Posted November 23, 2024 by Jakub Wasilewski
Hey everyone, it's been a while!
I'm writing to share some good news with you. Solitomb, my new PICO-8 game, is now available. It's a heady mix - if you enjoy deckbuilding, roguelikes, solitaire, poker, or indeed all of the above, give it a try! A single run takes about 30 minutes, but just like with my other games, you'll spend those 30 minutes making interesting decisions every single move.
This new game was a long time coming. After the long development and eventual release of Slipways, I was finding it hard to find a new project to invest into. The long shadow of Slipways' success made each new prototype pale in comparison, and I was feeling a lot of internal pressure to deliver again and do something that would be a worthy follow-up. All that pressure combined with how tired I still was after Slipways was making me super-anxious and not very productive. Time and time again, I was attempting projects that were bigger than what I could handle at the time, eventually hitting a wall with each one.
Solitomb was a change of tack. It was supposed to be a short, self-contained project to get my creative juices flowing. It was intended as something lower stakes that will get me back into a rhythm of releasing games and finishing projects. That low-stakes approach did not completely stick - the design proved to be very flexible, and as the game grew and I kept experimenting, I realized I once again had a solid PICO-8 game with lots of potential for becoming something bigger. On the other hand, Solitomb accomplished its other goals - I am once again feeling strong as a designer and capable of delivering deep and fun games for everyone to enjoy!
So, here we are. The first version of Solitomb is now complete and ready for public consumption, and I'm pretty proud both of what it became and of the personal journey I had to take to make it possible. It's still early days, but the game is doing very well so far and I'm hearing good things from people playing and enjoying the game. If you haven't played yet, try it and let me know what you think!
I'll be here, listening to feedback, refreshing my charts and dreaming my dreams of growing this thing into the shape it deserves.