Mercy

My son, the shadowlock boy!

So there we have it. A year's worth of work and love excreted into five or so hours of gameplay, all to be forgotten days later when the next big thing burrows from obscurity.
I'm very tired, but have a few things to say before I scavange for food.

First, a massive thanks to the lovely maggoteers who have posted kind words on the BF forums. We're truly grateful.
Also, a big 'Howdy' to our lovely spanking new followers!

At the time of typing, we're still in the 'tomorrow's game today' pupal stage, and tomorrow, when we're 'yesterday's tomorrow's game today' imago, the dam will burst and those comments will flood from one terrifying eye of the public and into the other.

So far, and I don't expect this to change, the reviews have mirrored the beta tests almost identically which is, I guess, no surprise.
As ever, though, a few hurricanes have bowed to the might of the Fatalist quantum butterfly.

I'm especially pleased that the game was released on peglegann's bidet! Happy bidet Ann!

We've all been a bit nervy watching an unprecedented amount of CE's hogging (pun intended) the charts, jostling for that number one spot. Furthermore, we've been watching the public ire growing relative to the proportional share of CE's. It's been brewing in other forums, and has reached a new peak in our forums! It feels like teenagers congregating outside your house, drinking Strongbow and smoking heroin and pimping their rides, or whatever. Go away! :o)

So, over the last half a year, as regulars will know, we've been surveying and testing and refining. We reached the point where bugs were almost non-existent, puzzles were well distributed and balanced, story was coherent and enticing, graphics polished and music burnished.
The only recurring negative in the feedback was the voice-overs. (Well something has to be last when picking players for your team!) There's a certain tolerance for dissent in the CE selection process, naturally, and every component fell well within their allotted tolerances. And we really didn't mind shipping in the knowledge that a few people would be perturbed by the English pronunciation of the word 'inventory'. But check out those forum posts! Man! I wasn't expecting it to dominate!
Elldee put it well (and most politely):
I think it speaks volumes for the quality of this game that the major flaw seems to be the pronunciation of one word--a new release just a few days ago was full of grammar and spelling snafus, but didn't warrant the same attention.

We were also prepared for the references to the previous two Margraves - in particular, the second was widely lambasted as dull. As such, I've had the unenviable task of dealing with stigma and her pack of slavering preconceptions. For those who bore unpleasant memories, and yet played the demo, I'm quite sure that they recognized a new team and professionalism behind the Severed Heart! (I'd love to think of myself as a game-y Theo Paphitis. But that would be wrong on many counts.)

Ooh, someone changed the last line of my blurb! I'm glad, because it's better now! I think I was right about the chain of adjectives at the end - they did jar. That's a jolly good lesson learned!

Ooh, and I'll stick the vid at the top of this post. Look what they did! They gave away the ending in the opening shot! And they used up every drop of beast animation in the entire game!

Ah, also, and we don't know if this is coincidence, but Ben was awarded the honour of the Daily Deviation today! (It really is an honour!)

Righty, I need lots of cigarettes.
I'll be back soon...
In the meantime, watch the public dance with my soul.