Hey all,

It’s been ages since we updated this blog, but some stuff has been going on and I figured with the new year it would be a good time to take stock of the last year, share a bit about the team, and a bit about the path ahead.

First of all, The Flame in the Flood! We released on PC, Mac, and Xbox One almost a year ago, and have been really happy with the reception. Reviews have been strong overall, and we’ve had a couple great months recently (Thanks, winter sales!). We’ve popped up on a few end of year lists, notably as an overlooked title deserving of more recognition, as well as some Game of the Year nods.

Wired: 8 Wonderful Games You Might Have Missed in 2016

Gamerant: The Best 2016 Video Games You Didn’t Play

Superlevel.de: ummm… it’s in German, but it seems like it’s good!

iDigitalTimes: iDigitalTimes Year In Gaming: ND’s Top 7 Picks For 2016

Windows Central: Jez’s Official 2016 Jezzy Video Game Awards

In addition to that, we’ve partnered with Curve Digital to bring the game to the PS4. It’ll be out soon (official date is forthcoming), but we’re really excited to have an awesome partner who’s able to port the game to the PS4 as people have been asking for it since we launched our kickstarter. They are also taking over publishing of the existing XB1 & PC/Mac versions, which should help keep everything coordinated, and free up the core team to focus on the road ahead.

We were also recently in the Humble Monthly (a blind box collection of games) which has brought a ton of new people into the game, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to bring TFITF to so many folks who may have otherwise overlooked the game.

Next up is the team. I know normally internal personnel stuff isn’t discussed publicly, but we’ve all been pretty present via Kickstarter and social media, so I figured I’d share. Over the course of the last year, both our engineers decided to move on to other things. Bryn is now working with a cool startup called VirZoom that’s making VR focused exercise games. Damian is living out a childhood dream of making robots. We miss both of them, but are glad that they’re making the world a better place (in Bryn’s case) and building what I can only assume are the terminators that will replace humanity (in Damian’s). Running a game company without any engineers isn’t exactly a good place to be in, but…



Fortunately, we got lucky and found an engineer looking to join a small team, who also has a ton of experience. The newest member of The Molasses Flood is Alan Villani, a dude who’s been making games for ages. He was the tech director at NetherRealm on Mortal Kombat for years, and most recently was running the technology team at Turbine which supported multiple Warner Bros. games. We’re super lucky to have such an experienced talent on board, as finding people of his caliber can be tough even if you’re a huge AAA team with recruiters, expensive relocation packages, personal chefs, beautiful campuses, in house rock climbing walls… you get the idea. We have a basement office and shared kitchen with free k-cups and a microwave, so we’re thrilled to have gotten such a talented person to join in spite of our lack of lavish perks.

So now what… I can’t disclose precise sales numbers for a bunch of reasons (mostly NDAs), but I can say that while The Flame in the Flood hasn’t made any of us rich (gonna need to wait on that Tesla…) it has done well enough that we’ve got enough to get another game off the ground. We probably still would have been smarter to just take jobs at big companies, but getting to make our own stuff and control our own destinies is worth some sacrifices along the way. As far as what game is next… we’re still figuring that out. We’ve got a ton of ideas about what we want to do, so keep an eye on this space, our Facebook page, and our Twitter account for news in the future.

Overall, it feels like the conventional narrative for folks is that 2016 was a dumpster fire. I can totally see why, it was a tough year in a lot of ways! But for our little company it’s been great. We launched our first game, we got to help kick off a sequel to Psychonauts with one of our favorite teams (Double Fine!) and game dev heroes (TIM SCHAFER!!), we moved offices (our new one has windows!), we were joined by an awesome new talent, we set ourselves up to keep this company going and making games, and we’ve got a lot to look forward to in the coming year, and hopefully years beyond that.

So thanks to everyone who picked up the game, streamed it, wrote a review (even the bad ones… I appreciate the feedback), read all the way to the end of this post, tweeted at us, backed us on Kickstarter, shared our posts on Facebook, met us at conventions, made art inspired by our game, and generally made all the effort feel worthwhile. Thank you all for a great 2016, and let’s hope for a great 2017 ahead!

- Forrest & the team: Alan, Sinc, Chad, and Gwen