Are you ready for the DOUBLE DELAY?

Unfortunately, last week didn't give me much time outside of work to finish up the blurb. Fortunately, this week does allow me to have some more freedom with my time, so thankfully, we don't have to worry too much about there being an impossible third delay. My biggest apologies, everything is almost done!

Welcome to today's blurb!

Now I know what you're thinking. "Durb, explain yourself! There was no blurb last week!"

For one, I finally got my work promotion! Assistant Manager is pretty cool, more hours and double the pay! Only problem is that not only do I get more hours, all my evenings are gone!

Saying I'd work from 2 PM to almost midnight may have been a severe, miscalculated mistake.

Anyways, it's just been a lot of work training taking up a lot of my time for the past 2 weeks, and as of today's release, I'll be working MUCH more often now.

Apologies for the delay in today's blurb as well, I did not mean to leave anyone off hanging on where today's blurb was, I even forgot to put out an announcement on this site as well! It's like even though I may try very hard, I still end up delaying the blurb somehow.

Putting ALLLL THAT aside, on the topic of delays, coincidentally enough, we have some stuff to talk about in today's speculation column! Where is Brickadia? Will it still be coming out this year? Do I need to bust out my cryogenic chamber? Where is my totally real Kickstarter money? Patience, we got some community content to get through first, so stay tuned!

Also, do you guys like the banner? While it did come from a community vote, over the past year I've really gotten into fishing! I even watched a hobby anime based on fishing that I retained no information from. While it is relaxing, nothing beats the sensation of reeling in a small 2 pound fish, the kind that fights so hard against you that it felt like you caught a whole other person rather than a fish. Also fishing rods are sick, and cutting up bait is awesome, who would've thought cutting up squids and anchovies could be so neat! The only problem is that your fingers have a really fishy smell days after the outing cause of handling all that fish. Not only that, touching fish feels super weird, they aren't actually smooth and stuff, they got some real scaley, wet texture to them, but I shan't describe more without it sounding weird. Did you know that some fish just straight up have teeth? Not our human kind of course, but that makes it all the more anxiety-inducing trying to get the hooks off of fish you've caught while that irrational fear of a small fish biting you sneaks into your mind. Fishing is cool, all of you should try it some time and learn what kind of fish live near all of you! Except if you're from Kansas or something. Sorry land-locked folks, should've bought a house near the coast in the early 2000's!

Only other thing I ought to say about this banner is that I really wish I had some more time to add some smooth animations, I would've made the egg-head in the shark's mouth wink, the tail of the fish swing back and forth, and the line of the rod sway in the wind. That's what happens when you move up in the retail world folks, I earn more money but I lose more time.

Now let's get into what the community has been up to for the past few weeks:

The release date for Brickadia!

Looks like we need to talk about it for a bit. Why? If you look at the calendar, it is now October!

Now what's the significance of that?

Even though we may not know when the game may exactly release, we were given a heads up by the developers a while back about how much in advance we'd know about the release date for the game.

Credit: Zeblote

2 months! It's nice that it's pretty close, but now we run into one problem. If you've noticed, it is the 10th month of the year, meaning that if we were to see a release for the game at this point, it would definitely be cutting it close at this point, which, for the release for this blurb, would be anywhere between December 14th to December 31st. Not a lot of time, is it? Still possible, but that's cutting it REAL close.

Unfortunately, we know that for the game to release with the big features we're all waiting for, based on what has been recently spoken about by the developers and staff, we know that the game will be coming out next year in 2025 instead.

Now how do we know that?

Let's take a look:

Credit: Sixmorphugus

Keep in mind, behaviors is a huge thing. Boiling it down, you have wires and logic gates partly for the small-time stuff, and you have behaviors for anything related to scripting. Since it is something that is pretty huge, it is fairly reasonable to take a break and work on other aspects of Brickadia. The issue, however, is that as a result of it being in the backburner since January of 2024, and with a number of things still needing to be completed for Brickadia, you end up in this crossroads where even when those other things are done, the big feature still needs to be completed.

