[img]https://giant.gfycat.com/FearlessAliveDiamondbackrattlesnake.gif[/img] [h1]What's our plan?[/h1] During these past few months we have had a lot of discussions internally about ideas for Lance A Lot. The topics have ranged from what it is that we would [b][i]really[/i][/b] want to add to the game if we could, and whether or not we are on the right path with our plans. We have also been questioning whether it’s worthwhile to work on smaller updates to a commercially unsuccessful game. Updates that are likely to generate little awareness outside of our current player base, yet still cost us valuable time to develop. And the conclusion we have come to is that It’s not enough. So, we asked ourselves; why not think bigger? Why not make something wholehearted that truly has the best chance of reaching people’s attention? Why not go beyond merely adding an online mode to a local party game, but rather make Lance A Lot into a game built for online from the ground-up? [h1]Announcing Lance A Lot: Enhanced Edition![/h1] In fact, we have decided to expand Lance A Lot into a new, fully-featured, standalone game. A game which has the features people expected the original Lance A Lot to have. A game with both online and local multiplayer, with a proper amount of levels and content, and with enough depth in its game mechanics to keep people interested over time. While we have no final name for it yet, for now we are calling it “Lance A Lot: Enhanced Edition”. And since we promised you online multiplayer as a free update back in October, we are going to give out the Enhanced Edition [u][b]for free[/b][/u] to all owners of the current version of Lance A lot. This is all made possible by the fact that we have received some minor funding. Not much, but enough for me as designer and for our programmer Erik to be able to skip part-time jobs. Starting Monday next week, half our team will be working full-time, which should really speed things up! We expect our new plans to raise some questions, so we have compiled a short list below of the things we think people are most curious about! [h1]FAQ[/h1] [list] [*]The name Lance A Lot: Enhanced Edition is a working title and will probably not be the final name for the game. We are going to rename the current version of the game to Lance A Lot: Classic once we release the Enhanced Edition, to avoid confusion [*][b][u]The Enhanced Edition will be free for all owners of the Classic version[/u][/b] [*]For everyone else, the Enhanced Edition will be a standalone release for the price of $14.99 [*]The Enhanced Edition will feature 8-player online and 4-player local multiplayer (the modes will be kept separate due to technical and design reasons) [*]The Enhanced Edition will be a much deeper game than the Classic version, and will utilize pretty much all the buttons on a controller – therefore it will not be able to support local play on a shared keyboard (but it will support mouse and keyboard for one player). This is one of the main reasons why we have chosen to release the Enhanced Edition as standalone, since some may prefer the simpler Classic version [*]We will spend more time on the development of the Enhanced Edition than we spent on the original Classic release, but some art and code are reused (which is why we are not calling this “Lance A Lot 2”) [*]We are planning to release the Enhanced Edition during summer 2017, and sometime later to Xbox One. Hopefully the Steam launch will include Mac & Linux as well [*]We plan on keeping the Classic version as it is (hence the name), and all further work will go towards improving the Enhanced Edition [*]We may stop selling the Classic version on Steam when we release the Enhanced Edition. We have not decided yet. Either way, owners of the Classic version will of course still get to keep it in their Steam library [*]There will no longer be an online beta for the Classic version, but we will probably have some form of open or closed beta for the Enhanced Edition before its release [*]We will be relatively quiet on the PR-front during these next 4-8 weeks while we implement and test new game mechanics. After that we plan on being quite active, mainly on our [url=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP9qvGlTewyM9_Tx8JegLkA]YouTube channel[/url] and [url=https://www.facebook.com/lancealotgame/]Facebook page[/url] – subscribe if you’re interested in hearing more about the development! This is just a heads-up to let you know that we are hard at work even when we are not posting about it! ;)[/list] We will of course gladly answer any questions or suggestions you might have regarding our new plans. Just comment below or reach us at contact@rockethammer.com and we’ll get back to you! [i]tldr; We are going to release a standalone “Enhanced Edition” of Lance A Lot with online multiplayer. It will be free for everyone who already owns Lance A Lot, but otherwise cost $14.99. Planned release this summer on Steam. Xbox One release sometime after that. The “Classic” version of Lance A Lot will remain as it is without online, and there will no longer be an online beta for it, but there will probably be an open or closed beta for the Enhanced Edition before its release.[/i] [b]EDIT Feb 9 2017:[/b] Just to clarify, the promise of getting the Enhanced Edition for free is only for those who own the classic version on Steam (and only before the launch of the Enhanced Edition). It does not apply to console owners (Xbox One). [b]EDIT #2 Feb 9 2017:[/b] That being said, we do not recommend people to buy Lance A Lot now if they are only interested in the upcoming online multiplayer. You might just as well wait for the future release and decide then if it's good enough or not. [b]EDIT #3 March 28 2017:[/b] The online mode has unfortunately been cancelled, read more [url=http://steamcommunity.com/games/495900/announcements/detail/236843283518492934]here[/url].