Hi all,
You’ve probably been wondering what’s been going on with Ithaka of the Clouds. Well, I’m here to tell you all about it.
The bad news is that we got somewhat stalled in the beginning by two bouts of ill health. Verena had already produced a dozen or so drawings when she caught the Flu from Hell. I don’t know what kind of mutated supervirus that thing was, but it just wouldn’t die.
As for myself, I have suffered sorrowfully at the dreadful dactyls of the Dentists of Doom. I’m not going to barbarously bore you with all the diagnostic details, but a series of shamefully and shockingly daft dentists first failed to perceive a perfectly plain problem until it became seriously severe, then carelessly caused a sizeable selection of nasty new problems [this is where I ran out of alliterations] during surgery intended to fix the original problem. My mouth is the post-apocalypse now.
There are also good news! Progress on Ithaka has been slow, but what we’ve come up with is extremely exciting. It’s still very much a Lands of Dream game, but we’re approaching it with a sense of freedom and joy that really lets us go anywhere we want. It may end up taking a little longer to make, but this game will be a memorable experience.
There’s more I’d like to share about Ithaka – the themes that are evolving, the places it will take you – but I’m not going to give in to the temptation. It’s probably not good for marketing, but I believe you will have a better experience if you don’t know what’s coming.
Oh, the stretch goals! When I felt too sick to work on something more challenging, I started work on the updated editions/remakes of The Book of Living Magic and The Strange and Somewhat Sinister Tale of the House at Desert Bridge. Both of those should be ready within the year. Desert Bridge in particular will still require a fair amount of work, but so far I am very pleased with the results.
Next Friday we’ll be going to Greece for a month, so we’ll probably be hard to reach – there’s no internet where we’re staying. We will, however, be working; in fact, we’ve done much of our best work in that place. And who knows what kind of strange creatures we will encounter that might make it into the game? Anyway, our journey towards Ithaka is about to take a massive leap forward, and we’re both looking forward to what we’ll discover.
Thank you for making it all possible.
– Jonas
PS Once we come back, we’ll start contacting the people who haven’t gotten their perks yet.
I was going to send this to everyone who supported our campaign via the Indiegogo page, but it seems to be freaking out on me, so I’m posting it here.
