State of studio (9/2024)

[Mister Wekonu]

In summer 2024, the dev team had another layoff of roughly 75%, from 30+ employees down to ~10, similar to the 2021 layoff

See the official announcement here

This layoff includes but may not be not limited to: the entire narrative team including the lead but excluding the director (3+), almost the entire UX/programmer/engineering team (8+), almost all animators and 2D/3D/environmental artists (5+), frontend and web devs (3+), development coordinators (2), sound designer (1), data scientist (1), line manager (1), studio/project manager (1), marketing creative (1), chief operating officer (1), community manager (1), and quality assurance engineer (1) to name a few.

This detailed list is collated using public LinkedIn & Moby data of individual employees (both former and current).

The remaining team is primarily composed of: Founders (2), 2D/Generalist Artist (2), Senior Programmer/Engineer (1), QA & Software Engineer (1), Narrative Director/Head of Production (1), Technical Artist (1), 3D Animator (1), UX/Software Engineer (1), Budget/Financials (1), Game Programmer (1), and Senior QA Analyst (1)

What does this mean for Book of Travels and Meadow?

Currently the BoT plan entails bug-fixing and balance tweaks, and some manner of "preservation" though what that entails has not been officially announced. Content updates will be "far and few between," if at all. Currently no active Meadow/Shelter team remains.

[Mister Wekonu]

An update shared to the M&D Discord and Steam page: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/mightanddelight/announcements/detail/528706478197965653

- Announced the remaining team has a new project for 2025 (one that most the old team don't even know existed)

- Doesn't clarify the plans for Meadow or BoT outside "preservation," hotfixes, and map updates.

[Mister Wekonu]

M&D have now moved into a new studio location, hired a new 2D artist intern (possibly repeating the cycle of throwing work at non-employees they can fire at will to avoid re-hire laws?) as well as a PR Manager, and have posted a job search for a CCO.

Due to SteamDB dev comp key and beta test key[steamdb.info] generations and their Youtube channel conveniently making the game private, it appears the "new" game may just be their cancelled "Child of Cooper" project from 2015.

Update: the next game has been officially announced to be https://store.steampowered.com/app/3362960/Twinkleby/