Switch Version

[Whirlwound]

I missed the Kickstarter, so I can’t see the latest update there, and neither can I comment (ergo here I am) - but I’m starting to get a bit concerned, given the previous update was a year back, that the Switch port is never going to happen.

Feels like it’s in a kind of reverse race with the Switch 2 as to who’s going to finish second. I mean, is 2124 the publisher or an ETA?

[GoatPepper]

"Hope everyone is doing well and that the wait for updates has not been too frustrating. Sorry for taking so long to give you the scoop - as we have intimated to a number of folks who reached out, we've been trapped in a number of different pickles. I'll try to avoid rambling for too long as it has been a loooong time since we've updated and there are a tons of twists and turns, but the TL; DR is that we are still sloooowly plugging away at Switch and physicals.
We have spent the last number of months working on a series of updates to the main game. We releases most of those on Steam so far. Things really came to a head when we were making major updates for multiple platforms while also juggling updates for Switch. It became overwhelming to juggle, so we decided to just focus on finishing up a series of updates. One backer reached out and asked if that was backwards and expressed that they were frustrated with the fact that we were just focusing on updates when we weren't even released on other platforms. Just a bit of context helps here. In development, you have to triage. There's always more tasks to take on than you can at any given moment, so you have to prioritize. We spent a lot of time picking which tasks to take on and in the case of Switch, we figured we could best make progress by focusing on updates. How does that make any sense? Well, in the series of updates we released, you'll notice there are a lot of updates to optimizations in memory and performance. Additionally, one of the countless changes we made were to split levels. This was an incredibly long and arduous task that we had to take on in order to get the game to run on Switch without the risk of running out of memory. So, when you're in the backstage of the the castle, you'll notice a few more loading doors. These allow us to stream levels in and out as you progress. Our original release included all of the backstage maps in on giant level, which put us way over memory.

Now, any developer who has worked on Switch is well aware that the Switch struggles with memory. I love the system - it has arguably the best library on any console. But it is notoriously difficult to work with. And we knew this, but in the lead up to launch, you have to make decisions to punt on some stuff until later. In this case, the level splitting. Well, it turns out this was much more complicated than I realized. The backstage area is a hub where TONS of scripting happens. And with the split, we had to rework considerable logic that wound up creating an endless list of bugs due to logic breaks (usually in later Episodes).

But I digress. Point being, I'm doing my best to pick my battles while stuck in a mild version of dev hell. I'm way over schedule and budget, but remain committed as ever to finishing the job. I know lots of you have begged for updates and as I've told a number of you, I have been reluctant to do so without a clear path. I do appreciate those of you who have reached out to check in. I will do my best to get a roadmap together for you all as soon as I can.

One of the many things I've done to get the game to run as smoothly as possible (and make the wait worthwhile) is to try to find a way to turn a weakness into a strength. Weakness: Switch doesn't like all the dynamic lights we use in the game. I can't just strip them out because the game would be dark and ugly. Potential strength: find a different visual approach.
We have been trying to nail down a different way to render the game. Below is a work in progress, but I'd love to hear what you think.

We are all very happy with this look. However, one of the struggles we've faced is ensuring not only that this look helps the way it needs to with memory and performance, but that it also works for our effects and key lighting. It has been another painstaking process to tweak settings and then test to see if everything is working. This is one of the main reasons I've been reluctant to share this update because even as of today I'm not 100% sure we can pull it off. There remain a number of assets that don't work with one setting and then different critical effects that don't work with another. In short, it's a lot of trial and error that just takes time.
So we are trying to push out those updates on the remaining platforms, then get a clearer set of dates for what remains outstanding, including physical rewards.

One last tangent: one of the balls we dropped at launch was the backer exclusive weapons. Because we were late on them, I wanted to give back by including the weapon pack as part of another character pack. We had big plans to release Frank as a bonus with his own level and a ton of new content, but it was another example of taking on too much. I really hope to revisit that content in the future, but we could not make it work for now and we are extremely strapped for time. So we pulled the weapons out of the big content drop and I have those now for anyone who wants a code.

If you ordered the weapons pack and have a Steam version of the game, please email [e-mail] and put Weapon Pack in the subject and I will email you a code as soon as I can. I do ask that you please only ask if you ordered this add-on specifically and have the game on Steam. Again, I'm trying to pour all the time I can into finishing everything, so any time I can avoid chasing down who got what means more time on the game.

So much for keeping it short. I'm going to keep plugging away and will loop you all back in when we get more concrete details, but right now, clarity on Switch is the focus.

If you have any questions, the best way to get answers is to email me directly.

Thank you again for your patience and support!"

[Kletian999]

Rough that its in dev hell but I can understand the predicament. ironically the switch 2 might have the memory to run without the level breaks but we'll see.

[markemer]

Yeah, it's rough - I understand people wanting to support the switch but it's getting tougher by the day - it's seriously old hardware right now. Even if they just did a processor bump to a newer Tegra it could make things last longer.