The Final Countdown

We're nearly there! This is the penultimate update before the big "Release" update, coming in the next few days (or weeks).

Apologies for the silence, but tons has been happening behind the scenes.

How much do you love Ren?

You couldn't pet the cat before - a glaring oversight that absolutely needed fixing! I've been polishing Ren with small touches: cursor reactions and idle animations. Historically, I've felt conflicted about this work. It doesn't strictly improve gameplay and consumes valuable dev resources. But it adds so much charm and character. I'm glad I did it!

Ren has dialogue now!

I wanted to keep one surprise in store, so everyone who has played Cadence over the years still has something new to look forward to on release! It felt like I was indulging myself with unnecessary features, but by the time I was done, the "Book of Ren" had become genuinely important to me.

It's taken more than 12 years to get here; making this game and keeping it alive has been the hardest thing I've done in my life. Much of that journey is now reflected in Ren's words. I have no idea if it will resonate with anyone, but such is the way with making personal art.

New Trailer

There's a new cinematic trailer for Cadence - I'm thrilled with how it came together, and I can't wait to show it off. It was finished a couple of months ago, and I was hoping to use it for a big release date announcement. Unfortunately, with other things in life (more on that later), it's been hard to pin down a release date. So instead it will be part of the "Release" announcement - coming soon! (Did anybody say shadow drop?)

The astute may have noticed I've updated the gameplay trailer on Steam. It's not much different from before, but besides hating the sound of my own voice, the old one had ancient graphics that needed updating.

Localisation

Cadence will ship in seven languages:

• 中文 (Simplified Chinese)

• English

• Français (French)

• Deutsch (German)

• 日本語 (Japanese)

• Português brasileiro (Brazilian Portuguese)

• Русский (Russian)

New Job

One reason for the radio silence is that I have a new job! While having time off to finish Cadence this year has been amazing, I have to face the reality that paying bills in today's gaming landscape is challenging. And as much as Cadence is dear to my heart, it's ultimately a niche game that's unlikely to be a massive hit.

Last month I joined Sing King. They're the largest karaoke channel on Youtube, and they have a singing game on the App/Play store (by the same name). I'll be bringing my music game expertise to help them shape it into a great experience. I'm looking forward to the challenge, and to not worrying about rent.

We arranged that I will work part-time until the end of the year while I finish Cadence. This means I have a hard deadline for getting the game shipped before year-end. And while December is a terrible time for shipping small indie games, I'm glad you'll finally have the finished version in your hands!

What does this mean for the future of Cadence?

These days, releasing a game is seldom the end of one's time commitment - there will be support requests, bug fixing, and plenty of ideas I could still work on. However, I wanted to make sure we reach a checkpoint where Cadence exists as a "complete" experience. That way, even if I can't find time for development, it will no longer languish as an unfinished product.

Now back to work!