Hello! This update was sent out as a newsletter first, so if you want to hear stuff like this early, you might like to get on that. Also, all our games are also currently on sale, with 35% off Tactical Breach Wizards and 65% off all our other games.
With that said, here's what's going on with us lately:
We're working on a new game, and you can see a little bit of it!
We've launched a Discord server for our games!
There's now a way to get more e-mails from us!
Tactical Breach Wizards is a year old and lost many awards!
Our next game
We started something new! And then we scrapped it! Now we've started a different something new!
We're not ready to announce the concept or the real title yet, because we want to build enough of it to be sure those things aren't gonna change - again. But we also didn't want to go as dark as we did for a lot of Wizards' development, so Tom has been talking about our prototyping work.
He's now posted a video blog about it, talking through our ideas for the original project, why we scrapped it, and showing a little of what we're working on now:
It might not be long before we're at the playtesting stage, and if you're interested, sign up for our mailing list.
We've started an official Discord
For years, people have searched for a legal way to have official conversations about our games. Urchins and scoundrels uttered their takes in hushed whispers, only to be trampled by the Discourse Horse before they could finish a single cogent point about permadeath in Heat Signature. Until now!
Come urchin, come scoundrel, come all, into the Suspicious Developments Discord server. Where it is finally legal to talk about Gunpoint, Heat Signature, Tactical Breach Wizards and eventually the next game - all without fear of trampling.
We want this to be a chill and friendly place, and you can help make it so by being:
Chill
Friendly
Opt in to more waffle, perhaps
Look, you don't want to get an e-mail every time Tom does a rambling video about how enemy brains work in Tactical Breach Wizards, or a blog post about how to run your indie game studio.
Unless you do? Hm. Do you?
OK, we made a box you can tick to opt in to more regular e-mails about less important topics.
It's unchecked by default, so do nothing if you're already a mailing list subscriber and only want e-mail when we have a new build to test, game to release, or a rare catch-up update like this one.
But if you're currently signed up and want a ping more often, when we put up something new that may or may not be of interest, here's how to check the box:
Head to our usual sign-up link and enter your e-mail. You won't be signed up again, this is just how you edit your preferences. Check the new "Extra updates" box, and the usual marketing permissions one, and click Subscribe!
Same process to uncheck it, if you change your mind.
Tactical Breach Wizards turns 1.5
We were gonna talk about Wizards turning 1, then this update got delayed by an amount of time we'll leave as an exercise for the reader. But it still feels worth a recap, doesn't it?
Our launch was amazing. By revenue, Wizards sold twice as well as any of our previous games, so we are in the increasingly rare position of remaining fully independent, self-funded, and safe for (touch wood) the amount of time it takes to make a videogame when you're very slow at making videogames. Thank you all so much for that.
On top of that, we passed 10,000 player reviews at 98% positive, which seems miraculous. And it's been such a joy to see people creating incredible Breach Wizards cosplay, fanart, hearing that folks are running tabletop campaigns in the universe, and the rest.
Shortly after launch, we released a Steam Deck update, including better gamepad controls and a new UI for smaller screens. We've since added Steam community items, save slots, mission select improvements, the ability to skip map stages, and bug fixes. We're not aware of any major issues left to fix, so if you are, please report them!
The launch flurry led straight into awards season, during which we did our best to continue our history of being nominated for but ultimately losing a healthy number of awards. We're proud to say we lost the Golden Joysticks, two BAFTAs, a DICE award, and even a Hugo - an especially great honour given how few games have ever successfully lost a Hugo.
Unfortunately, as many of you will know, we weren't able to lose the IGF award for Excellence in Design. We're still trying to figure out exactly what happened, but long story short, we won it. We understand this will be disappointing to many of you, and that we overshot the high-but-not-that-high standard you've come to expect from us. All we can say is we're sorry, and we'll try to do worse.