Hello everyone, I hope you're well.

I wanted to spend some time to write a statement on both the Unity game engine controversy and to talk about the current state of the game. I think it's important to discuss both these subjects and to make things clear.

Unity Controversy

In case you haven't heard, Unity, the game engine that Fairtravel Battle uses, recently is in the middle of a big controversy where they suddenly changed the terms of their business, charging unsustainable costs to almost everyone who uses the engine. This is pretty much the simplest way to describe the situation, as I'd rather not go into a big discussion about it.

Due to mass protests and all sorts of legal trouble that would surely arise from such a controversial move (as it can and will destroy businesses and game studios as a result), recently they backtracked on these changes. However, this move has left a scar in a lot of people's minds.

Unity cannot be trusted, but at the same time porting FTB to another game engine is nowhere near as easy as many people are acting. Changing game engine means not only porting code, but also architecture (the way the code works), as well as art, and effects (such as unity assets, particles, shaders, etc).

Doing a port is just not feasible at this time, not to mention FTB has been in development for over 6 years now, which makes it a massive time, resource, code, and art investment. I am trying to find a solution, but for now the only viable solution is to stick with Unity.

I and a lot of developers no longer trust Unity, but we can't just drop our projects, and as I said porting isn't doable, not with my current resources. FTB is a very dear and important project that had a big impact in my life and I flat out refuse to give it up, regardless of how the project ends up.

State of the Game

Fairtravel Battle is in a quite advanced state, which I'm very happy about. There's rarely any bugs in multiplayer nowadays, and the game feels like it performs quite well, even on mobile.

The base set is complete, although new art is coming over time, and the set overall feels quite flexible and fun to tinker with. I'm quite proud of the state of the game, as although it can still be improved, especially regarding polish, animations, user experience, controls, and other elements, it's a fun and diverse experience, with many genres of decks and modes to play with.

I'm not sure what the future will hold but I plan to support FTB for as long as it makes sense.

As the unity situation was very hard on my mental and physical health, due to FTB being such an important project for me, I'll be taking a break for a few week, or try to, as I have a history of just not being able to take breaks. I'll still be making some occasional updates with new art and minor fixes but updates will overall slow down a bit until I feel recovered enough to resume development.

I hope you understand this situation is quite hard on me and I want only the best for the project.

I'd like to thank everyone who has supported the project so far, I can't thank you enough. Thank you very much for your patience and kindness.