Hey guys,

As some of you know, the last few days were a hectic roller coaster ride. I made a blogpost[www.gamasutra.com]out of desperation and fear trying to warn other people like me who might jump into fulltime development with what appears to them a solid plan.

The post blew up on twitter and hackernews and it got the game and me enough attention. The good thing is I managed to hit the 300 copies sold mark that can get me over the holidays and into January. The better thing is this also brought a couple of freelancing opportunities that, if they pan out, will keep me in business without having to get another corporate job and allows me to focus on Ebony Spire.

This being said I put together a small road map with the things I want to add to the game. I also want to hear what you guys want. The small community that formed around this game is one of the best interactions I had in my 10 year career of making games and I sure as well want to keep you guys close.

The changes I have planned for the next two versions of ES:H and the release dates of the updates that I'm seeing are:

Version 1.3 - November 29 2017

• Keybinding options with support for different keyboard types
  
• End-Game level balancing
  
• Variation on end-game battle based on tactic
  
• Summoners Class (summon aid's, porters)

Version 1.4 - December 10 2017

• Mac goes out of Beta and goes on par with 1.3/1.4
  
• Character Dump (highscore, mini-story of the run, ending details)
  
• Speed run features (tweet/share level seed and challenge friends, improved highscore)
  
• 5 new portal levels near the end game

Version 1.3 is available on the beta branch right now and since things have settled down I can steadily return to a regular release schedule (like in the previous betas).

Another thing that got brought up to my attention is that I did not market the game correctly. There were a lot of people who bought the game out of sympathy, played it and reached out saying: "Hey so I wouldn't have bought it because I'm not into time consuming dungeon crawlers but yours is not like that. You need to focus on the fact that it's a crawler you can finish in a couple of hours". Or a variation of that quote and that got me thinking.

With the 1.4 update I'll do some changes to the store page to highlight this specifically and take the game towards a second direction: a dungeon crawler you can pickup and play for a few minutes. I'm mentioning this because this might also bring a small decrease in price into the 4.99 area. I can test the waters with the Winter Sale to see what people say. Now most of you bought it at full price and that is something I cannot forget. Steam, unlike itch, doesn't give me access to a list of email addresses/accounts of those that bought the game so it's going to be hard to reach out to them. My best bet is hope that they check the discussion forums. So get in touch with me. You'll get a few extra keys for the game for now (that you can sell or give to your friends) and I'll keep your info for when I work on/release another game and maybe offer that as well. You guys are the reason I don't close up shop and I owe you for it.

Another avenue I'm looking to pursue in order to promote Ebony Spire is via a few separate mini-versions of the game with handcrafted levels. I kinda got the game working in a browser just fine[pbs.twimg.com] - or almost just fine - and I believe that with a bit of extra work it can reach a whole ton of people.

This being said what are your expectations of the game? What is that one feature you'd like to see in. The game released because of people like Rafael who helped me tremendously during the original Beta. The game got improved due to the first batch of players that came in. And the game will improve even more due to you guys. I never designed Ebony Spire as a game I could release, cash in on and then forget. I'm looking to build a small community around the game that would stick with me for the long run. A community that I could design and developer games for. So if there's something you'd like to see added to the game, let me know in a post bellow!