I hope everyone has been doing well over the last few months. I've been busy, and... elephant in the room... I did not meet the Q1 release date. So sorry about that. It's my fault really. With my last game I underestimated how long the final stages of making a commercial game take, and this time I repeated the same mistake. Even when you "finish" a game, there is somehow so many administrative things to take care of; screenshots, trailers, bug fixing, platform optimization, localization, Steam Achievements, etc. Each one of these can take a week or more to complete.. I am just one person after all.
IT'S DONE
That said though -- The Abandoned Planet is complete!
Yep, you read that right; it's done. And there's a brand new voice actress, Erika Merchant, who voiced the astronaut. She's great, and I think everyone will be pleased with the change.
NEW DEMO SOON
Once localization is complete (which is the very final thing that's left to do), I will upload an updated demo which showcases Act 1. This new demo will feature the new voice actress, be localized into 11 world languages, and even have some new puzzles, animations, and cutscenes for Act 1. (NOTE: New demo saved games will not be compatible with old saves).
EXTRAS
Additionally, I was even able to add all of the extras I wanted, which are unlocked once you beat the game the first time:
- Escape Mode! Complete the game in 2 hours before the planet explodes. (this is not easy, and you basically have to have all the puzzle solutions memorized). There's a Steam Achievement for it.
- Script - read the script to the game. This is only in English, but it's a complete script of the entire game, which was one of the first things I did after completing the initial vertical slice/MVP. Really cool to see what changed and what stayed.
- Artwork Gallery - you can look at sketches of puzzles and areas that I used in development and some final pieces of artwork I created for the game.
OFFICIAL TRAILER
So, without further ado, check out the official trailer here:
RELEASE DATE
And here's the big announcement -- The Abandoned Planet will come out May 23rd, 2024. That's exactly one month from today! So, get ready. It will be released on PC, Mac, and Linux, and it will be available in these world languages:
- English (text and speech)
- Spanish (text only)
- Italian (text only)
- French (text only)
- German (text only)
- Japanese (text only)
- Korean (text only)
- Portuguese (text only)
- Russian (text only)
- Chinese Simplified (text only)
- Chinese Traditional (text only)
CONCLUSION
I want to thank you all for patiently waiting for this game. It's a really fun, unique adventure, and it turned out better than I ever hoped. You'll definitely want to play it until the end -- you'll never guess what happens!
I'm really excited for you all to explore this exciting alien world when it releases on May 23rd.
Let me know if you have any questions. Take care everyone!
Jeremy
