Curse Of The Deadwood Merch!
Hey you all!! Sorry, we missed January update by a day! We know how important communication is. With that, please enjoy this video update! :)
Hey!! It's nice to be back here! For those that don't know, we recently moved into our new studio here at the end of September and when I tell you it was a lot of moving, BELIEVE ME...It was way too much. We got it all moved fairly quick but the UNPACK? I couldn't tell you how we got over. It took us a while to get settled and we still aren't done. I have boxes on boxes still at my desk.
That coupled with the Holidays (Christmas is literally around the corner), meant that we would be extremely busy and hectic around here. I mean, soon it will be 2019 and I know we got jokes about Deadwood and its release date buuuut...We are still here and still working on Deadwood. Also, for those that don't know, most news from our end during the move has been purely twitter based so IF you don't follow, here's a link :) Now that the unpack and move and security is more or less done we can continue on other platforms such as this and Twitch.
What you are here for :) Deadwood.
Good news on that! We are at this point finalizing about 90% of the levels and the world itself. Still a bit to go but a lot closer to the end than we've ever been. Levels and the world itself are set and organized with "white boxes" just waiting to be filled in with the assets we have created for it. Voices are also being set and recorded for dialogue and cutscenes (which I found out, I'm not the best for voice acting, lol). We talked to you about the crew re-doing the alpha that was sent out to the backers. Now instead of one level, we are looking to drop a few on you! That's the goal and so far we are on right on track but again, please have patience. While we are a full-service production house, that is not the WHOLE house. There is the animation side which focuses on what you have seen of us in the media. Projects that we have had the honor and privilege of playing small roles in such as Dauntless, Fortnite, and Anthem make it seem like that's all we are doing. Nah...not even close but we get it. Perception in some cases is another's reality.
There is the other side that focuses solely on Deadwood. They have been busy as heck working on give you a complete package and not a buggy half done game that needs to be patched immediately and constantly. We want to avoid doing that as much as possible for you especially considering how long you have had to wait. Clearly, it seems like we aren't rushing things (terrible joke but we know how you feel) but we are trying to be super thorough. They've been working a few new enemies that we have not discussed because, well...we want you to have something to look forward too. New characters, creatures, enemies and even boss fights. Yeah...Boss fights. We hadn't talked about that at all but in the coming weeks, you'll see a trailer for Deadwood showcasing some of this and biomes featured in the game.
This is something we've discussed here and in the studio. It's a tough one to tackle because of quality control. We want to make sure that unlike the release date of Deadwood, we don't let you down. We are gathering ideas and research as to which way to go with this. Mainly from a manufacturing side, we want things to look nice, hold up well and not feel cheap while also being cost-efficient and exact. That's the period on this particular dissertation and is early-mid 2019 will be a good time for everyone concerning Deadwood :)
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!
Hiiiiii Ev'rybody!!! (Obscure reference)
Well, it's here! Our move to the new studio is officially done. Well, 95% done at least. Everyone came together and did a ton of work to mitigate downtime. So here it is, Monday and we are back at it. We shut the studio down for half a day on Friday the 28th to allow for packing so that the movers could come in and do what they do. Really this whole month has been insanely busy for but the studio came in through the weekend and set up their spots and PC's which allowed us to get things up an running Monday, October 1st. And that brings us current :)
This won't be too extensive like the others but it will cover some elements that we want you to know.
The Deadwood Status, as a recap...you know we hired two level designers and they have been BUSY. Insanely busy. There will be a fleshed out, playable build and level that we want to show you very soon. Like really soon. Also with that, we mentioned before that there were talks of pushing an updated version of the Kickstarter build back out so that you can play as well. Get ready for that as well :) There are a ton of cosmetic revamps with the menus, in-game UI, and enemy AI that we can't wait to show you. Gameplay is the same but tweaked for precision so no changes there unless it helps with user control and function. Animations are being implemented heavily as well and I am particularly fond of Knot's run animation.
Yeah...those things! We are putting ideas together so that everyone who backed Deadwood can look hopefully look forward to getting some rewards before the game ships. One comment was asking for a Roguard plush toy. We heard you and we are working on that as well as some other stuff so stay tuned:)
So we haven't done a twitch stream in a while. I would say a month and a half at a minimum. In this new place, we will have a designated spot for Twitch but as of now, that part of the studio is not done. It's still under construction but when the new build is ready, we will most likely stream from a desktop just because we couldn't wait for the other section of the building to finalize. The hype is really real!
This week and along with this month will be our settling in phase. Getting situated acclimated to Mt. Dora's beautiful downtown area. The change of scenery already has a big positive impact on team morale and that's always a sign that we are moving in the right direction for our team, for Deadwood and for you. It's super freaking awesome to do this with you all! In the coming days, we will be showcasing the game and our culture on Twitter and Facebook so get ready!!
Evening Everyone! After going through the comments here and there, I thought I would address a few things that are important to you, thus important to us. This is of course being, the delay in Deadwood: The Forgotten Curse. The original ship date for the game was slated to be Dec 2016.
It is Aug 2018.
We are late... We did a live twitch feed to address the concerns of those who back and supported us. We laid it out with one of the founders of Steamroller studios, Adam Meyer. From everything to changes and delay in the game, we talked about. BUT we get that not all of you watch the streams. So, we will address the delay aspect here for you.
