From Typ and Linqx:

Hello to our, friends, followers, and the good fellows we’ve muted in our Discord over the course of the last two years.

To those who have read my Community Announcements / Producer’s Letters of the past, you’ll recognize that I have always been one to keep the big news for the end of the text. That is not the case here. This is not news that waits for a conclusion, and frankly I’m not sure how I’d ever attempt to put it into words no matter when I tried to, so instead I’ll present to you what was sent to us on Wednesday from Juix:

“These past months I’ve been thinking a lot about how things are going, and how I’d like them to go. The past two years have been great. I love and appreciate the work you guys has contributed. Darza’s would not be what it is now without it. Regarding the future of Darza’s, I’ve decided to take a step back with Darza’s. I’m going to continue to passively work on Darza’s, but my main focus will usually be on other things. As for JuixGames, Darza’s will be the last game under the company, as any work I do in the future will be under a different studio name. You guys are welcome to stay passively or move on to different things, there will be no more required/paid work. I’ve moved on this change because I have not been enjoying development for a while now, and I’m going to be changing some things in my life starting with this. Thank you for working with me on Darza’s. We’ve all grown tremendously in the past two years and I hope you guys the best going forward.”

If you are to read that and be in some regard of disbelief, you would not be alone. This news was a bombshell to the both of us as well. To try and put it in perspective of how I received this, the time it was sent was 2:23 PM Wednesday the 7th. In that moment I was sitting at my desk wondering why Juix was 23 minutes late for the meeting in which I would both be paid for my previous two weeks of work and, more importantly, be signing over the scanned documentation that would finalize legally bringing me on as COO of the company as mentioned in my previous letter. We have not heard a word from Juix since then.

As far as what I believe you can expect from the immediate future of Darza’s Dominion, I have no proper insight. I have had a full model for every bit of content and core changes for this next year, and likely a very healthy amount more than that, that I was chomping at the bit to put in front of you all; but I do not believe any of that will be adapted into whatever future Juix is planning for development. This breaks my heart, in full, more than anything, because as I’ve said many times this was a passion project for me. But I have built toward the path of it being my full time job for two years now, and it very well passed the point of that being possible a long time ago. To have been treated to a sudden conclusion like this, with seemingly no empathy toward what a joke it makes what value I had offered for so long, does not exactly will me to continue working on it in any regard as a volunteer. For everyone that spent their time working with me to develop models for Opportunities, The Gauntlet, Raids, and the Apex encounters, thank you; I’m sorry that none of that will see the light of day in this game.

Truthfully, as far as a Producer’s Letter goes, that’s all I have to write. I’m going to add an addendum to that’ll allow both myself and Linqx to write a personal blip about ourselves and what this experience has done for us, but that’ll be it.

Signing off from the 53rd floor.

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From Linqx:

Hello everyone, I’m not entirely sure where to start so I’ll start from the beginning. I met Juix during one of the releases of his old JRealms Private Server for RotMG. During this time, I wasn’t that great at programming, but Juix still allowed me to join his team and I start working on behaviors for JRealms. However, that project randomly discontinued and I was heartbroken as it was my first project with another person on a RotMG Private Server. No words from Juix until a little more than a year later. The thread for the RotMG Mobile project was made on MPGH. This project made me extremely happy and ecstatic, I immediately applied for a position in developing. Thanks to my prior work in JRealms, I was able to get the position and begin my 2-year journey with Darza’s Dominion. The road was quite bumpy, but I’m glad I took it. I learned so much about programming in the past 2 years, much more than I learned the 3 years prior to that. But now, this road has come to an end, even if I don’t want it to. I felt as if a part of me was destroyed when I heard the news from Juix. I got the notification during a lecture, and literally walked out of class. Offers and questions have been given to Juix by both Typlcal and I about his decision, but we simply haven’t gotten a response yet, don’t even know if we will.

With that being said, I’ll most likely start on my own project(s) in the near future, maybe even Typlcal will be there. We’ll simply have to see which road I take next. Currently I’m a full-time college student, so I might take it easy for now, but soon.

If you’d like to contact me, just message me on discord #Linqx0001. I’ll be enabling my dms again on discord since I’m not a developer for Darza’s Dominion anymore (hopefully I don’t get spammed).

Thank you to everyone who has been involved / supported us throughout the Darza’s Dominion project, I wish you the best of luck!

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From Typ:

While I really never wanted to compare Darza’s to RotMG in the long term, I suppose it never got past a point where it wasn’t valid. I started playing RotMG in 2011 from the Tigsource forum. I probably first started to think about how great a mobile RotMG port could have been have been no later than 2014 playing Legends of Yore with my iPhone 5s. When Juix announced the Mobile Project in late 2016, I immediately saw it for what it was: a project that had taken after my own heart with a means to actually make it happen. I jumped on the chance to help with anything I could from the start, working originally just in voluntarily managing the community. Eventually as I was taken notice of, I would be offered a position within the company a few days before iOS release in february. As time would pass I would gradually take on more roles, eventually designing content, leading the volunteer teams and working with them on what they had to do, and managing the overall organization of mediums such as our Discord. I learned a very extensive amount about game design in this genre, project and team management, and remote working through Darza’s Dominion. I like to think in leaving now that my initiative to take on those roles is why so many of you still read these letters and follow the game. This isn’t a place where I intend on speaking to the fundamental failures of our group, but in the future should there be people interested it’s a topic I’d love to write on; I’m sure the read of our journey as an indie game team would be a good one.

This, to me, still seems like quitting inches from the finish line. In so without caring for how it affects the livelihood of someone that also relied on it, and then leaving without another word; because we literally haven’t heard another word since Wednesday. In that time, however, we have had all administrative privileges taken away in-game. Really wished to have seen this happen in any level of professional manner, in a meeting with discussion for what was to happen in some concrete matter; as I would have set the bar for a team that have worked together for so long and slept under the same roof. Not a vague three paragraph text message out of the blue, which seems so comical to me that I can’t grasp believing it fully. If we hear anything from Juix that works to solve leftover issues amicably I’ll be the first to celebrate it, but we haven’t heard a word on anything at all yet.

If you’d like to follow what I do in the future, the best place I can direct you to is my twitch ( http://twitch.tv/typlcal ). I live-stream me being silly playing games with friends occasionally, and would like to do more in the future. But I suppose for now I need to figure out a way to pay rent. I’d love to continue working in the game industry, and I wouldn’t say it’s impossible that I will, but unless any company reading this would be interested in my prospects I don’t think there’ll be anything right away.

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Thank you for everything. We wish both Juix and Darza’s the best.

Typ and Linqx