First, we want to start out by apologizing for the long interlude between updates and progress reports. It wasn’t for lack of wanting to provide y’all with up-to-date info on the project -- And we are extremely excited to share what we’ve been up to with all of you.
Thanks to our amazing backers, the Kickstarter campaign afforded us the ability to do all we had promised:
- A fulltime year of work on Arcadian Atlas covered for Becca
- Full game OST + sound design fees covered
- Programming fees partially covered
- Physical backer item production fees covered
Going into this, Becca & myself were aware that once the KS-funded dev period was up, we would be taking on day jobs/freelance gigs/contract work to pay the bills and cover the remaining programming fees while we moonlighted as developers for Arcadian Atlas.
It was going fine... until about 1.5 years ago, when the team began to take hit after hit, suffering multiple job losses and freelance gig offers drying up. And that was before Covid-19 hit, when the remaining jobs and scant contracts we did have were swallowed up completely.
But this is not a sad update.
We needed to wait until we had 100% solid news (though we drafted an extremely sad update months back in the thick of the worst of it, but we refused to pull the trigger on it).
Now, after so much fighting for AA, we have an update we actually want to write - with news we really want to bring to y’all.
After many months & multiple pitches to a handful of talented indie game publishers, video calls and Covid-19 related funding hiccups, we are extremely excited to announce we have partnered with a publisher to cover the final stretch of Arcadian Atlas.
What does this mean for all y’all folks that believed in us and supported us before anyone else?
Well...
- The team is now able to develop Arcadian Atlas full time all the way up to release. No day jobs, no contracts, no nothing stealing our focus from the game.
- Additional platform support!
- A publisher-level QA process means an even smoother experience for the final product.
- Localization possibilities so we can bring Arcadian Atlas to a much wider audience across the globe!
- Even more we’ve got cooking in the background—like more physical goods than you can shake a stick at!
- Most importantly—a short production timeline. Kickstarter backers that funded the Early Access Beta Tier? The full game? Get ready, because we have further details to come!
We're still working out specific details with the publisher, and we hope to have more details for you all when we can make an official announcement!
To call it a shot of adrenaline for all of us is an understatement, and we’ve got our noses to the grindstone—pumping out animations, character portraits, the programming underpinning it all, and everything else that breathes life into the world of Arcadia—and we can’t wait to share it with you all soon!
Some much needed good news in the midst of this topsy-turvy world we’ve all found ourselves in.
In the meantime, let this encourage you to keep fighting for what you’re passionate about. Y’all keep healthy and socially distant, and please be good to each other. We’ll be here fleshing out Arcadia—fully masked, of course!
Sincerely,
The Arcadian Atlas Team
