Forge of Legends - Development Update

Empire Forge Software has posted a new development update for Forge of Legends.

Forge of Legends: Post Mortem

It has been quite some time since the last update was posted on the Forge of Legends project.   I am finally able to share some information.

In the time since I last posted, the single largest factor in delaying work on the game is that I have moved my family twice.   Selling and buying a home turned out to be a bit more than I bargained for.  Moving twice even more so.  I totally stopped coding work during this period.

However, even while I was still coding the game, I noticed a few troubling trends.  Foremost was that when I began coding on FOL years ago, there were precious few examples of the kind of game it is intended to be.  That is, a party-based, turn-based dungeon crawler, old school in every way.  At the time, I wanted a game like that so badly that I decided to make my own!  After years of coding, the market has shifted.  There are more and more games like this out there.  I feel the moment has passed, in essence.

Even when the game was making steady progress, I had outlined such a large feature scope that I was probably doomed never to complete the game.  This in spite of lots of good advice out there about keeping your scope limited!  I knew it was too much, but every feature was just too precious to cut, it seemed to me.  I was designing the game I always wanted to play…

And the post ends with news the game is on now on hold, and to be redesigned.

What happens next?  I haven’t explicitly stated what I now intend for Forge of Legends.  Partly that is because I am not sure.  I will say that I am putting the code down for now, and moving to another project.  There is still a largely complete 2D/3D game engine, however, and a usable level editor.  I think I would be open to making the code for both of these available, given the right kind of person was interested in it.  I have also given some thought to releasing a free, scope-reduced version of the game.

There is also a chance that I could return to the project in the future when the winds have changed.  Who knows?  Never say never, right?

As for me, I do have another project underway.  One of my first and primary efforts is now to design what is minimally viable (see reduce scope above).  I intend to bring it almost to completion before I bug anyone about it.