First things first: we are not ready to announce more details about Game #2 but in case you haven’t seen our non-revealing teaser page, you can find it here (make sure you sign up to our newsletter while you are at it!).
That out of the way, I’m happy to report that since we changed the project over to Unity some 10 months ago we have made a ton of progress. It was a bold step and a difficult decision to scratch all our previous prototypes and restart from zero but switching the engine and rebooting the project was absolutely the right call. The game will be much better for it.
The entire team is focused on this reboot and we are getting closer to an internal alpha version of the first level (we currently plan for three large progression steps, similar to how GDT has offices). Most of the core systems like AI, game-mechanics, UX, prop/animation systems are in place for the alpha and our newest team members, Seth and Mike, have employed their art wizardry and art necromancy skills to raise the game from ugly prototype to something that looks very much like an ambitious indie game in the making.
On a personal note, I will remember 2015 as the year I did not sleep. It was also one of the most joyous, emotional and challenging years of my life. Around this time last year my wife and I found out that we are expecting our first children… Surprise: twins!! This year in May we welcomed our twin boys into the world and life has not been the same since. Needless to say, I took some time off in the middle of the year but I had no idea just how challenging it would be to run a business and work from home while having twin-newborns in the house. Looking back, the only reason I was able to get anything done at all was because of the generous help from family and friends. Anyway, it has certainly become easier since then and thankfully, when it comes to Greenheart Games, there is a whole team of people involved.
Looking forward to 2016, I’m very excited about the road ahead and I’m looking forward to being able to start talking more about Game #2 (probably once we are closer to a beta). I’m also aware that our complete focus on this reboot (combined with my temporary break) has meant that we retreated from the Game Dev Tycoon community a bit too much and that’s something I’d like to change.
The last few days I’ve added some better error reporting to GDT, fixed a long-standing issue that would affect new users and Daniel updated the translations again (we now have a Korean beta). I’ve also started working on some small UX improvements and we will discuss other options for GDT in the new year. We feel very fortunate to have so many players still enjoying or just starting to enjoy Game Dev Tycoon and, while we still need to focus on Game #2, we want to do something for the GDT community as well.
Happy holidays and wishing everyone a fantastic 2016.