Sad news for Free Roam Blobber fans, the very promising development project for Aeolywn’s Legacy has officially been suspended following a new statement from the lead developer via Discord on Monday March 11th 2024.
Our readers may remember Aeolywn’s Legacy as one of the first games added to our Free Roam Blobber Games Database. We have been been following the project for a long while and had even played the original demo, which was very promising at the time.
This project garnered attention amongst the gaming community as the the project lead Tim Lang had previously worked as a designer at New World Computing and was a contributor to Might and Magic 9.
Sadly, Lang announced today (March 11, 2024) on his Discord that he will no longer be working on the game:
Hello, @everyone. For those who don’t immediately recognize my handle, I’m Tim, the project lead of Aeolwyn’s Legacy and former designer at New World Computing. After a lot of thought and soul searching, I’ve decided, with regret to retire from active game development. I’ve found that over the years I’ve lost the passion for developing games that I used to have. I kept thinking it was temporary and it would come back, but sadly, I just haven’t been able to get excited about making games (or playing them in most instances). I guess that’s life when you get older. Unfortunately, this also means that effective immediately development on Aeolwyn’s legacy is suspended, most likely permanently. After 6 years of hard work, it’s a sad thing to let go, but as a game it’s just too big for me and the team to manage. I’ve already discussed this with the team and while they’re sad to see AL get abandoned, they are not done with game development. @Thorneto is going to be adapting a bunch of the code from AL and continue to work on a project he started before he joined AL. Keep an eye out for that. If there’s a silver lining, we did manage to put together a demo a few years ago. It’s pretty demanding as far as computer resources go, but it’s playable, and once again available here: https://dungeonbyte.itch.io/aeolwyns-legacy As far as the discord server goes, I haven’t decided exactly what I will be doing with it, but I have no plans on shutting it down, so if you ever have a need to ask a Might and Magic developer a question, I’ll still be here. If I get up the passion to start a new game, you’ll hear it here first.
As for me, I’m planning to focus on novel writing and making classical music, among other stuff. I have several books that are in various stages of editing for future publication, so that’s going to take up a lot of my time. I’m also planning to do a novelization of the Aeolwyn’s Legacy story as well as a prequel that depicts how Aeolwyn took power in Laryndor in the first place (Tentative titled “Aeolwyn’s Conquest”). Writing was my first love, and it feels good to get back to it. I want to point out that this doesn’t mean I won’t ever make a game again. If I do, it will be for the fun of it and I’ll spend time on it whenever I feel like without feeling guilty about exploring other passions. It also wouldn’t something of the grandiose scale that AL was. It’d be something small, probably with retro art I could do myself. I’ve got some ideas that I might explore one day. So from me to all of you, I wanted to say thanks for the interest you had in this project. It started as a sort of apology for how Might and Magic 9 turned out, but it just ended up to be too ambitious for a small team to tackle. I’m humbled and grateful for your interest in Might and Magic all these years. We never expected it to be so popular so many years later. Anyway, I’ve taken up enough of your time. Thanks for reading this, and thanks for supporting Aeolwyn’s Legacy and independent gaming.
Tim Lang – Aeolwyn’s Legacy Discord
Before this announcement our team at FreeRoamBlobber.com asked the project developer some questions about the state of the game and plans for the project.
Our interview is included below:
Q: What is the name and general overview of your game?
Tim Lang: “Aeolwyn’s Legacy is a fantasy blobber set in a world called Laryndor. It’s an epic tale in a sprawling world filled with knights, kings, allies and betrayal.”
Q: What is the game engine?
Tim Lang: “We are using the Unity Engine, but all the RPG code is custom.”
Q: Are there any big inspirations for the game?
Tim Lang: “Anyone who plays it will see the similarities to Might and Magic, given my personal history with the series, but aside from that, there is plenty of inspiration from the usual fantasy forebearers.”
Q: Any personal anecdotes you would like to share about the game?
Tim Lang: “This has been a passion project I’ve wanted to develop ever since the disenchanting release of Might and Magic 9.”
Q: Type of combat? turn based, realtime, strategy?
Tim Lang: “At the moment Aeolwyn’s Legacy is focusing on real time combat, though a turn based element is in the works.”
Q: Any other mechanics you are excited about / unique in your game?
Tim Lang: “I’m pretty excited about the open world and faction system we’ve been working on. It should add a great element to the game.”
Q: How big is your development team? Any details or shout outs you’d like to give?
Tim Lang: “We’re a small team of about 5 developers, but are always looking for passionate like-minded volunteers. We are particularly in need of artists.”
The demo is once again available on Itch and while it is a little buggy, it has a decent amount of content and is quite fun.
https://dungeonbyte.itch.io/aeolwyns-legacy
We are very saddened to hear about Tim stopping development on this project, but if you want to be updated about any future updates, make sure to join our newsletter.
We will be sure to follow Thorneto and any games he’s currently working on!
