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Thief's Roulette

Created by hiromu656

A Puzzling Thriller inspired by the Zero Escape and Danganronpa series. All purchases help support the development of the game.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Update
over 1 year ago – Mon, Nov 14, 2022 at 12:17:19 PM

There's still been little progress made on the console issue, but here's an update nonetheless.

I have a feeling this delay might be due to the game just not being that popular. It could also be that it's just not that exciting of a project for them right now. It's definitely a low priority for the console folks since it's been this long with no word. I have also not been doing myself any favors with my poor social media presence, though. But that's all assuming any of this is even the reason, as it could be something completely different. I think the best thing I can do right now would be to make better use of my social media accounts and do more marketing. Maybe something will spark some interest and get the ball rolling. If this isn't the problem, and it's truly as simple as having to wait it out, that would still be a good thing to do.

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Now besides playing the waiting game, here's what else I've been doing:

  • Ran through Thief's Roulette a couple times finding places to add more sound effects. That's actually been a nice bump to the game's quality.
  • Working on TR steam achievements.
  • Working on TR Artbook.
  • In a previous update I mentioned I was working on a "horror adventure" game for October. I did not hit that deadline though, since I've decided to expand on the game so that I could sell it. I was thinking about having it be free at first, but now I think it could be a small commercial project. That'll likely be releasing in a couple days. 

When it comes to game development it's full steam ahead right now. As soon as this adventure game is out, I'll start working on another small-medium sized game. I've got more time now that Thief's Roulette is done, so I'm really just hoping that I get some good news along the way. Sorry about all this, I really thought this would be dealt with by now. 

Update
over 1 year ago – Sat, Oct 22, 2022 at 02:26:07 PM

This will be a quick one. I'll say right away that there's been no progress so far with the console business. I think if there's no plan in place by the end of the month I'll need to be a bit more proactive. I definitely don't want to go into November with no progress on this.

Still though, I've tried to make the most of my time.

Here is what I've been doing since the last update:

  • I've been working on Steam achievements for Thief's Roulette. This is one of the good things to come out of this down time because I almost forgot to add them.
  • Some more progress on the free DLC campaign. I've brought this up a couple times now, so I'll say a little more about it. The campaign takes place directly after the end of Thief's Roulette. It's also a much needed bridge from TR1 to TR2. It'll be pretty different from TR both visually and structurally, but there will still be dialogue and puzzles. It's going to be around 3 hours long and will expand on the world of Thief's Roulette. I want to have fun with this series so things are going to get weird.
  • Working on a horror/adventure game. It's not aggressively horror, so it might even be a good horror game to play for people who aren't that into the genre. There's a focus on exploration and puzzle solving. You begin the game trapped in a strange place (typical), but the twist is that you can assume control of an alien worm to explore the vents, and holes found in the bunker. I've posted some footage of the game on my Twitter. It's kind of like Silent Hill 4 meets SOMA, but it's possibly nothing like those games so just wait for the trailer! If anyone knows the game, The Starship Damrey, that's the biggest inspiration for it.

Now I want to talk a little about my plans for the future as a game developer. Although Thief's Roulette isn't out yet, I feel like this is still a turning point for me. I have plans for all of next year, and hope to keep going for a long time at a consistent pace. In the near future I have the horror game coming out (trying hard to release next week). After that will be Thief's Roulette, followed by the free DLC likely 2 months later. In February I'll put out a game of similar scale to the upcoming horror game, except it's a scifi adventure with some light life-sim elements. Lastly, I'm casually working on a more traditional survival horror aiming at an October 2023 release. Amongst all of this I hope to do a couple visual novel game jams. It might sound like a lot, but in the future I'll be working totally independent on games not named Thief's Roulette, so I'll set my own schedules and release dates. I've also figured out a pretty solid workflow that works great for me.

All backers of Thief's Roulette were sent an invite to the discord channel, but after it officially releases I'll make the discord public to everyone. I want to use it to talk more about my future projects and hopefully create a place for anyone to share things that they're working on. You never know exactly how things will play out, but it is a good feeling when you state your plans and can actually get them done. Even if you just keep them to yourself in a personal journal or in your phone (which is what I usually do) it can be a comforting practice.

That's all I have for now. I'm really looking forward to the post Thief's Roulette world.

Update
over 1 year ago – Sat, Oct 08, 2022 at 09:13:58 PM

Sorry for not posting any updates for so long. It gets very frustrating saying, "the game is done, but there's nothing I can do while I wait for ports" week after week. Sadly, that's exactly the position I'm in after all that time. I've talked to the Publisher and they're still in "limbo" (their words) in their talks with Sony. I haven't been given any sort of time frame and I really don't know what to say or do. Still, I can't just think about myself in this situation since you guys are the reason I've gotten this far in the first place. 

So here are all of the things that I've been doing during this break:

  • Finishing the art for the $400 tier backers. I've done several revisions and restarts on each of them so that's been going on for a while now.
  • Working on the 'Art/Making Of Book' for Thief's Roulette.
  • The big update/free DLC story campaign for Thief's Roulette. I wanted to have that finished a couple months after the game was released, but at this rate it'll be releasing right after Thief's Roulette finally does...
  • Working on a small horror/adventure game. I'll be releasing that this month.

Thief's Roulette is finished, so I've been doing everything but work on it. This is a weird feeling for me, but I'm sure it's much more than just "weird" for you guys. Hopefully this gets figured out soon. I'll keep making these updates on schedule again.

If there are any ways that I could help dispel doubts or assure you guys of the game's status I'd like to hear it.

Quick Update
over 1 year ago – Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 06:42:10 AM

Still got nothing exciting to announce. I can say now that the game will be releasing simultaneous on PC and consoles, though. That's something I was debating for a while since the PC version is done, but the console ports are not. 

I've learned that there's been some delays in communication between my Publisher and Sony, so that's been playing a factor for sure. Technically that wouldn't delay the actual development of the PlayStation port, but there are certain things that need to be handled that would facilitate the actual release on PlayStation. So that seems to be the real culprit here for what's making this take so long. It's very easy to release on Steam/PC but not so easy on consoles. Since it's coming to PS4/5 and Switch, we have to go through Sony and Nintendo to actually make it all happen.

Still just playing the waiting game for now. 

Update (you can skip this one)
almost 2 years ago – Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 08:11:28 AM

Still getting things settled on the Publisher/porting side. I didn't think this part would go on for so long but here we are. This is update is really just me sticking to the schedule, as I don't have anything to say right now. 

I've just been waiting on updates from the Publisher, and trying to nail down a real plan for what we're doing for the release. The moment I have something concrete to report, I'll make another update here to tell you all about it. Even if I get the news tomorrow. 

Sorry about this one. Hopefully I'll have more to say very soon.