Who said anything about bad news?

Well, this really shows you never know how things may turn out.  A couple of weeks ago, we announced that the project was not doing well. We have been talking with several publishers, but despite the willingness to put the game out to the public, there were no parties interested in financing the final part of the development. This effectively meant a standstill for the project.

However, in the last month, we have been able to secure a small budget that allows us the breathe new life in Cross of the Dutchman. It means that we are now (very) actively back in development! The good thing I guess is that we will be able to continue the project, and make sure it gets finished. The downside is that the budget is not substantial enough to allow us to put everything into the game we had imagined in the first place. Err, let me rephrase that, we will make a LOT of changes to the game that will allow us to finish the project within budget this time.

So let’s talk about two of the major topics that are about to change.

#1 – Episodic Content
The new budget allows us to finish a part of Piers’ story, but not all of it. We have therefore decided to develop an episode of the story instead of the entire storyline at once. We intend to offer the episode at a reasonable price, allowing us to gather new funds and develop future episodes. We are working closely with a friend and contributor to the project to make sure the content for the first episode is top-notch!

#2 – Changes to gameplay
Basically, we will have to simplify the game, by quite a bit. This involves changing the controls, the way environments are presented, the way enemies behave and the way quests are presented to the player. Lots of new articles are underway about the changes we have in mind.

From now on, we will have lots to talk about, meaning regular updates to the blog, so check back soon for more information!