.. is not a mystery. You all know that I’m developing Submachine 5: the Root. The one that will take us to the very first historically speaking built submachine structure. At least as we know it. The development is going smoothly, there are couple locations finished and more already crystalized in my brain. The puzzles will be more basic, and for some – easier than in Submachine4 for example. It is a root, a first try of the submachine builder (?) to construct this structure, so no wonder that the puzzles would be easier for starters. Time-damage could make them more difficult, but still. I wanted to finish it before Xmas, but there are few reasons that I will not:

• first of all – it’s not a regular Xmas game afterall. There are not santas, christmas trees, snow, gifts or anything, so why bother.
• If I wanted to release that for Xmas, the game would have to be ready in two weeks. Two weeks is doable, but I’d need a solid rehab afterwards. Rehab from a computer screen, not intoxicating substances. I don’t want to rush it, since as we’d all agree it’s better to wait few more weeks and get a really well designed game, instead of a quickly built, buggy alpha release that I’d have to fix later anyway.
• I have to go outside to buy presents for my family and get a christmas tree. Well, not now, but you get the idea. The Dec is closing on us drastically.
• I’m still not sure what to give you as a bonus area, you know, the one that you enter after you collect all ingame secrets. And I still wonder how to present you with this area, since I think the way it was done in previous game wasn’t the best one, that way you were loosing the feeling of actual finishing the game. Now I want to make things clear – yes, you’re done, you’ve finished, and now you can sit back, relax and watch bonus stuff. Any ideas on how to bring it to reality are welcomed. And maybe ideas on what would you like to see in the bonus area, because as I figure, “more my reality pictures” is not an option.

So, January it is. In the meantime, you can feast your eyes on the above screen. It’s from the early stage of the game, so don’t worry that I’m revealing anything important here. Because I’m not. And, while I’m at it, here are some Q&A that are repeating in your emails and comments (Q, not A):

• When will you release sm5, CF3 or DMT2?

Submachine5 will probably hit the internet in January, but please, pretty please, don’t ask me for a specific date. After that I’m making DaymareTown2, probably still first quarter of 2008, and then Covert Front3, which as you can probably tell is so far away, that I have no clue about it’s release date whatsoever. Not mentioning that Karol hasn’t even started writing the scenario for it. He has some ideas, but no structure yet.

• Are we going to meet other people in submachine?

Not likely. Just some indications that there actually were other people over there. maybe we’ll meet Murtaugh one day, but nothing certain. We’ll meet other people in Covert Front though.

• Is this really the end or will there be another submachine?

Strangely I get this question after almost every built. No, this is not the end, there will be Submachine 6 for sure. After that I don’t know.

So there. My longest self-written post up to date. ;)