And that's essentially what that screenshot is. As a result of the fact that there are still features that still need to be completed, alongside the knowledge that this project isn't something that's being worked on full-time, we don't know when those particular features will be complete. Once those other features are complete, then there's a couple other months where we have to wait for behaviors to be completed.

Let's break it down. A few months + a few other months. A little rough, suffice to say. Pair that up with that heads-up we were talking about earlier, and things look fairly grim. Harkens back to when the game was delayed twice. Tough stuff!

Now at this point, with all these delays and the fact that I have to update my About and Brickadia page now, I might as well wait a decade for this game. It's terrible! Hyped all year, and the release didn't come to fruition! Now as much as I may complain, it isn't really going to get me anywhere.

If you were paying attention to the picture with my asking that question, you'll also notice something small, and seemingly concerning for a second:

Credit: Sixmorphugus

Kicking out behaviors just for release? That doesn't sound good! As a matter of fact, if you take it the wrong way, it almost sounds like behaviors are going to be cut out just to release the game! Is that the case though? What's the context?

Let's take a look at this snippet here:

Credit: ConfidentBottle

First of all, What I basically gather is just that there is the expectation of releasing Brickadia with behaviors, but it isn't completely certain or, at least, 100% positive as they do want to release the game as well. Based on the fact that he states that in order to finish behaviors as they currently are now that it would take a few months, that could be extended considering he doesn't know when he'll be able to start work on behaviors again. So with that, considering we've had multiple instances of it'll release this year and another batch of "we hope we can release it this year", and without any of the developers really saying anything about it recently, you basically have an indirect/implied confirmation that the game has been delayed. However, note that in the previous picture, Sixmorphugus uses "might" in that regard. It isn't going to happen, but it could! But based on previous assertions, it's probably going to be unlikely, and considering the discussion that surrounded the topic of release at around that time Sixmorphugus talked about this stuff, it's probably going to be even less likely in that regard as well.

So let's hope we get behaviors in the game at launch! We've seen snippets and pieces of what is possible with vehicles and, even recently, wires (can you guess what the next blurb will be about?), imagine what could be done with behaviors at launch too! Now to be fair, even if it were to be the case where behaviors weren't at launch, I would like to imagine that the second of the game releasing, it would probably be in the first post-release update to come to the game. Not only that, I imagine it wouldn't take that long either. Why do I say that?

One of the biggest obstacles to any game being developed doesn't just include what needs to be done and who's involved, but also the amount of time it takes too! Currently, the developers work full-time jobs just like most of us do, a couple of average joe's and joette's. As a result, the game's development circles around the developer's lives, NOT the other way around. However, were the game to be a critical success at launch, that could very well change. What was once a part-time commitment could now be a full-time commitment! So what would be the expectation of around a couple months worth of work could potentially boil down to a month or so, maybe even less! But that's getting real hopeful, and we're a long way from seeing that.

The point overall is that we're probably not going to see the game for a while, but if we see it sooner or later without a feature we all want to see in the game, I don't think it would be the worst thing in the world. Then again, it would take away from the satisfaction I'll feel on the game's launch were behaviors not there.

So now we come to my prediction. When do I think the game will come out?

If I had to make an educated guess, if behaviors isn't there on launch, we could expect a release date any day now, depending on how far along they are with current developments like wires and vehicles. At most, somewhere at the end of the year or to the start of 2025.

If behaviors IS there on launch, then I would suspect the game would come out somewhere from between mid-to-late 2025.

But don't take my word as gospel, things happen and things change. For all we know, one of the developers could get into a vehicular accident on 10/23/2024 at 8:31 PM outside their driveway. Jokes aside, don't set a hard expectation on when the game will come out, just wait and see what the developers say.

Anyways, does anyone have some spare wire cables I can eat?