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[JobLeonard]

We've been super busy the past few months and can finally announce our launch date! It only took us about four years of development. ^^

It's exciting but at the same time frightening as hell.

I'm mainly excited because this suggests we'll get a new trailer with new music

[PatrickECS]

Hahahaha yes! I'm very much looking forward to the new trailer as well. For now I can only give you a tease of it:

[PatrickECS]

I'm mainly excited because this suggests we'll get a new trailer with new music

There you go. Crest has launched and with it comes the trailer. ^^

[JobLeonard]

Dat monolith...


Music feels a bit more symphonic metal this time, that's a new one for this game

[PatrickECS]

Yeah gotta keep them surprises going. ^^
For someone who used to listen to a lot of metal, it's funny how you can clearly hear the finnish influence of our composer. ^^

For those not so familiar with Crest, we've also brushed up an older trailer with new gameplay scenes and rebranded it:

[JobLeonard]

Yeah, it's cool.

I still really dig this one though - the narration really hits all the right notes and just fits the game.

[Greipur]

Hey, I just wanted to write another post that the game is now launched and "technically" complete. We're still working on post-launch content for awhile longer. A new update will arrive in May, so just a few weeks more of waiting.

We have learned so much making this game, everything didn't turn out as we expected, but when does life go as intended? But we're coming out of this hungry for making more games, our next title will be a smaller project, as in not taking 4-5 years to make!

Crest has not so far returned our investment, and I think a startup or indie studio should not expect their first commercial title to make a profit or even break even. I've a lot of thoughts regarding all this so maybe I will write a post-mortem one of these days, but I need time to gain distance. We're still working on the game so it doesn't feel I've the needed pause and reflection.

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Also, thank you Job for the kind words regarding the trailer. I've been doing a lot of ripomatics for a future project just as a fun thing in my spare time, and it has really made me think about editing and storytelling in a new way. I also think making several trailers has really helped me try to nail the concept, so one takeaway is that make several trailers throughout the project if you have the resources.


---

I won't say that this will be the final post, but please expect that this devlog is a case closed. Thank you all for staying with us and giving feedback. I don't frequent TIG as much anymore, but it has a fond place in my heart.

[JobLeonard]

Congratulations!

I'm afraid I didn't give much useful beta-feedback in the end, and I hope the game has found its audience for a nice long tail!

Don't forget to post here when you start a new devlog!

[Greipur]

Thanks, we're chasing the tail on the trail still!  

I can't promise what we will do next and if we do another dev blog. I'm not saying we're too cool for TIG, just saying that we're maybe growing out of our indie cocoon to other things. Some kind of weird butterfly maybe? Anyway, we will still be around on the internet.

[Greipur]

Hey all, didn't think I would return to this thread. But it seems that Crest had one more story to tell.

After the disappointing release back in March we got a lot of feedback on how to improve the game, we listened and have spent the last 8 months on iterating. I think we've replaced around 30-40% of the game's guts, added features, removed or tweaked old ones. The main problem with Crest 1.0 were the lack of progression, replayability and sense of story. We've tried to solve that with:

• A new tech tree reminiscent of 4X games.
• Randomly assigned quests that gives you points to the tech tree and tries to shake up the player's habits.
• A new association system (see below) that creates small, sometimes absurd, stories.
• Redone interface with more granular feedback.
• Doctrines completely changed, now they're permanent and gets "randomly" added, similar to the quirks in Darkest Dungeon.
• Misfortunes/Fortunes, random events that shake up the gameplay, after analysing a lot of management games we realise this is a common solution to fix the problem of optimising out the challenge.
• And then a lot of small tweaks, fixes, rebalances, and god knows what else I don't have in my head right now.

To finish this post I will quote Tarn Adams, one of the creators of Dwarf Fortress from a recent talk he had at GamezFestival:

"When descriptive systems intersect with game mechanics, you'll find them in player stories more often!"

I think this sums up perfectly what we've tried to do here. Regardless of how well the relaunch goes sales-wise I'm happy we had the energy and funds to do the relaunch. For us right now 2019 will probably mean new games and challenges. I also want to say again how much TIG meant for me 2014-2017, it was a great place to "grow up" as a dev. I hope this forum stays around for awhile, even if I've mostly outgrown it.  


Oh, and I'm working on one of those pretentious animated trailers again, expect one soon. 

[JobLeonard]

Oh my! An update! I hope you'll find success this time around!

That's the great thing about games I guess. You can make updates

[Greipur]

Surprise!

Yes, I think the modern live service/free update environment is both a blessing and a curse. In this case clearly a blessing. I will try to get back and talk about how the relaunch went.

[TheWanderingBen]

It's been great following the open development of this stuff! Your own problems and solutions are helpful to other devs too. Continued luck gents!