Maze Crusher
Why can I still buy Maze Crusher? / End of Development Update
In our last announcement we told, that we are going to disable sales upon further notice because we needed to stop development and it was not clear if, how and when development would continue.
By creating the said announcement, we made the first step in a defined process of steam. We then opened a ticket with steam, asking to suspend sales until we decide how to proceed (which is expected to be at least half a year, most likely much longer).
While the future of Maze Cursher is still unclear, steam replied, that they will not disable sales for the given reason and asked us to add a note to the shop page and keep you updated instead.
So this is not our idea to change out minds from one day to the other, but it is a decision which has been made based on steam's standards and best practices.
So how will this proceed?
Sales will not be disabled. We already adjusted the price of Maze crusher down a lot. So if anyone would like to have a look into the game, the new price now is an acceptable price point for the current state of the game.
This price will not be raised (might still undergo currency fluctuations) until we do a final decision and at least another game update. This is our promise.
This might now sound like a finaly try to make some money but this is not what this decision is made for. With this statement we want to communicate clearly, that the game might probably not receive any further updates (worst case) or might receive major changes in the future (including a complete redesign).
At the current point, the project is frozen and it's future is unclear. If you're interested, leave a wishlist but do only buy if you're actually willing to buy a long-term mystery box.
Sorry for the confusion. We will keep you updated as soon as further decisions are made or demand rises.
Development has stopped
The reasons for this decision are mainly from private nature, but if you want to know more, there is some more detail on our discord server.
Finally, we might come back to Maze Crusher at a later time. But for now lights will go out and the option to buy Maze Crusher will be temporarily removed from steam until the final decision has been made.
Thank you for joining us on this journey so far and maybe it will continue in some time.
Approaching the release...
Today I am speaking to you as a human and as a developer. This is Alex wrtiting here.
As a solo-dev (Firesplash Entertainment is mostly a one-man-show with some help from our community ans friends) the release "cycle" is strongly dependant on my life and work-life balance.
During the pandemic many things changed rapidly and there were a few more unexpected but massive changes in my primary work and my personal life situation within the last two years. This is why virtually any plan I made has been crossed - and this happened multiple times to me now.
The world is gliding from one crisis into the next and everything is affecting all our single lifes, so does it for me.
What am I trying to say?
I am trying to give you some background on WHY I did not stick to any (self-)given deadline within this project since early 2020. This is not an excuse, this is an explaination.
So how to proceed from here?
Some of you have already read it on our discord: The level editor is progressing and is now 90% functional. I am currently struggling with steam workshop implementation (this has turned out to be a hard piece of work) and I am hoping to bring this feature into closed beta some time near the year change, planning to release it to GA before the end of Quarter 1 of 2023
I know this feels like the next update coming in dec 2023 saying the same and prolonging again. I can't blame anyone for thinking like this (actually even I did so...) but while I was very inactive during the last months, I am confident that the upcoming few months will prove to be bettter.
That said we want to wish all of you a wonderful pre-christmas season and maybe I cna give you a next update on the progress as a christmas present.
Current State of the Level Editor
We don't want to beat around the bush, so this is what this posting is about: We were not able keep the Q1 announcement up. Obviously.
As many of you know, Firesplash ENtertainment is not the main job of our team members. It is not even an employment as it is much too small to be able to employ people and live from the money we make. So actually we are creating games and other things besides our main work. I (Alex, the writer of this announcement) am the only programmer and the owner of Firesplash Entertainment. This means any release cycle is currently hard tied to the time I can invest into the projects.
The corona pandemic caused a lot of stress to all of us - for me that means having days of 11 and more hours of working time - which is the reason why I've often just been coming home tiredly. On top I got a huge private life project in planning phase right now which has huge impact on my further life and also on our Firesplash proejcts for the future. This is an essential thing and it is priorized.
We planned to have Maze Crusher out of early access before we started this project but the delays caused by the pandemic crashed all our time plans, so now the reduced spare time, the additional stress and the hugest update we ever made for maze crusher (from code side) are mixing up.
