- Development Halted Indefinitely - 6 July 2022
Hi everybody, This is not an easy thing to write, so we’ll cut right to the chase: After being in development on and off for almost seven years, we had to decide to postpone Escape the Loop's development indefinitely. We realize many of you will be upset, and we get that. This was not an easy decision, and it’s even more difficult because we know so many of you were looking forward to Escape the Loop. You’ll have lots of questions, so we’ll try our best to answer them: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ What does ‘postponed indefinitely’ mean? Is it canceled? For all intents and purposes, yes. It wouldn’t be fair to you to say otherwise. We may revisit it in the future. We still have everything we produced in the past years, and we still own the trademark for the name. But for now, it’s stuck in development hell and there’s no telling when or if that may ch…
- What We've Been Up To - 2 July 2021
Hey everyone, it's some time since the last news post here. A lot has happened, so here I am – older and wiser – to bring you up to date with what's been going on. A short while ago, we finally launched our previous title Can't Drive This. It's now available on all platforms, and even on disc for PS4 and PS5. "Great," you say, "why are you telling us this?" Granted, Can't Drive This is an entirely different game from Escape the Loop. Why bother mentioning it here? Well, getting it out was a huge deal for us – but it was also a huge deal for Escape the Loop. For the first time *EVER*, we're working on Escape the Loop with the entire team. Up to now, only a few of us got to work on the game at a time, because the others were busy finishing up our previous titles. Now, we're finally all on the same project, and we're super pumped to finally get this ball rolling real good. Pinewood is a sm…
- Characters and Gameplay - 19 June 2019
Hey all, as mentioned last month, we've been preparing an update, to show you our progress on Escape the Loop. There's a lot we did we unfortunately can't show you, because of spoilers. Here's some of what we did that we can't talk about: A completed storyline for Episode 1 The main plot for Episodes 2 and 3 The layout of the town Level design of all important sections Blockmesh for most level sections And now for the stuff we CAN talk about: Characters https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F27223879%2Ff4cd2cabdcf7fc47236b10f9e452dd74555adda0.png First off, I'd like to introduce you to our protagonist: Amelia Washington. She's a lawyer in LA, who comes back to her hometown of Pinewood because of a family matter. https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F27223879%2Fa6f264301f6d83f49472bbae593fc38c7c0ddc0b.png Here's Tony Russo, the owner o…
- It's Officially Official - 18 December 2018
Hey all, we know it can be a bit frustrating to read news about this game, that don't really show any progress That's why we really want to show you what came in the mail today – a definitive proof that Escape the Loop is in fact a thing, and we're not just stringing you along on a project that will never be finished. After two years of waiting, battling contesters, and countless work hours invested: Escape the Loop is now officially Escape the Loop®. https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F27223879%2Fee7500b4efbfbb3dcebba04d3902ed3b2feff86c.jpg We also started creating concept art for characters and environments, planned out the layout for the town, and will be starting to block out the world in Unity pretty soon. Take care, Steve
- Characters Almost Done - 5 November 2018
Hey there, as part of the aforementioned rewrite of Escape the Loop, the characters and the story needed a lot more work. As the lead writer, I've been doing a lot of reading, and a lot of writing in the past few months. Of course, I can't share any of the details with you (no spoilers, right?). https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F27223879%2F0f0d9e820c272a6b19d537fab41d2973ba1de603.jpg At this point, I'm happy to announce two things: 1. The character arcs are mostly done, as well as is the main story arc. So with that pinned down, we can start going into production of deeper game- and level design topics, as well as artwork. 2. Our previous project is nearing its completion, with artists and designers slowly starting to switch over to Escape the Loop. We're not done yet, but the coming months we'll be seeing a steady transition. For you, that means you can e…
- We Went to Montana, Here's What We Learned - 26 September 2018
Hey there, so recently, I went on a trip to Flathead Lake in Montana, to get some inspiration for the level design of ETL. We did had some specific things in mind, but I wanted to make sure we got everything right – whether it be the people's attitude, the weather, or even just the foliage. I talked to a lot of people, and took a ton of photos for inspiration and reference, and we thought we'd share a few of them. :redworker: None of this is in-game, but we thought you might be interested to see what direction we'll be taking with the town. Also, no guarantees that anything you see here will end up making it into the game. https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F27223879%2Fc8fffde3a254cb4bad327399bf594024fcdb79e6.jpg https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F27223879%2Fda5cc257f430673c94f2dc05fd7ae7e884725358.jpg https://steamcdn-a.akamaih…
- We have a Timeline - 14 February 2018
Hey everybody! Just wanted to give you a short update, and some new info about ETL. We're currently putting together an application for funding for Escape the Loop (fingers crossed!). For this, we put our heads together and did some calculations for a development schedule: ETL is currently in Pre-Production, while we're finishing up Can't Drive This. If everything goes as planned, we will begin development of the first prototype by Q4 2018. This gets us to an estimated release date of early 2021. I know this might be tough to hear, and I realize we told you we'd be finished by now. When we wrote that, we believed that to be true. But, as I mentioned before, things changed, and the scope of the game became so much bigger, and the game became so much better than it was ever supposed to be. We're working hard on Pre-Production, to make ETL absolutely amazing. Our game design document curre…
- We have a Timeline - 14 February 2018
Hey everybody! Just wanted to give you a short update, and some new info about ETL. We're currently putting together an application for funding for Escape the Loop (fingers crossed!). For this, we put our heads together and did some calculations for a development schedule: ETL is currently in Pre-Production, while we're finishing up Can't Drive This. If everything goes as planned, we will begin development of the first prototype by Q4 2018. This gets us to an estimated release date of early 2021. I know this might be tough to hear, and I realize we told you we'd be finished by now. When we wrote that, we believed that to be true. But, as I mentioned before, things changed, and the scope of the game became so much bigger, and the game became so much better than it was ever supposed to be. We're working hard on Pre-Production, to make ETL absolutely amazing. Our game design document curre…
- The New Escape the Loop - 2 October 2017
Hey everybody, it's been pretty quiet around here, and there's a good reason for that. We've been hard at work on the design of ETL, and today, I'd like to introduce you to some of the changes. Escape the Loop is now Episodic We've completely revamped how ETL is going to be built up. We're not going to do an Early Access release of the game. We feel Early Access is great for some types of games, but story-driven titles are not among them. Instead, we're going to release Escape the Loop in three episodes. Let me explain why that's good for both us, the developers – and you, the players: What you've been expecting from ETL – A story-driven adventure about a time loop, set in an open world American suburb – is not going to change. In fact, everything we had originally planned for the game, will be there in Episode 1. However, we felt that our original plan didn't offer enough time to tell…
- The New Escape the Loop - 2 October 2017
Hey everybody, it's been pretty quiet around here, and there's a good reason for that. We've been hard at work on the design of ETL, and today, I'd like to introduce you to some of the changes. Escape the Loop is now Episodic We've completely revamped how ETL is going to be built up. We're not going to do an Early Access release of the game. We feel Early Access is great for some types of games, but story-driven titles are not among them. Instead, we're going to release Escape the Loop in three episodes. Let me explain why that's good for both us, the developers – and you, the players: What you've been expecting from ETL – A story-driven adventure about a time loop, set in an open world American suburb – is not going to change. In fact, everything we had originally planned for the game, will be there in Episode 1. However, we felt that our original plan didn't offer enough time to tell…
