Before we get into this,  we'd like to thank every one for following the development of Going Down so far, particularly those of you who have pre-ordered the game. The fact that you show such belief in us has been a driving force behind the project and we aim to deliver the best possible game to you.

With that being said:

Where is Going Down?

In the interest of transparency, I'm going to tell it how it is. Going Down has been a hard game to make. Not just because of the game's complexities, but because we want the game to look a certain way. 

When we listed the game on Steam, we thought we'd be done with development within a year or so. The reason we still haven't released is, we knew we could do better.

Development began using Game Maker, which seemed to be the perfect choice at the time. As we started working toward a finished product, we noted how flat the game looked with its rudimentary lighting system. We wanted atmosphere but we just weren't getting it. So we implemented a vastly more complicated lighting system, complete with normal mapping to give depth to sprites. This looked a lot better, but light still wasn't interacting with walls the way we wanted, and the characters weren't casting shadows. The more work we put into making lighting act the way we wanted, the more the game's performance suffered.

That brings us to today. We are experimenting with a custom engine.

While still in its infancy, Going Down's (potential) new engine actually renders its scenes in 3D. While we don't want Going Down to play like a 3D game, using a custom 3D engine does allow us better lighting and shadows without the massive performance hit. It also allows us to be more creative with the game's camera, which was also a big issue for us. As simple as it sounds, being able to use room corners instead of just hinting at their existence in 2D is huge.

We will share more progress updates as we have them, but for now, we'd love some feedback on this new direction. Do we like the 3D elements, or do we prefer the strict 2D?