Michael Brough
CREATOR
10 days ago
Project Update: looking forward
Hey everyone! It's almost four weeks since we released 868-BACK, and the response has been fantastic. The user reviews people are posting on Steam are consistently, wow, well just for example:
"It's hard to think of another game that's bursting with this many exciting ideas."
"This is, no hyperbole, the best video game ever made."
"this is without doubt one of the greatest video games I've ever played"
"This game has a shocking amount of depth"
"868-BACK is the best roguelike ever made"
"What a special game."
Folk, I'm not cherry-picking these quotes here. It's all like that. Look at it. People really like the game. (AND FAIR ENOUGH, WE DID GOOD WORK.)
You will have noticed that I announced that I would release the game on mobile platforms, and we haven't done that yet. At the time I honestly thought that I was going to just somehow manage to simultaneously release on all the platforms, like I've never done before. But this turned out to be a huge game. It was already clear that it was quite big back in 2024, but as I filled in the blanks it became obvious that it's really very big. We had to make choices about what to prioritise for release and what to save for later, and this was a pretty obvious one.
It's not going to be easy to make it play well on a phone. Honestly, although many people played and loved 868-HACK on their phones, I do feel it's pushing the boundaries of what's comfortable. (After all, it did start as a PC game!) Since then I've figured out a lot about how to make a game work well on a phone, and e.g. Imbroglio and Cinco Paus were designed with that interface in mind from the start. I had hoped I could do that here, but it grew the way it grew. There's a lot of work still ahead to get this right, and I am going to do a damn good job of it - but even after I do my best I think more people will prefer to play it on PC. It's just a big game!
Aside from that, I've talked about my health a bit with respect to this project. I suffer from chronic fatigue, and we've learned how to do a very good job of managing it. I know what my limits are, and in the last push to get 868-BACK released I went right up to those limits but not past them. I'm okay, but I'm tired. I need to rest quite a bit now.
All that is to say: a mobile release is still planned, but it's going to be at least some months away. I'm resting and recovering, supporting the game, fixing bugs, doing interviews, trying to promote the game, and then I still have the project of MAKE IT GOOD ON PHONE ahead of me. I'm not going to announce dates or anything until it's reasonable to do so! But for now, the game is out, it's great, I'm proud of what we've done, and thank you all so much for your support. (And please tell your friends to buy it!)
Finally, here's an interview that came out today! Dev Dive with Michael Brough and Tara Macalister. We talk about the process of making the game, the music, my illness, and a bunch of other stuff.
"It's hard to think of another game that's bursting with this many exciting ideas."
"This is, no hyperbole, the best video game ever made."
"this is without doubt one of the greatest video games I've ever played"
"This game has a shocking amount of depth"
"868-BACK is the best roguelike ever made"
"What a special game."
Folk, I'm not cherry-picking these quotes here. It's all like that. Look at it. People really like the game. (AND FAIR ENOUGH, WE DID GOOD WORK.)
You will have noticed that I announced that I would release the game on mobile platforms, and we haven't done that yet. At the time I honestly thought that I was going to just somehow manage to simultaneously release on all the platforms, like I've never done before. But this turned out to be a huge game. It was already clear that it was quite big back in 2024, but as I filled in the blanks it became obvious that it's really very big. We had to make choices about what to prioritise for release and what to save for later, and this was a pretty obvious one.
It's not going to be easy to make it play well on a phone. Honestly, although many people played and loved 868-HACK on their phones, I do feel it's pushing the boundaries of what's comfortable. (After all, it did start as a PC game!) Since then I've figured out a lot about how to make a game work well on a phone, and e.g. Imbroglio and Cinco Paus were designed with that interface in mind from the start. I had hoped I could do that here, but it grew the way it grew. There's a lot of work still ahead to get this right, and I am going to do a damn good job of it - but even after I do my best I think more people will prefer to play it on PC. It's just a big game!
Aside from that, I've talked about my health a bit with respect to this project. I suffer from chronic fatigue, and we've learned how to do a very good job of managing it. I know what my limits are, and in the last push to get 868-BACK released I went right up to those limits but not past them. I'm okay, but I'm tired. I need to rest quite a bit now.
All that is to say: a mobile release is still planned, but it's going to be at least some months away. I'm resting and recovering, supporting the game, fixing bugs, doing interviews, trying to promote the game, and then I still have the project of MAKE IT GOOD ON PHONE ahead of me. I'm not going to announce dates or anything until it's reasonable to do so! But for now, the game is out, it's great, I'm proud of what we've done, and thank you all so much for your support. (And please tell your friends to buy it!)
Finally, here's an interview that came out today! Dev Dive with Michael Brough and Tara Macalister. We talk about the process of making the game, the music, my illness, and a bunch of other stuff.
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