Hey folks, just giving everyone a heads up that Neptune Gasoline has been pushed back a bit to early 2012.

I had a release date set in mind that I never divulged (October 2011) and I was working at a good pace to make that date. And while there have already been 22 levels designed, the actual gameplay was something I was struggling with. Namely, the two major questions that I was asking myself was:

-Is the game fun to play?
-Is it addicting?

From an opinion of someone who likes to play online games that pay real money, the game works fine, and looks and sounds beautiful thanks to the art of Sara Gross and the music of Jonathan Geer. But I’m not convinced that the actual gameplay is either fun or addicting. It keeps the player busy, sure, but it’s not quite there. I have retooled the game six times now and it’s still not going anywhere from a “fun” perspective.

So I made the decision last week to completely restart the project from scratch. A lot of the assets from NG can be carried over easily (the menu system, graphical effects and such) and in fact I already have a new engine running. The idea of fueling cars is still there, but shuffling cars around and organizing them has been completely thrown out.

So the good news is that all the art/music is done, and thanks to Game Maker it only takes a few weeks to get a completely new game back up and running. I should have the game ready by early 2012, and I can’t wait to show you some new footage of the game. Till then, I’m taking down the old YouTube gameplay reveal videos (as it’s completely unrepresentative of how the game plays now) and won’t have too much to blog about (Neptune Gasoline wise) until November or so.

Thanks for understanding, and have fun with all the great game releases coming out in the coming months!