Friday, February 1, 2013

So, what now?

tl:dr; The project is down, but not out.

Well, I guess this is where I have the heart to heart with you, and everyone else who is currently reading this site. I feel like this entire project has not been very open nor did we really want to draw too much attention to ourselves. This has worked in our favor in a lot of regards, however I think I owe an explanation to everyone who has taken an interest in this project and I should be as transparent as possible.

As you can probably tell, there's a pretty good reason we have not been updating lately. Maybe I've seen this coming for a while, but the team has gone through some internal strife and has completely dissolved as of a few days ago. The release of the game's source code was our lead programmer's letter of resignation, and to my knowledge the rest of the team has left to do other things. Which leaves just me and all of you, I suppose.

Granted, we've all had a great time on this project and I wouldn't trade a lot of the times I've had for the world. Midwestria and all the games of Board Game Online, especially. This experience surely was something, which is why I, personally, am not necessarily going to let this project just wither and die. However, I am going to miss the team dynamic we had going for the longest time.

RIP BossHorse Games



That was the internal name of our little development team, but I'm afraid it's no more.

So, now that I'm done with my nostalgia, it's time to discuss the future of this project. First order of business is to let everything simmer down and take some time off. I'm going to try an save as many assets as I can so that this project can fully continue at some later date, but that's going to take time.

We were going to attempt to make an appearance at the Cloudsdale Congress convention in March, but with the project as it is I'm afraid that cannot happen. I will probably still go (because cons are fun and I love the DC area), but I wont be there for the game.

After I've gathered all of our errant assets and some time has passed, I'm going to might take some advice the team's been given in the past and make the game open source. This means that just about anyone and everyone will be able to contribute to the project meaningfully, without having the same kind of commitment we've previously required. But it's going to require a complete reconfiguration of how this project will proceed, and that takes some time. So, all I can ask is that you bear with me.

Any questions, comments, laments, or just words you want to say can still be sent to buddingfriendships@gmail.com.

And, in closing, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who's been a part of this project. Whether you contributed directly, saw us at a con and picked way more weeds than you needed to, or just check in the website enough to read this message - Thank you.

There's a good reason I refuse to drop this project.

6 comments:

  1. Just let me say, I've been really looking forward to this game. I love Harvest Moon, and I love ponies, you know?

    It's a shame there's no comments here right now. I guess it's not as popular as FIM, whose Cease and Desist order from Hasbro has caused an unholy shitstorm...

    Well, good luck on future prospects. I'll have a look at your source code.

    Regards
    -anon

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  2. This is unfortunate :(

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  3. Goodness! :( I hope it works out better. Definitely take some time off. Sorry things winded up like this. :(

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  4. Awww.

    For what it's worth, I was specifically wanting a MLP Harvest Moon for quite some time before I found this site. And nothing I've seen here has decreased that desire. Your soundtrack is on regular rotation in my mp3 player.

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  5. This is saddening to me as both a Harvest Moon and MLP fan, I hope you'll get another shot at starting the project :/

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  6. Damn, i just found this project and only to see is in hiatus since 2013? ;_; and i was excited to see someone had combined too of my most favorite things in the world, i hope that some day you can be able to complete this project. U_U if only i could help or something

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