From the Desk of Alex Okafor

Hi OML fans!

Just wanted to start off this post with a huge thanks to our entire community of fans, players, and supporters! We wouldn’t have made it this far without you guys. It’s been a minute since our last update, and I wish this was more of an uplifting “bringing in the new year” post. Unfortunately, the last few years haven’t been the kindest to our studio, and to the indie game development scene at large. The combination of difficult market realities, and having burned the midnight oil for years on end is finally catching up with me (oh, to be young).

Going forward, OML is no longer a full-time endeavor for me. I’m currently happily in a new full-time position at another company.  When I think back on the years of development, the thing that sticks with me is the encouragement and excitement from our fans on what we were working on. You guys made it worth all the effort. I’m still in awe at the fan art, tools, community led tournaments, and support our fan base had shown over the years.

• So what does this mean for our online games? Our current game servers will continue to operate. If the situation changes with any of them, we’ll notify players on appropriate channels (this blog included).
• What does this mean for the Hex Gambit Switch port? It’s still in development, but at a much slower pace after hours. As such, I can’t really give an estimate on when it’ll be ready.

Again, I can’t emphasize enough how great these last 9+ years have been, and can’t thank you all you enough for that awesome opportunity.

What About Adam?

First of all, I’m grateful to Alex for taking me on this adventure in the first place, and I wish him the best.

We’d both like to offer a sincere apology to our Switch backers for all of the delays you guys have endured. After a rougher-than-expected Steam launch, we just found ourselves without any options to continue HG development full time. We over-promised, and we’re doing everything we can to make it right. Thank you all for your support and your patience.

While (as an artist) I can’t help Alex finish Hex Gambit any faster, I’m exploring my options for working on another game (don’t worry, there won’t be another Kickstarter) while taking on some contract work. If you’d like to see whatever might come next from me, make sure you subscribe to our mailing list and follow me on Twitter @oneadamleft. I have literally no idea what will happen!

If you’d like to contract me to help out with your project, I do all kinds of art with a specialty in UE4, and you can check out my portfolio right here.

We recently launched an update to fix push notifications as well as various other bug fixes/improvements that comes with updating to the latest engine. Unfortunately, there have been some newer bugs introduced involving ‘signing in’. Currently a work around is to kill Outwitters and restart it (not to re-install). There are some people experiencing restoring purchases issues that we are looking into. We’ll be rolling out a fix as soon as we can.

Several users have expressed concerns with missing their turns due to a bug preventing them from loading their turn lists. For the time being we’ve disabled turn time outs until we’ve resolved this issue so players will not be forced to lose league points.

While we thought about how our followup to Outwitters would play, I also took some time to work on how it might look. Very early on when a straight-up sequel was being considered, I explored some fresh looks for the old races.

The Dystopian Adorables: If we decided to bring the Adorables back for another round, I thought it might be fun to “Mad Max” them up a little.

I also experimented a little with new takes on some old Feedback and Veggienaut designs:

Since Hex Gambit isn’t a true Outwitters sequel, these characters are staying in my sketchbook for now. When we decided to explore themes outside of Outwitters, that opened up all kinds of possibilities for what characters could look like. I’ll have some real designs from HG to post very soon.

Want to know more about our upcoming turn-based strategy game, Hex Gambit? Stick around! We’ll be posting lots of artwork and details here weekly. If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our mailing list to get email reminders when we hit big milestones, like the launch of our Kickstarter, Early Access/beta, and the official release.

Happy Holidays from One Man Left! In accordance with our American values, we’ve got stuff on sale!

Our latest game, Space Food Truck, is a whopping half off its normal value pretty much anywhere you can find it, INCLUDING (for the first time ever) the tablet versions for Android and iOS! You’ll find savings for the desktop version via Steam and our official site.

Then we thought, since we’re hard at work on the spiritual successor to Outwitters, why not include it in this year’s sale? Download Outwitters for free on iOS and Android, and for a limited time everything in the store is just 99 cents!

Enjoy these savings right through the New Year! Our prices go back to normal January 2nd.

Space Food Truck is complete. We have a lot of features, expansions and gametype ideas we could still add to it (maybe we’ll post some of that later), but there was another project being tossed around that we’ve really been itching to green light.

In 2012 we made our first strategy game called Outwitters, and ever since moving on from that game we’ve had a pet obsession. When I looked through our “Outwitters 2: Think Again” folder just now (that was a working title), I counted 9 hex-based, PvP strategy prototypes we’ve tinkered with. Some were a lot like Outwitters, and some were barely recognizable. Finally, after 4+ years on and off experimenting, we’ve got it. A worthy successor. And that’s what we’re working on full time, starting next week.

In about a year, we hope to have it ready for launch. There will be a Kickstarter, and we will need your help! If you haven’t signed up for the mailing list yet, definitely do to keep up with our progress. And you can also check back here weekly to peek over our shoulders while we work.

Space Food Truck is officially graduating from Early Access next week, so this weekend we’re shining a spotlight on our first multiplayer strategy game, Outwitters for iOS and Android! Today through Sunday, EVERYTHING in the Outwitters store is 75% off or more.

Outwitters is an easy-to-learn, tough-to-master player vs. player strategy game that supports 1 vs. 1 or 2 vs. 2 matches. It even has cross-platform play between iOS and Android. You can check out the trailer to see it in action, and be sure to stop by our forums if you’re searching for a few regular opponents.

Our newest game, Space Food Truck, will be officially released on Steam March 25th. You can sign up for our mailer to get an email reminder. 25 lucky subscribers are getting a free copy on launch day!

This Friday on a very special OML Twitches: the creators of Outwitters go head to head! Neither of us have played in a good long while, but still we will clash like a couple of newborn babies. Help Alex scout and overcome my army for a shot at a free copy of Space Food Truck, which will pour forth from my base for every point of HP damage I take.  Stream starts Friday at 2:30pm EST , and the rerun will be up on our Youtube shortly thereafter.

Humble Bundle 16 is here, and Outwitters: Humble Edition is among the great Android games you can pick up while supporting a great cause. Pay whatever you want for this special version of Outwitters, DRM-free with all the IAP unlocked. That’s about $36 worth of teams, maps, and skins; plus you get a bunch of other awesome mobile games!

This Bundle splits the proceeds between small developers like us, Direct Relief (providing medical relief for people all over the world), and Worldreader (helping kids learn to read across the globe). You even get to pick how much of your money should go to each! So whether you’re looking for a good deal on Android games, you’re in a giving mood, or both; check out what Humble 16 has to offer.

We even went as far as exploring art styles for an Outwitters sequel. Here’s a Mortal Kombat-esque miniature board mockup with a Feedback “hero” character. One of our Outwitters 2 designs involved these heroes that worked like really durable special units.

Outwitters 2 was a heavy contender for Game 5, but ultimately we decided to go with something completely fresh. On the left are a few soldier designs for a new dystopian Adorables team, and on the right are some updated looks for the Feedback soldier.

I think we’re still a few weeks out from our big Game 5 announcement, but keep checking back for more updates!