I know this sounds like "cheap excuses". I hate myself for doing exactly what I never wanted to do: Re-Prolonging a deadline for an announced release again and again - but implementing the level editor as well as the required technical backgrounds is seen from code side - as I already stated above - the hugest update we made yet.
If things go like they do right now and if no additional issues arise we should be able to release the level editor and steam workshop integration into public access by the end of this year.
Currently the level editor itself is working quite well. There are a few bugs and some UI work left and the reference run (think of it like testing if your maze works) is not fully integrated yet.
The Steam Workshop implementation is still missing completely, I am right now working on this portion (for testing purpose: We need to know if things work like we expected before "sealing" the editor).
I would say the Editor is at 90%, Reference Run at 60% and Steam Workshop... Well... Right now 5%.
This makes a total progress of about 60-70% as the editor and the reference mode itself are the biggest part of the upcoming update.
Thank you very much for your support and understanding.
Further Update Schedule
First of all: Of course we did not stop development.
The level editor is currently about 70% done.
We needed to change some priorities as of current situations. The corona pandemic made some strategic decisions necessary. We have a temporary focus change.
We expect the level editor to be ready for beta testing in q1/2021 - Remember, 2020 is only a few weeks left...
The last months created a huge wave of new streamers and growth on twitch and as some of you know, we have a twitch overlay game, which we wanted to extend. The current situation is perfect for growing it so we decided to put more efford into this project for the rest of 2020.
The next planned update for Maze Crusher (in Q1/2020) will bring a complete level editor and level sharing features so sorry for the development delay. We hope that you can understand this decision.
Stay home, Stay safe, Stay healthy.
Visual Upgrade is OUT NOW
This time there is not much to say because all the changes are obvious.
We improved nearly all the ingame graphics. Also this update introduces a new feature:
"Pimp My Dragon" - You can now colorize Kurisou!
How does you dragon look? Post a screenshot!
Also remember to join our discord server!
2020 GamePlay Update & Leaderboard Reset
In short, the last few months of development went mainly into:
- New kind of Enemy-Pathfinding. More efficient, stable and intelligent.
- Enemies can now trace through portals
- Better Score System
- New secondary attack to fight nearby enemies (fire wave)
- Finally - A brand new Game Mode: Capture the Flag
As of the amssive changes in enemy AI and scoring system we did a reset of all leaderboards - as announced previously.
So - Who will be the next "best maze crusher"?
Thank you for 2019
We planned to release the new Capture The Flag GameMode until today but we encountered issues which held us apart. However we decided to release the version into testing brach so you can have a first look at it.
Please note it is known to be buggy in soime mazes and under some circumstances.
After all we want to thank you for playing Maze Crusher and sticking with it. We want to wish you a merry christmas and a good move into the new year 2020.
A few Under-The-Hood-Fixes have been released
This happened when for any reason there have been issues finding out if there is a seasonal look to display.
Further there have been made some performace fixes under the hood which might slightly affect gameplay feeling positively.
You can now see small exclamation marks hovering over items you can interact with. Try it out!
Note: You can actually interact with some new objects which have no sense yet. Don't get confused :)
We plan to release a new feature until christmas. Stay tuned.
As always: If any bug occur, tell us! Thanks in advance and thanks for being a fan <3
UPDATE: Seasons in Maze Crusher
This dos not mean we will start event passes and so on or even do battle events.
No - we're talking about styling the mazes. The first season will be halloween. You will notice that all mazes are now decorated for the upcoming halloween night.
Of course this is only cosmetic and way far from perfect but we also got some under-the-hood improvements.
- Upgraded the engine version for the project as of technical issues some of you reported
- Controller configuration is now themed better (seamless)
- Loading Screen / Intro is not so laggy anymore
- Fixed some issues with portals (sometimes you have been teleported wrong)
- Hopefully fixed controller config issue where you were not able to reassign some buttons -> Report if someone still got this issue!
Unfortunately no new mazes this time. We simply did not have the time to create some quality mazes in the last weeks (as of ludum dare and different events).
Early Access Roadmap until the end of year:
- New Mazes
- Implement Puzzles
- Start working on CTF GameMode
Any issues or other thoughts? We'd love to hear from you!
Join our discord community!