Hey Everybody!
I am writing a little recap for the year and talking about the future of Cosmo’s Quickstop. First of all, I just gotta say that we aren’t going to make the 2019 deadline. You might have guessed that considering that there are only 19 days left. But have no fear, while I can understand the disappointment of having to wait for the game longer, I can honestly say that these delays are worth it.
So why are we pushing back the deadline? Well, mainly because this last year we have added lots of additional content to the game. I mean a lot. For example, changing the game from being a fun little arcade-style score attack to being focused on a 13+ hour campaign with 12+ cutscenes, 4 amazing bosses, 19 different station minigames, 75+ upgrades, and over 30+ million combinations of how to set up your station. Some of my personal favorite new things are the Galactic Lotto, The All-Seeing Zarlak Mechanical Oracle, the Drive-Thru Wedding Chapels, our just finished Health Inspector Boss, and the new arch-rival of Cosmo, Dr. Quazar.
The campaign was always the plan (although we ended up with a lot more than we first imagined) and I can say two months ago we made a version of the game that was playable from start to finish. Which is a really big deal in the life of any game project. And that version of the game is a ton of fun. But it’s definitely not perfect yet. And while we don’t need it to be perfect, we want it to be pretty dang close. So we are adding some stuff, removing some stuff, tweaking balance, fixing bugs, etc, etc, etc. But it all takes time, and it’s taking a little longer than expected to get everything just right.
Some people might say to just release it anyways, in early access or something of that nature, and fix the bugs along the way. While I can’t speak for anyone but myself, I’m pretty tired of buying games that aren’t done yet, so we aren’t going to do that. Others might say to crunch as hard as you can and get the game done as fast as you can. While I’m a hard worker, no one should sacrifice their life to get a project done, so we aren’t going to do that either. This leaves us only one option: delay the game.
So we are going to delay, and right now we are looking for a spring release. But things can still change, and who knows what the future holds. There are a couple of possible avenues that might make it take even longer for the game to come out, and that’s okay. If that does end up happening, it will only lead to more features and more people being able to play the game in more places, so it seems like it would be worth it.
And for anyone saying “That sucks, I really want some Cosmo’s Quickstop action right now!”, I have some good news for you. This last year also had us focus a lot more on you, the community. So we hired a community manager, who has been blasting out tweets, newsletters, Instagrams, and more. We released a free score attack demo which can be found here https://bigsirgames.itch.io/cosmos-quickstop-demo. We created an awesome discord which can be found herehttps://discord.gg/nHjWNdC. We have started streaming game development, both programming and 3D Art, which can be found herehttps://www.twitch.tv/bigsirgames. We are even about to run a giveaway for some newly designed T-Shirts! Sheesh, that’s a lot of stuff!
So that’s basically all the news for now. All in all, it has been a great year for us. From going to conventions from coast to coast to meeting new fans, to challenging ourselves to create the best thing we can, I have no complaints. So please keep coming along with us, checking out all that we are doing. And thank you for waiting so patiently for us to get this done. We appreciate it. And trust me, we want this game done just as much as you.
-Ian Beckman
Director, Big Sir Games