What's next for Elena Temple?
Devlog

I made that scary little guy below! Look at him, so ferocious! Why? Because I want to create one final dungeon for The Adventures of Elena Temple.

Even more content

Together with the original dungeon, Chalice of the Gods, and the new one, The Golden Spider, it should bring the total amount of rooms in the game to 100 or more, including all the rooms not visible on the map (tutorial rooms, secret rooms and end rooms). This is because I want to address the major complaint about the game, that it's too short. It'll still be a short game, but hopefully it'll bring the median for first time players to around 2.5-3 hours. The original version had it at around 1.5 hours. This refers only to how much it takes to finish the dungeons the first time you play them. There is of course incentive to play them again, but that counts little to the players (fairly) complaining about the game's length.

Definitive (or something) Edition

I'll be honest, while the game had decent sales, they're far from spectacular, even if it's on three major platforms. And creating additional content comes with a cost. So my plan is to re-release the game for Nintendo Switch in a Definitive (or Enhanced, or Expanded, or Ultra, or Ripped) Edition. It will include all three dungeons, plus in-game achievements and I'll see if I can put anything else in there. I'm hoping the Switch community will support me, as this edition will be 80% off for owners of the original The Adventures of Elena Temple. With the base price being 4.99$, that means one dollar (0.99$ actually) for the extra stuff. You'll decide if that's too much or not.

Here's another sneak peek at some of the new mechanics in The Orb of Life dungeon - that's the name I'm inclined to stick with:


As for Xbox One and Steam, the changes from the Definitive Edition - or whatever it'll end up being named - will come, most likely, at a later date in the form of an update. For Steam, the nice thing is you have these Visibility Rounds, meaning you can trigger a new push for visibility when you launch a major update, so I plan to take advantage of that.

It's business, I don't like it but I have to do it

Why is it a new game for Switch and not an update or a DLC? Two reasons: a new release has a ton of visibility, while an update or a DLC has practically none; and it gives the community where most of my players are, who asked for more content, the opportunity to support my work, if they want to. If you feel that it's unfair for some to get the new content for free while some have to pay for it, all I can say is that I have to make a business call here. I realistically can't release another version of the game on Xbox One, not this close to this release. Plus I'm hoping the new content will sweeten the offer for Xbox One players. For Steam, sales are too poor to invest in a proper new release. Even the 100$ Steam Direct fee seems too big of an investment to re-release a game that wasn't doing well in the first place. So I'm just hoping the new content will manage to convert some of those wishlists into purchases. Which leaves me with only Nintendo Switch as a feasible platform to release the Definitive Edition as a stand-alone game. I'm hoping one dollar doesn't break the bank for anyone, especially if they loved the original dungeon. Because if it weren't for this re-release, I would honestly have no business incentive to create this extra content. It would be months of my time wasted with no hope of earning anything to invest in my next game.

Plans and more plans

I hope to finish the Definitive Edition in time for a Christmas release on Nintendo Switch. Then I'll get to preparing the other two. We'll see how this new experiment pans out. As for the PS4 and PS Vita versions, I'm putting them on hold. I need to make a new game, as soon as possible. I've stretched myself way too long with Elena Temple. That new game is Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale, the development of which I will have paused for almost a year. After I release Long Ago for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Steam, I'll see if I have enough funds to port both for PS4 and, if still possible, for PS Vita. But that's too far in the future and if I've learned anything this far, it's that I can't plan for too long because something else always comes up. Oh, yeah, there's also Buddinpals to publish on Nintendo Switch at some point..

Thank you for reading and for your support!