Curious about TotF2? Here's the story so far...

[Ian (Sealost)]

tl;dr: The project had a very rocky start and basically reset in Jan 2023 when I started working with Halfbrick. It's been going smoothly since then, but just needs time to complete. We don't have a planned release date yet, but you will hear more about the game this year.

The background here is that I'm not a career game dev. I made TotF1 solo and had no experience building a studio, leading a team, or working on more complicated projects.

The TotF2 project officially started in Jul 2020, but I had no employees on day one, and it took me WAY longer to hire than I had ever imagined. It turns out that big companies were hiring like crazy and throwing tons of money at high-end engineers back in 2020/2021/2022, and my company was a no-name garage indie that nobody was interested in working for. I was able to get a talented programming contractor right away, but it took me until August 2021 to even find my first on-staff programmer, and I still needed a second one. I went through two different recruiters (who both ended up giving up) and tried working with multiple codevelopment firms, but they just didn't have the right people available to work on such a complicated project.

Meanwhile, the project was still inching forward, and we were able to at least prove out ideas for some of the harder technical challenges we needed to tackle. However, I was spending too much time trying to build and run the studio and wasn't able to be as hands-on with the low-level design details as I needed to be. The game was getting made, but it wasn't coming together as well as it needed to.

By mid-2022 the project was progressing enough that it looked like we could technically have something to launch by the end of 2023, but we weren't really happy with what we were making. I also had concerns with my small team being able to support the game well after launch.

Around that time, I happened to connect with Halfbrick's CEO, who was a huge fan of TotF1. I liked his personal views on business and making games, so I suggested the possibility of Halfbrick taking over development of TotF2. We both did our due diligence to make sure this was a good idea and that Halfbrick could handle the project, and then decided to go for it.

I began winding down the Sealost side of things and Halfbrick started winding up the Halfbrick side of things, and they got started in earnest in January 2023. We initially hoped Halfbrick could pick up where the Sealost team left off and that with the extra hands we could get the project to a state we were happy with while still releasing in 2023, but as the Halfbrick team got hands-on on the project we realized there wasn't a lot there that we wanted to salvage. We ended up starting a new project and treating the old project as a big chunk of R&D we could pull from as needed.

Since then, everything has been going smoothly. The team at Halfbrick is fantastic, and I get to give the game the attention it needs instead of having to deal with as much business stuff. For the last several months, we have had weekly team fight nights on our dev build, and we enjoy and are proud of the game we're making.

As far as the game itself, it's not TotF1 with more stuff tacked on. It's a completely new game built from the ground up with a goal of trying to replicate boxing as realistically as we can in VR. The focus is mainly on the fighting itself and trying to make it feel as natural and authentic as possible. Multiplayer is the marquee feature, but we also hope to improve the single player AI far beyond what is in TotF1, and to include some actual useful training that teaches you how to play the game and the fundamentals of boxing.

We don't have a release date yet, but you will hear more about the game this year.

[mack]

a steam release is not planned?

[Mizzu]

Ist there a feedback forum for TotF 2?
I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love the PvP, seriously. Never had such different and intense fights.

[Zorro_X]

引用自 Mizzu：

Ist there a feedback forum for TotF 2?
I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love the PvP, seriously. Never had such different and intense fights.

go to their discord, they're very interactive with users and making nearly one patch / day according to users requests/feedback.

[Zek]

引用自 Ian (Sealost)：

Around that time, I happened to connect with Halfbrick's CEO, who was a huge fan of TotF1. I liked his personal views on business and making games, so I suggested the possibility of Halfbrick taking over development of TotF2. We both did our due diligence to make sure this was a good idea and that Halfbrick could handle the project, and then decided to go for it.

No wonder it's not like TOTF1; different developer. The TOTF1 damage system with the hit-color feedback is way better. I don't want to achieve high damage unless my arm is shot out like a cannon IRL and lands directly on the temple.

[Mizzu]

引用自 <c=FF00FFFF>Zek：

引用自 Ian (Sealost)：

Around that time, I happened to connect with Halfbrick's CEO, who was a huge fan of TotF1. I liked his personal views on business and making games, so I suggested the possibility of Halfbrick taking over development of TotF2. We both did our due diligence to make sure this was a good idea and that Halfbrick could handle the project, and then decided to go for it.

No wonder it's not like TOTF1; different developer. The TOTF1 damage system with the hit-color feedback is way better. I don't want to achieve high damage unless my arm is shot out like a cannon IRL and lands directly on the temple.

I agree. Damage/Hit-Feedback is much better in TotF1