Reasons we're late with Lost Echo: Resonance

I posted something similar to this on twitter a while back, but I feel it should have a more permanent place on the blog.

We've been teasing and promising Lost Echo: Resonance for quite some time now. And truth is, it was supposed to be a 6 month (maybe a year maximum) project, a short epilogue to tie things up. And yet, it's still not out.

Here are some reasons:

1. We have a released game

After you release a game, the business side of things starts taking up a significant amount of time.

(and it's super boring and annoying, but sadly, necessary)

On top of that, what we do is kinda rare where we live. So every time we have something we need to do with a bank or the tax authorities it takes up a lot more time than it should.

(and since that sounded weird, here is an example: we were trying to clear up a tax related issue but instead ended up in a situation where the director of the local tax authority was insisting that we should tell Apple that they should charge Greek VAT for the sales of Lost Echo in the US…)

Bottom line is : before we had a game released we were working fewer hours per day, but we were somehow more productive.

2. We have a released game (and we need to support it)

We've been supporting, improving and porting the main game. Which... also takes time, but is necessary to make sure we have income.

Example: A rare bug, where some devices were crashing at a specific point in the game took us more than 2 weeks to find the cause.

3. Scope

We originally had in mind something smaller. A small epilogue to tie up the loose ends. But concepts and ideas we had in mind for a possible sequel started to make their way into Resonance. It has grown significantly in size and scope. We're also pushing for higher fidelity graphics and we're trying to improve our weakest areas, both technically and artistically (and yes, I'll also make an effort to improve my writing ;) )

4. Small team

We are a team of two. Which means, if one of us gets sick, or wants to go on a well deserved vacation, or has some family emergency, or whatever, development grinds down to a halt. Same thing for when one of us gets stuck. (for example, struggling with making an area look good, or finding a good puzzle design that fits the story). This often made us feel guilty—thoughts like 'I'm stuck and not as productive as I could be, and I'm pushing the release back' would creep in. Knowing people are waiting for this adds additional pressure. (which of course is great and much better than "and no one cares", but it's still a weird self imposed pressure that doesn't exactly help and we need to learn how to deal with it better).

Conclusion

With all that said: We're very, very glad people are looking forward to the game. We're also sad we can't give you a release date.

We're doing the best we can, often at the expense of other aspects of life, or sleep. We're still just 2 guys with ever-growing responsibilities working on an expansion/chapter to give to people for free.

PS: Also, while we certainly don't mind people pirating the game (even with crazy numbers like ~90% piracy rate on Android and ~50% on iOS), please buy Lost Echo before you start demanding we release Lost Echo: Resonance right now.