Sad news, everyone
Here's some of the most disappointing news I've ever delivered: Launching Pad Games is going to have to go on hiatus for now. Why? Ridculously, the reason is just boring old money — we don't have any. The company hasn't been profitable, and we need to be able to pay rent and feed ourselves and families.
We've had some great times; Tristan Clark and James Ellis are the two finest people I've ever worked with. Scarlett and the Spark of Life is one of the highlights of my game development career. I'm immensely proud of our little adventure and the way it resonated with fans (not to mention its critical success).
Mighty Fin, Monster Flip and The Pretender also bring joy to my heart, have their own fanbases (e.g. Mighty Fin's), and all tended to get rated pretty damn highly. I look back on our work of the past few years with delight.
What does "on hiatus" mean in practise? We have a few small projects on the go (Mighty Fin in your web browser, anyone?), but at least in the meantime, we're each going to have to mainly focus on individual contract work in order to get our credit cards and bank balances back under control.
What does the news mean for the Scarlett series? I'm sad to say, loyal fans, that we don't have any projected date for when we'll be able to do a sequel. I do know that we want to do it right: more choices, deeper story, breathtaking art, richer audio and multiplatform support. And more Gherkin! Sounds pretty good, right? And believe me, no-one wants that game made more than we do.
But the big projects will have to wait, for now. We'll still be awake at night thinking about how to make great games, and I know that each of the three of us looks forward to getting together again someday and making those games.
