Current State and Explanation news - Surreal System

Dear IndieDB:

Thank you so much for the amazing and continued support. I wanted to provide an explanation as to what happened to Surreal System as well as the current state of the game.

Surreal System was an amazing experience to develop. We had an amazing team with incredibly talented members but the project was just too ambitious at the time. It came to a point where I was not happy with the state the game was in and felt we needed to revamp. This caused tremendous strain on the team and, unfortunately, we dispersed long ago. I still have the utmost respect for those fellow friends and, hopefully, some of them will see this and I'll be able to reunite with them once more.

I was only 16 when development on Surreal System began. Despite my enthusiasm, there was just an air of inexperience that followed in everything I did. I jumped into a huge undertaking without the proper knowledge nor the tools necessary to deliver a product worthy of the praise it was receiving. I felt that I needed to take time to properly grow my skills and artistic prowess before delivering a worthy product.

Now I am back, 4 years later armed with experiences and a revamped love for game development. I have been developing mobile games and experimental indie games these past years to try to enhance what I can offer to a team environment. These small mobile games were developed with growth in mind and the idea that I could learn one concept at a time rather than jump into something too big for my own good.

I will be releasing some of these games on the app store for free to show the growth I have been striving to achieve.

Surreal System is my ultimate goal. The game I wish to leave a mark on the world with. It is my child and I have always been in love with both the concept and the story. I have not given up and hopefully you haven't given up on me either. I want nothing more than to complete it and I will do all that I can to, one day, deliver a game that can live up to the praise it had so far received.

Yes, that means I am going to continue Surreal System and, this time, see it to completion.

Now for some updates and thoughts:

1) Surreal System is now being developed in Unreal Engine 4. This new, much more powerful engine, will allow us to develop innovative game-play techniques much faster and more efficiently. Moving the assets from UDK has proven to be difficult but I am working hard to do this as quick as possible.

2) This game has been and still is a heavily story based experience. Bioshock has always been a huge inspiration, however, we'd also like to try and add more of our own ideas into the game. Think of it as a Surreal System V2. These gameplay avenues we are choosing to take enhance the story whilst still being fun to play around with.

3) Unlike last time, I am not setting tentative release dates as to ensure, when we are ready, the experience is as amazing as the people taking time to play it. Setting deadlines is something we will still do but release dates are a no-no for right now.

4)We want to take you through the journey with us through both Developer Videos as well as on this very forum, posting updates to ensure development is going well.

5) Hopefully every single one of you who has supported Surreal System in the past can forgive me. I was arrogant and inexperienced and promised things I could not deliver. Hopefully now I can deliver on those promises I made so many years back. I truly am grateful to all of you and you have impacted my life in many ways.

To conclude, thank you for taking time to read this long letter. I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me and continue to support me in this next stage of my life.

Sincerely and with the utmost respect,

Jordan Michalski
(Flying M Games)