Bad news
So, it’s not looking like we’ll be moving Mini Metro out of Early Access during November as we originally predicted. When Robert began full-time work on Mini Metro in late October we were chomping through the task list at a great pace. I was so confident that I predicted we’d be shipping daily builds up to the Steam test branch!
We’re still making good progress, but (as usual, and why can’t I learn?) a handful of the tasks have taken far longer than we expected them to. Silly things like in-game resolution switching, hand-crafting each city’s transitions, adding animation to the asset panel, etc., all seemed to take far too much effort for the impact on the game.
We’re expecting to finally declare the game at version 1.0, and launch on mobile, early next year. With a bit of luck January or February.
Note that ‘release’ doesn’t mean we’ll be ceasing development. Release was always the subset of features that we promised in the pre-order, regardless of how sales went. We hope to keep working on Mini Metro post-launch for a good long while. There are a lot of nice-to-haves that would be great to squeeze in, and a ton of platforms it needs to be playable on!
Good news
Up until now Robert’s always been working on Mini Metro part-time, and never with the intention of returning permanently to videogame development. He took a ten-week sabbatical from his job at SilverStripe to help get the cities finished and game balanced.
Last week he made the decision to join Dinosaur Polo Club permanently. It was a difficult decision—SilverStripe’s a great place to work. After a decade or so of videogame development in various forms we both know exactly what we’re getting ourselves in to, which does make one approach a career in it with trepidation.
Personally, I’m stoked. Mini Metro will be completed* faster and to a higher quality. I get to make games with my brother again!
* If such a thing is possible.