But not in the way you think!

We have scheduled a maintenance window on Friday, June 27th at 11pm (PST). This maintenance is scheduled to last until Saturday, June 28th at 1am (PST) (approximately 2 hours). During this window, all hosting services will be unavailable!

We are aware that there are a lot of questions from you, our backers, regarding when SpaceVenture is going to be released as well as made available for sale. There are many opinions and feelings, varying from the extremely harsh to the quite patient, though ultimately all wanting the same thing; the highest quality SpaceVenture possible. Some want it yesterday, and some have advised us to “take the time you need to make the best game you can.” We have worked hard to not abuse this encouragement.

We are very sensitive to the entire range of feelings. We ultimately intend to deliver to you the best game possible. We can hurry and release a gaming experience we aren’t as happy with, something we would be afraid and certain would be a let-down to you, or take the extra time to give you something we will feel good about in both our hearts and guts, a game worthy of your backing and patience.

We have avoided giving an official release date due to many major unexpected challenges we have encountered as we’ve progressed through the development process of the first new game by our new company. Everyone who has ever worked on a first project of any kind, and especially a game in a new environment, knows there are ‘growing pains’, especially with that very first one. We don’t want to delve into a laundry list of details. If you would like a taste of the issues mentioned in the past please feel free to read our October 16th update.

Having said all that, we have decided to give a soft estimated release time period of 9 months to a year from now without going into detail on why things have moved slower than each and everyone of us has wanted. That means if everything goes more smoothly than the first third, and we see absolutely no way it won’t, we expect to be done by March of next year. We will not let the game suffer due to being pushed by a hard deadline. Know that first and foremost, we are shooting for an adventure game the type of which we offered and for which our fans asked, an ‘old-school adventure with new tech and design lessons learned’ game you backed through Kickstarter and PayPal.

We know without any doubt this release estimate will frustrate most of you and infuriate others, but because of our passion for this game and adventures in general, we stand fully behind this decision. As we have said in the past, we have one shot at making the game great. That one shot will determine the future of the company.

Here is a breakdown of where things stand currently:

FULL GAME COMPLETION

• The story is complete.
• Most storyboards and a good deal of concept artwork done for the full game are on Mark’s wall.
• 1/3 of the game is mostly complete with polish. That includes artwork, game play mechanics, music/sfx, and narrative/dialog. (Please note that this has been a our major learning curve, and the achievement of this will definitely speed progress on the rest of the game. SO many lessons learned here!)

 ARTWORK/ANIMATIONS

• We have very polished artwork for 1/3 of the game and some scene artwork completed for the rest of the game. Although Mark is mostly involved in polishing artwork, he is also overseeing a couple of our artists working on scenes for the rest of the game along with animations and cutscenes.
• Most of the animations needed in the game for Ace and Rooter are completed, something that’s a larger feat than most would think.
• All non-Ace and Rooter animations are added and working in 1/3 of the game.

 AUDIO/MUSIC 

• Almost all sound effects and music have been completed for 1/3 of the game.
• The music is as complete as it can be at this point.

VOICE RECORDING

• At this time no voice-over has been recorded for the game. Dialogue is fluid and we intentionally wait until as late as we can to book our talent and studio time. We are planning to go to the studio in three different recording sessions. The first recording session is coming up. We’ll post more details on that hopefully soon, As with the art, for each part of the game we will schedule our talent and studio time as late as is possible because, as we learned years ago, the dialogue also evolves for the better.

 PROGRAMMING

• Of all the items listed in this update, programming is the one that has contributed the most in causing the project to move as slowly as it has. As mentioned in the October update, we had to design almost all the tools needed to make SpaceVenture ourselves since Unity has been in the past especially a ‘one size fits all games’ game engine. The good news there though is that we have been able to make very good progress now that the tools we needed are nearly complete.
• We have a code base foundation that will be used for the entire game and as well as whatever we do in the future. We’ve essentially built our wheel.

FUTURE KICKSTARTER UPDATES

• In the past, Chris has tried his best to provide unique updates on the 1st and the 16th of each month. This was a decision made with the best of intentions but in reality is sometimes difficult to execute without becoming annoying to some because, even though there is always some progress, there’s not always something with a high-enough drool-inducement factor worth sharing, and we don’t want to give away too much in the updates. Chris will post updates as achievements warrant, to let you know we have something new and exciting or relatively interesting, or when something’s just too cool to not share. We will do our best to give you a clear view of the status of the project.

In Summary: 

There have been many challenges and setbacks that have slowed progress. Yes, there are things we should have anticipated, but also many we couldn’t. No matter how many games with which one is involved there will always be hard lessons along the way. These can be humbling. There have been many moments of frustration, even more for us than most of you. We’ve encountered and surmounted many hurdles, but such is the way of game development, as well as life in general. We are (almost all) merely human. With the exception of one team member, we’ve each had family health care issues that have impacted our performance and progress. Nonetheless, we will continue to push forward fueled by your enthusiasm, from those who’ve backed us from day one to those who’ve just recently become aware of what we are doing, and by our team’s passion for the game and our excitement over what is ahead. Through all of that we absolutely believe we’ll be proud of SpaceVenture, and you will enjoy the end result.

Thank you all for your support.

Guys From Andromeda LLC

Scott Murphy, Mark Crowe, and Chris Pope