MAY. How the hell is it MAY already? This game was going to be done by Christmas.

Ah well. No sense in rushing, I suppose. The main news is the game’s ostensibly finished. All the levels, upgrades, cutscenes and baddies are in, and it’s been through a significant period of bug-fixing and balancing, to make sure it all works as intended.

So, what next? Well, it needs to go through console certification, which is a mystical process I have zero interest in understanding, but apparently takes aaaaaaaaages. Curve are doing whatever it is at their end that needs doing, but honestly, it just seems stupid to now sit on my hands for a few months and do nothing while whatever it is that needs to happen there, happens.

So we’re going to look into a Day One Patch, which will bring any minor tweaks to balancing or fix any bugs that crop up between now and then. It seems a sensible way of doing things, rather than just sitting here twiddling my thumbs. I may also be having a bit of a problem letting go, that might be part of it.

Anyway, lovely Michael’s agreed to continue on doing art for the duration, so there’ll be loads more variety to characters and building backgrounds. More stuff and things to look at, for you.

That’s it. The Swindle will launch in the summer, assuming none of the console grown-ups balk at my code.

I’ve played it through a dozen times over the last few weeks. It’s a great game, I’m very pleased with it. I hope other people get a kick out of it too.