In my last general update post, I mentioned that I was working on a project that seemed to be about 90%+ finished. That project is a game called Cubiq. I also mentioned that I was working on an update to Blasteroids for the Windows Store.

The fact of the matter is that I had been working on Cubiq at the end of last year, but set it aside temporarily at the beginning of this year to get Blasteroids ready for the Windows Store as part of a contest put on by Unity and Microsoft. The winners of that contest haven’t been publicly announced yet, but I was informed that I’d be notified closer to the beginning of March if I had placed, so I feel I can safely say that Blasteroids didn’t place in the competition.

So now that that’s done, I’ve refocused my efforts on Cubiq and have been working on getting it finished and ready to release. I felt like it was pretty close to being finished at the beginning of the year, but now it feels like it’s right on the verge. But there are several “teeny little things” that all probably will take a lot more time and effort than I realize, plus the other things not related to actually making the game, such as marketing materials (video(s), screenshots, promo banners/art, a website, etc.) that still need to be done as well.

It feels like it could be finished in just a few days to a week or so, but I’m sure it will take (much) longer than that. I’m reminded of when Roidz and I launched cInput 4 years (!) ago. We thought we had the code finished and that it would take maybe a couple of days to write documentation for it and it would be ready to release. But then as we wrote the documentation we kept finding things that needed clarification or improvement or features that didn’t even exist that probably should. If I remember correctly, it took about another month to add that extra bit of polish and to feel like it truly was ready to be released to the public as something we could be proud of.

Taking all of this into consideration, I’d say it will probably be at least May before we’re ready to launch Cubiq. Hopefully that’s not as optimistic/underestimated as our initial feeling was with cInput. It could possibly be June or July, or, I suppose, later. That’s what can happen when you’re a small indie development team working in your spare time, aside from other jobs, family obligations, etc.

That’s it for this time.