HAPPY NEW YEAR!

First of all, let me take this opportunity to say Happy New Year to all! We hope that you all had a joyous Christmas and that you will have a prosperous 2024 ahead.

APOLOGIES

Next is we would like to apologize for being quiet the past year. Our primary reason was that the company was a heartbeat away from being dead for quite some time due to financial issues. We had no choice but to refocus our efforts to doing outsource work to resuscitate the company. This of course, did not happen overnight, and it took us more than a year to get back to a functional state. The second reason was we were in all honesty burnt out with Graywalkers at that time. We worked on the project for 5 years and unfortunately It did not do well due to its unpolished state, the pandemic (we released 1.5 months before the start of it), lack of marketing and many other factors. The final reason was we simply did not know what to tell you at that point in time. We had already announced at that time that we were having financial difficulties, and we couldn't give you an answer or solutions to our problems. Despite all of these, these are not good excuses to disappear for that long. We handled the situation poorly and we should have continued to communicate the situation regardless of how we felt at the time. The only thing we can do now is to apologize to all of you and somehow make it up to you as best we can. Again, we sincerely apologize to all of you who have trusted us by supporting the game. We hope you can forgive us and give us another chance to make it up to you all.

NEW BEGINNINGS

As 2024 rolls in, we look forward to a new beginning, and we mean this in many more ways than one. Below we will list our plans for the future of Graywalkers:

RE-RELEASE

We plan to Re-Release Graywalkers Purgatory under a new name and as a new product in 1st quarter 2025. We wanted a fresh start and an opportunity to try again with the project but with more upgrades, better content and a more polished state. We will also reduce the original scope of the game to a more reasonable state. Our original plan had been too ambitious so we will reduce its scope and do a final release and then just add free DLC content to bring it closer to our intended vision. The game will be repackaged as Graywalkers: Genesis. Consider this as Graywalkers Purgatory Version 1.5.
Everybody who purchased the game already will get a copy of Graywalkers Genesis

FREE

So its pretty much just a continuation, but with the perks of us being able to hopefully bring in new players and at least have an opportunity to recoup the cost of continuing development on the game. We won't be taking down Graywalkers Purgatory until the Re-Release is ready. The game will also be released under different publishers depending on the platform. We have come to accept that publishing is not really our strength, and we are not built to do it properly. So we will be working with different groups to help us do better in this area.

GRAYWALKERS GENESIS FEATURES

With the re-release, below are the features and content to expect:

• The general format and structure of the game will not change and in essence will still be the same game but with upgrades and improvements.
• LESS CONTENT BUT MORE POLISH - The announced content from before will be reduced to a more achievable state. We will announce soon how much content can be expected in the initial release. Our goal now is polish rather than expand content. We will be adding additional content after release as FREE DLCs to give us time to do polish on these content.
• CAMPAIGN FOCUS - It will feature and focus on the Campaign, rather than the Missions aspect of the game. We've actually done a lot of this already, but plan to revisit and improve these. (Ongoing)
• GRAPHICS UPGARDE - Graphical upgrades will be implemented. We plan to increase the quality of the game visually. This includes improved or changed 3d models, improved environments and improved visual effects. (Ongoing)
• NEW GRAYWALKERS - New Graywalkers will be added to the current roster that has been released. This includes some of the announced Graywalkers before but will also include new characters that were not part of the original plan.
• NEW VIEW - The game now has an option to change how you view the game. There is its traditional top-down isometric view but we've also added a closer over-the-shoulder view similar to how characters are viewed in Midnight Suns. (Ready)
• AI NPCS - AI NPCs are currently being added. In cooperation with an AI company, we have co-developed a new NPC AI system to allow you to talk to your team and major NPCs more freely. This is to allow players to have a more interactive conversation with the characters in the game. This is already functional in the game but still needs refinement. (Partially Implemented)
• BIGGER ENEMIES - we had implemented multi-grid characters which means the introduction of larger interactive pieces on the battlefield. This means your enemies will be bigger and more exciting to go up against. (Ready)
• IMPROVED AUDIO - we have started work on new music and sound effects for the game. We also have plans to include voice for key characters. This however is not yet final as we discuss if this can be properly implemented with the time and resources we currently have.
• IMPROVED ANIMATIONS - we have started upgrading the animations in the game which will result in smoother and more dynamic animations.
• BETTER STORY AND INTERACTION - we hope to improve the current storyline and improve also the interactions between you and the NPCS. With AI conversations combined with Scripted Interaction, we hope to make the roleplaying aspect of the game stronger and more enjoyable.
• PRELUDES DLC - we plan to remove Preludes temporarily from the launch but will add them as DLCs. We realized that though this would add greatly to the content and background of the character, there isn't enough time to create a mini-story for each character.

Though these are not the only features we plan to add to the game, the ones above are the ones that we are confident to add by the game's re-release.

FEEDBACK AND SUGGESTIONS

With us rebuilding the game, we would like to invite all of you to help us with this task. We want you to give us suggestions and comments on what you like and don't like and even ideas of new features to add. We can then consider these ideas especially those that are good or those that many will point out as issues to be fixed or changed.

BETA ACCESS TO BUILD

We will also be sharing access with existing users to the Beta Builds when they become ready. This will give all of you the opportunity to try the game earlier than the general public and will have the opportunity to review the game and give us feedback to improve it.

PROMISE FOR BETTER COMMUNICATION

Lastly, we promise to do better with communication and not disappear again. We will continue to give you updates about the state of the game, good and bad. Thank you again for your continued support especially for those who did not lose hope even when we failed you. Your belief in us was the catalyst to reignite and strengthen our desire to complete the game.

[ 2023-12-31 03:23:54 CET ] [ Original post ]