First off, an announcement: we have decided to suspend development of simultaneous networked multiplayer for Clockwork Empires indefinitely. There are, simply put, technology issues and design issues that we don’t feel we can satisfactorily solve in the foreseeable future. Furthermore, we don’t want to devote time to addressing those issues if that time will detract from the single player experience, which people are currently enjoying and which is the major thrust of the game. Support will exist in engine for round robin “let’s play” games, and we will continue to build that out as we work our way out of Early Access and into a new stage of development, which we are tentatively calling, uh, “Access.” As always, we thank you for your patience and understanding of the harsh realities of game development.
That said, let’s talk about “Access.”
Somebody recently posted on Twitter that polishing a video game was a straight forward process: if it doesn’t move, make it move; if it moves, put a sound effect on it; if it moves and has a sound effect on it, add a particle system. That’s a pretty accurate guide, honestly. In our case, we went into Early Access with a few things that were not in the best of states, and one of the ongoing things that needs to be done in order to transition them from “Early Access” into “Access” is to address the problems that people have with them. In some cases, this is a question of making some changes, watching the feedback, and then continuing to improve the system or re-designing it. Sometimes, such as in the case of cults, or emotions, or what-have-you, we have to take a few swings at this particular issue.
Interior furniture concepts, once interiors become A Thing.