We made quite a bit of promise and with what we had, felt completely competent at meeting those. However, as the game began to take shape…growing and getting bigger, it demanded more time and resources we struggled with meeting all while we carried normal jobs outside of the development of Deadwood. It became clear very quickly that we were going to come out of pocket even with the Kickstarter. What we assumed to be enough in Kickstarter, was sadly not enough. The funds raised from the Kickstarter went to the development of the game and paid for the staff’s salaries. We the owners choose NOT to take a salary for months after to ensure our people were compensated and production continued. In the Twitch, we acknowledged that we grossly underestimated the amount of time, staff and resources it would take to make Deadwood what we envisioned it to be and we want to make that clear here as well. We apologize to everyone who supported us and backed us. We thank you for holding on this long even if that’s no longer the case. As it went on, we've had to curb quite a bit and go back to the drawing board. And because of what was previously mentions, after resources began to run low, we've had to take on smaller jobs here and there to supplement and support the staff. As this went on, what we envisioned for the future of Steamroller as an animation studio began happening in the middle of the process instead of after Deadwood.
We became known and companies reached out to us for work. While we have taken on these jobs, we have always had a dedicated team on Deadwood. We thank you for the compliments on Dauntless but please understand that games like Dauntless are what allows us to always continue Deadwood. Those projects support it. So again, we sincerely apologize for it all. We will not make excuses for our error. We at the time were overly ambitious. We missed the deadline for a release that we promised you and our other backers severely. We did not correctly estimate the amount needed to make this game. I could say that delays in the video game industry are so frequent, it's considered normal and IF the game is delivered on time or rushed, it's not a smooth experience and most likely unfinished to a degree.
We, however, are not them. We want to live up to what you expect and what we promised. In all the complaints, you, the supporters, are correct and right to feel that way but we want you to know that we understand that, and we have addressed it multiple times and will continue to offer apologies and give thanks to you for sticking in there even though you're not happy with us. In fact, this is not the first time we’ve had to do it. We did it back in an update on Feb. 1st, 2017. You can find that here, ”State of Deadwood”. So, if you can bear with us for a little while longer. We have corrected those issues as Steamroller has now for a while, been able to fund the game fully and I promise you...we will not let you down again. I do want to address a few questions that the community has about Deadwood.
1) The Switch port: This comes up on almost every Kickstarter update :) As of now, there are no definite plans for a Switch release but we DO want to release for it. First, we must deliver what we promised THEN consider it. We had Deadwood planned before the release of the Switch. It has been out for about a year and a half with plenty of life left into it on the release of Deadwood.
2) We posted in an update or so ago on the search for level designers for Deadwood. Well, we found not only one but two. This has played into a large part of the finalization of Deadwood. This means that of course, we can create the world and dungeons but here’s a piece that we are looking to do…we want to create a newer version of the level that you played in the alpha and push that back out to the backers so that you can see and play it for yourself. That is the short-term goal and come to the end of the year, there will be substantially more to show and tell. We are almost there :) The Kickstarter and was used to get it started. We should have looked at that instead of looking at it to supply everything needed for this game. Again, we dropped the ball. We understand how you feel. No excuses. We didn’t meet the line we set and the promises we made. We are being very transparent about this and have made steps to constantly maintain a line of communication with you. We understand if you want to leave but we would love for you to stay. Thank you either way for everything.
-Steamroller Studios.
So! Let’s start this off talking about Point 2 from the last update The Animator. Remember when we said we needed one and we picked up draft pick, Nick Arbiter?
Yeah, he's been putting in work on Lathe and the deadwood as well.
Now I know what you are thinking...Don't we have Lathe already up and running? Didn't you guys have the game animated? Well, yeah...we did. Most times other people who were animating had to pick up other duties. With Nick, he's dedicated to just animating Deadwood and as people come onboard or get freed up, we will add more to assist and help with that particular chore. That part is a bit difficult because we’ve been ramping up on the gameplay side and working on Boss Fights. Yeah…Boss fights. Didn’t know they were in the game? If you don't know, now you know. Can’t tell you anything else past that but it’s there and there is more than one.
Now...the Overworld map. A few updates ago, I showcased that concept to show you what it could look like. We know this has been an area of contention. We totally get it. Not to rehash older updates but sitting with veterans in the field has given us the confidence that we made the right choice for you all on this change.
We are still on the lookout for a level designer though. This is the last piece that we need to get deadwood where we want it to be. We've had quite a few submissions that are currently under evaluation so here's hoping that we find one that can successfully help flesh out the world of Knottington. There have been a couple of minor changes as well. In the Kickstarter release, the camera was player controlled. After testing extensively, we have decided to go with Art Directed camera. This frees up the player’s controls such as the Left and Right Bumpers and allows us to direct the story a bit more for dramatic effect. The bumpers are now used to cycle through weapons and defensive fortifications.
Quick blurb here and this should hopefully help to quell any misgivings and second thoughts about the state of Deadwood. Every first Thursday, there is an event called Indienomicon. It is a gathering of Central Florida indie game devs and it allows them to showcase their projects. We’ve attended quite a few and have shown Deadwood to the attendees. July 5th was a very impromptu showing off a test arena of Deadwood and the folks at Indienomicon were gracious enough to allow us to display that. A couple of people got to play it and the response from those who played and even those that watched were overwhelmingly positive! We are even more confident in the game that we will deliver to you! Again, we thank you for your patience with us on this and can't wait to deliver the final product to you!