Telepath Tactics release date!
Hello, everyone! It is my pleasure to announce an official release date for
Telepath Tactics:
April 16, 2015. It’s been a long long journey, but the end is in sight at last!
“Now wait a minute, Craig,” you might be saying, “I remember you saying that this would be releasing in mid-March. Did you push the release back?” Your memory does not deceive you: I recently decided to push back the Telepath Tactics release a month, from March 16 to April 16. “But why would you do that, Craig? Are you behind schedule? Are you still waiting for art? Are you dealing with some sort of insurmountable technical obstacle?!” No, no, no–nothing like that. The game is finished! The art’s done, the campaign is done; all that’s left are a handful of relatively minor bugs, a smidgen of polish work, and Steam integration. In theory, I could probably release it in the next couple of weeks if I wanted to.
So why push it back? In short: for tactical reasons. I did some scouting, and–to put it bluntly–there are
a metric shit-ton of games coming out in March 2015, including quite a few RPGs and turn-based strategy games. Pillars of Eternity is Releasing. Bloodborne is releasing. Project S.T.E.A.M. is releasing. Worlds of Magic is releasing. Atelier Shallie is releasing. There’s even a new Final Fantasy coming out! And on top of all that, GDC and PAX happen back-to-back in March, the two of which are sufficient to tie up the press for several weeks all on their own. March is going to be a bloodbath, basically.
If I may briefly analogize this situation to something we might see in a strategy RPG: releasing Telepath Tactics in the midst of all the craziness of March 2015 would be like sending my best front-line fighter into the middle of a throng of 20 enemies on open ground. We all know what’s going to happen to the fighter if I do that–she is going to die.
Releasing Telepath Tactics in March means that its arrival will be drowned out by coverage of much higher-profile titles. The smarter move–the move I intend to make–is to find more favorable terrain to engage on, terrain where I won’t be swarmed by quite so much competition for attention. April is going to be very quiet; that’s the point of engagement I want.
Keep in mind that I’ve been working on Telepath Tactics for a very long time, and I am
really really eager to just release it already. I have so many other game ideas that I’m just dying to get started on–but I haven’t spent the past five years making Telepath Tactics just to launch it into a coverage vacuum and watch it suffocate. So I am being patient, and I am putting off releasing the game just a little bit longer. Being patient is not the easiest or the most pleasant choice for me, but it’s the smart one.
On the plus side, delaying the release a little bit longer means I’ll have time to create some extra goodies in anticipation of the release! Thanks for your patience, everyone.
