DevBlog #33 - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2020!

Spacefarer.

We've arrived at the end of the year and it's once again time to head out to take a little break and celebrate Christmas and New Year replenishing our strength for the coming year, 2020.

This year was special to us. It's hard to fathom that it has already been well over 7 years since we started on our journey to create games. A lot has happened in that time, a lot of hardships and disappointments, but also successes that kept us alive to fight another day. We're very grateful to still be alive as an indie studio to this day.

Being a game developer is wonderful because you get to bring fantasies to life, and create experiences and emotions for others playing your creation. If you were to ask what brings a game developer great joy it's usually seeing players talk and react to your game. In a positive way of course =) Seeing someone bash your creation can feel devastating and demoralizing, but the best way to react is to try to understand what's wrong and improve from there.

We never intended or planned for Space Haven to be such a long project, just some odd months more and we're at the 4 year mark. 4 years! A lot can happen in 4 years, like suddenly having to wear glasses to see. So what happened? Well, the usual thing happened. We envisioned a game, started creating it and as the years rolled by we realized we weren't building a house, we were building a very big castle. And castles take a lot of time to build!

If we've had spent less time on Space Haven then Space Haven would not be the game it is today, it would be an entirely different game. And very likely not as enjoyable. See, that's what happens when you work on a game. You realize it needs more, that it's not yet enough. So you keep working on it, crafting it day by day hoping one day it's something special. Like a big castle ready to house many people.

It's been amazing to see the power of a supporting community. Just when we thought our castle would remain unfinished as nothing but a solid foundation for something magnificent, you came to our aid with your wheel barrows and shovels! You gave us the means to continue crafting our castle that is Space Haven. One of our game developer dreams was to have a successful Kickstarter one day, one of those Kickstarters that make other game developers use it as an example of what's possible. It happened, and you made it possible =)

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for making one of our game developer dreams come true. Thank you for supporting us and enabling us to continue crafting Space Haven, the big castle we want to share with you. 2020 is going to be yet another big year, hopefully you are with us then too!



Now for some more merry news. As mentioned previously we decided to participate in the Yogscast Jingle Jam with one of our previous games, Battlevoid: Harbinger.

In return, the Yogscast promised to give Space Haven a go in their Jingle Jam streams and show it to their community. (NOTE! Space Haven is not part of the bundle) It was so exciting watching them play, they seemed to love the game and have a lot of fun with it. If you missed it don't worry, you can watch the whole video of them playing below:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/523095593?t=0h21m9s

Our goal is to officially release Space Haven as a solid Early Access version next year (PC/Mac/Linux), once we feel we are ready and find a good time frame. We will of course notify you closer to release. This means that right as the game is officially released you beloved backers, who are still waiting to play, will also get access. Once in Early Access, we will continue hammering away on the game update by update.

If you want to do something in a merry Christmas spirit to help us you can simply share the Yogscast video with a friend, or let your favorite streamer know that Space Haven is starting to become really solid and they should totally play it =)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in 2020 =)

- The Bugbyte Team