By the end of this update, I would like to focus on the following fact once again: nothing threatens the project, the situation is stable and gets better day by day. The team is working hard, and we just ask you for a little more patience. Laughing Machines wish you a Merry Christmas and happy New Year holidays. The demo is getting closer, and with it comes the Shift!

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