In these dark times, a lot of game devs are showing their quality by joining in sales, holding special events, giving games away for free to those who could really use them right now, and so on. It's inspiring to see, and we'd like to join in the effort by... doing... uh, something. ... Yeah. When you're still developing what's essentially your debut title, there really isn't much to offer the world in its time of crisis. But if you're excited for or interested in Rotund Rebound and its corpulent critters, maybe an open and verbose update on how things are going will bring you a bit of joyful distraction. It's really all we have just now (and it's long overdue as it is), so here we go!

It has been a long time.

I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking this project was silently canceled (or is just moving very slowly), but that couldn't be farther from the truth. We've pretty much been crunching since last April, and plan to continue doing so until the game is done. Honestly, it's a giggle to think we previously had to push back our release date from this very month; little did we know at the time, there was no way we could have made it by then. There are a couple reasons for this. We're reasonably competent workers, and progress rolls along pretty smoothly, but one of the first rules of game dev is that everything takes longer than it should. And when you're making a great game instead of a good game, everything takes even longer than the longer time it should have taken. I'm sure this could be formatted into a fun math equation, but you get the picture. Another reason is SO much time goes into places that don't even have a "should take this long" attached, like platform features/porting/testing and marketing research. We've taken to saying that properly releasing a game is even harder than making one. ;P

You probably guessed things are running a bit behind schedule. Will we be making that "Mid 2020" release date?

No, we won't. We were gonna say so alongside more exciting news, but might as well get this out in the open now: the game's target release date has shifted to January 21st, 2021. We really (and I mean really) wanted to make it happen this year, but when a soft July target looked to be falling through we knew we didn't want to launch amidst the holiday months, and when we considered all that still needed doing, January seemed like the safest bet to actually make good on the release date this time. Schedules are always subject to change (especially with the state of the world just now), but we decided this a few months ago and still feel good about it now. That may sound like a long ways off, but we don't intend to remain quiet for the duration. We've been putting a lot of time into a plan to bring you frequent updates about the game and its development alongside other fun content, and had strongly intended to launch said plan this month, but due to circumstances... yeah, it's delayed too. It's coming though, and with it we're excited for you to finally play this fun little gem that's been waiting to release for a long time now.

The good news about all this is we truly believe it will be worth the wait.

Even as we crunch and are constantly on the fringe of burn out, we love this game and still have a blast whenever we test play. It's come so far from the little sequel we were planning back when it started, and despite its challenging gameplay we see all the potential for it to become a new classic among platform games. That's not a sales pitch by the way, just me speaking sincerely. It's an exciting project and we can't wait to properly share it with you. But what about improperly sharing? Well, we don't want to spoil too much before the time is right, but here are some more sneaky peeks in the meantime.

So, just how far along is the game now?

Still a ways to go, but we've advanced far beyond the game's first world--far enough to have introduced all of the items, enemies and obstacles in the game. We'll be wanting to run it by some more test players soon, but we're quite happy with how things have turned out and are really digging the core gameplay loop as more worlds come together. Gameplay time is looking to be quite substantial. Especially if you want 100%, and very especially if you want to set good level times everywhere. It's a real beast! Also, Rotund Rebound was approved for a new platform a few months back. Exciting though it is, we've refrained from mentioning it "officially" as we feel it will be more exciting alongside some other announcements and a new trailer, so for now it's a secret to everybody! ;)

Thanks for sticking with us!

Things feel like they're really coming together now, but there's only so much to say when it's more delays on the juicy stuff to come. Still, I hope you got some enjoyment out of this update regardless. Stay safe, and here's to better days!
- Toby