What changed
0 fixes1 addition1 change0 removals
changedWe made the mistake back in October of promising online multiplayer for Lance A Lot. We made the promise without knowing fully what it would take to implement it, and without letting ourselves have enough time to think it through. We shouldn’t have promised it. But we did, and now here we are. We have realized that there is just no way that we can live up the expectations and create the experience people would want. Online multiplayer in our development build has network issues that are fundamental to how the game is built. To fix it we would have to rewrite most of the movement and physics code in the game, and we would also have to redesign the core gameplay to be less dependent on physics and exact hit detection. There is also the issue of sustaining a community over time. Lance A Lot lacks the depth and variation necessary to keep player’s interest for long. It’s fun for what it is as a local multiplayer game, but we think people would want so much more from an online game than what Lance A Lot provides. Beyond that, there are also other projects that we really want to do. Games that we think you would like more than Lance A Lot. We never planned to invest nearly as much time into this game as we have. It was originally a short 3-month project that we wanted to make as a way to gain experience before we started something bigger, and to show publishers that we can actually ship games (which is essential to make any form of deal). We have now spent nearly 9 full-work months developing the game (over a 13-month period). And we still have a few more months of work that we must do for the console release. Cutting online and the work we have invested in it is not fun, but it is necessary. In the long-term, we think it would be better both for us and the community if we made a game designed for online from the start. A game with the depth and content necessary to keep people interested over time. We also feel that there are lots of stuff we can do with the concept of rocket jousting that we never got to explore in Lance A Lot. Unfortunately, we skipped pre-production and proper planning when we started development since it was supposed to be such a short project, so most of the good ideas came too late to be implemented. At some point in the future though, we would like to explore those ideas in the form of a sequel or a spiritual successor. But that’s for another day. Just to be clear, this means that we have decided to cancel online multiplayer altogether for Lance A Lot. We are sorry to disappoint you.
addedWhy promise online in the first place?Online multiplayer has been the most requested feature by far throughout development. Both by people we have met during events and by people online. And especially during release. At launch we believed that we could add it fast enough that it would still be worth it, but that has obviously not been the case.
Lance A Lot: Classic Edition changes
changedWe made the mistake back in October of promising online multiplayer for Lance A Lot. We made the promise without knowing fully what it would take to implement it, and without letting ourselves have enough time to think it through. We shouldn’t have promised it. But we did, and now here we are. We have realized that there is just no way that we can live up the expectations and create the experience people would want. Online multiplayer in our development build has network issues that are fundamental to how the game is built. To fix it we would have to rewrite most of the movement and physics code in the game, and we would also have to redesign the core gameplay to be less dependent on physics and exact hit detection. There is also the issue of sustaining a community over time. Lance A Lot lacks the depth and variation necessary to keep player’s interest for long. It’s fun for what it is as a local multiplayer game, but we think people would want so much more from an online game than what Lance A Lot provides. Beyond that, there are also other projects that we really want to do. Games that we think you would like more than Lance A Lot. We never planned to invest nearly as much time into this game as we have. It was originally a short 3-month project that we wanted to make as a way to gain experience before we started something bigger, and to show publishers that we can actually ship games (which is essential to make any form of deal). We have now spent nearly 9 full-work months developing the game (over a 13-month period). And we still have a few more months of work that we must do for the console release. Cutting online and the work we have invested in it is not fun, but it is necessary. In the long-term, we think it would be better both for us and the community if we made a game designed for online from the start. A game with the depth and content necessary to keep people interested over time. We also feel that there are lots of stuff we can do with the concept of rocket jousting that we never got to explore in Lance A Lot. Unfortunately, we skipped pre-production and proper planning when we started development since it was supposed to be such a short project, so most of the good ideas came too late to be implemented. At some point in the future though, we would like to explore those ideas in the form of a sequel or a spiritual successor. But that’s for another day. Just to be clear, this means that we have decided to cancel online multiplayer altogether for Lance A Lot. We are sorry to disappoint you.
addedOnline multiplayer has been the most requested feature by far throughout development. Both by people we have met during events and by people online. And especially during release. At launch we believed that we could add it fast enough that it would still be worth it, but that has obviously not been the case.
We made the mistake back in October of promising online multiplayer for Lance A Lot. We made the promise without knowing fully what it would take to implement it, and without letting ourselves have enough time to think it through. We shouldn’t have promised it. But we did, and now here we are. We have realized that there is just no way that we can live up the expectations and create the experience people would want. Online multiplayer in our development build has network issues that are fundamental to how the game is built. To fix it we would have to rewrite most of the movement and physics code in the game, and we would also have to redesign the core gameplay to be less dependent on physics and exact hit detection. There is also the issue of sustaining a community over time. Lance A Lot lacks the depth and variation necessary to keep player’s interest for long. It’s fun for what it is as a local multiplayer game, but we think people would want so much more from an online game than what Lance A Lot provides. Beyond that, there are also other projects that we really want to do. Games that we think you would like more than Lance A Lot. We never planned to invest nearly as much time into this game as we have. It was originally a short 3-month project that we wanted to make as a way to gain experience before we started something bigger, and to show publishers that we can actually ship games (which is essential to make any form of deal). We have now spent nearly 9 full-work months developing the game (over a 13-month period). And we still have a few more months of work that we must do for the console release. Cutting online and the work we have invested in it is not fun, but it is necessary. In the long-term, we think it would be better both for us and the community if we made a game designed for online from the start. A game with the depth and content necessary to keep people interested over time. We also feel that there are lots of stuff we can do with the concept of rocket jousting that we never got to explore in Lance A Lot. Unfortunately, we skipped pre-production and proper planning when we started development since it was supposed to be such a short project, so most of the good ideas came too late to be implemented. At some point in the future though, we would like to explore those ideas in the form of a sequel or a spiritual successor. But that’s for another day. Just to be clear, this means that we have decided to cancel online multiplayer altogether for Lance A Lot. We are sorry to disappoint you.
Why promise online in the first place?
Online multiplayer has been the most requested feature by far throughout development. Both by people we have met during events and by people online. And especially during release. At launch we believed that we could add it fast enough that it would still be worth it, but that has obviously not been the case.
And what have you been up to these past few months?
First of all, keep in mind that none of us worked full-time between the October release and early February. Since February though, I’ve worked full-time as designer and Erik has worked full-time as programmer. The rest of the team
