The past months here at the studio have been hectic, but our labors are paying off.
It is with regret that I must make the decision to push back the public release of the Town Square module from April 23; however, the delay will be quite minor. Because this is now the second delay to an official firm release date, and because we expect this delay to be short-lived, we are as of this announcement releasing the Asylum Task Tracker.
The new task tracker, visible on the Town Square section of the official website (here's a link for you), offers the Identity community and fans absolute transparency in our development progress. You can now see the tasks we have to complete before we're ready for the module to be publicly available. It will be updated each and every day. The list is not long, and displays all tasks since the tracker was created only a day ago. When all of the tasks are completed, of which none are major, Town Square will be released on Steam and available for play.
Furthermore, the new Identity website is on schedule for a release just next week! The new website will come with all sorts of cool new features and we'll be building on it constantly as we move forward, too.
With the release of the new website, I'm also going to begin regular Identity Insider releases. These Insider publications will add a ton of very detailed information on key systems within Identity.
Delays are unfortunately a reality of all game development, whether a game is being produced by a large studio with hundreds of developers or a small team, such as ours, with only dozens. We faced unforeseeable technical issues recently; however, all of the issues we had have been fully resolved and, as you can see with the new tracker, release is extremely close.
As soon as we get some final bits of art in place, we're going to compile a Town Square trailer video and begin showing off the game and environments on our development streams.
So to sum it all up, keep an eye on the new tracker (see that link above) and follow our progress. The tracker will be updated once per day as it has to be done manually. Once we get our production software updated so that it can be automated, it'll be a live display.
I also want to say that you to our loyal community and fan-base. Delays are never a fun thing to experience with any game, so everyone here in the studio is working overtime like crazy to get you into our world.
You'll be in the Town Square very soon and this is going to make the game a much better experience. I'm really excited for our first module release as it's shaping up to be a really fun and beautiful experience. In fact, the Town Square is much more than I even though it would have been early on; I'm extremely happy with what we've put together.
I hope you enjoy the peak behind the scenes with the new task tracker and we'll be seeing you in the square soon!