September 14, 2022
Dear Supporters,
Today I am sharing some significant and disappointing news: the next version of the Keep the Peace prototype will be the last before I suspend the project indefinitely.
My decision to stop developing KTP does not come lightly, and it is probably one of the hardest decisions I have ever made in my life. In this letter to you, those who have stood by me and supported me unconditionally over the past 4+ years, I will try to explain the reasons for my decision, and talk a bit about what the future may hold. At the end of this letter is an FAQ that goes into a little more detail about some of the practical implications for KTP, your Alpha Team membership, and our community.
No matter what, I want you to know how much I have appreciated, and continue to appreciate, your support and encouragement. I profoundly share in your disappointment, frustration, and perhaps even anger, that this is the outcome — certainly not the outcome any of us would have wanted.
I will be releasing one more version of the prototype which will include some unpublished work I completed since the last release, a bit of a combination of things that had been planned for the next few versions. Beyond this, I’m uncertain about the future of KTP. I might, one day, come back to it. Alternatively, I might at some point pursue a different project, and I have a few ideas that I think would be interesting to the KTP community, while also being much more feasible to develop.
Ultimately, many different issues factored into this decision. Anyone who has followed KTP’s development has probably seen that the past 2 and a half years have been quite difficult for the project. From a design standpoint, I have consistently struggled with KTP’s identity, its complexity, and its mechanics. I struggled with whether I was developing KTP as a tactical game vs. a strategy game, and I especially struggled with confronting the real-world impact, issues, and nuances of real-world policing in the confines of a video game, and certainly within my own capabilities as a one-man development team. I rebuilt systems, redesigned interfaces, and redeveloped game mechanics, and I did this over and over and over, but these problems never abated and, if anything, they only grew as development progressed.
Beyond the design challenges, there have certainly been practical ones as well. The vast majority of the financial support I received for this project came pre-2020, and though some supporters have certainly joined our community since then, I’ve largely relied on personal debt and the assistance of family members to pay my rent and keep the lights on while continuing to work on the game over the past 2 years. Though we got so far with the generous support you did provide, ultimately our resources came far short of what we knew from the start would be required to develop such a complex project. Of course, all the money in the world wouldn’t be enough to overcome the game’s design challenges. But still, there was only so long that I could bang my head against those challenges before the credit cards were maxed and the rent was overdue.
I am sorry. I can’t even begin to express how sorry I am that this is the outcome. If I genuinely believed there was a different path that would lead to a better outcome and that was feasible for me to take, I would take it. But as hard as this is, I am confident that the decision to suspend KTP’s development is not only the right decision, but it is also the only possible decision given where I am right now. As much as I would like to see us reach our goals for the game, I see no path forward now that leads to that outcome, and delaying the realization of that does nobody any favours.
I wrestle with whether this decision represents a failure. Certainly, I am disappointed by this outcome. And I am especially disappointed that I have disappointed you. Still, I want to be able to move forward in a positive way. It would be easy to look back on the past four years and think of it as being a waste, but I’m trying not to do that, at least on a personal level. Despite the frequent hardship, this project has been my passion. I have loved so much of the day-to-day work, I have learnt and grown more than I could have ever imagined, I have made lasting friendships, and I have loved interacting with this amazing community of supporters. I hope that, in some small way, you may have taken something positive out of this experience as well.
The obvious question now is, where do we go from here? What does the future hold for KTP, for myself, and for our supporters and community? I have attached an FAQ to the end of this letter which has some practical details about future development, supporters’ memberships, refunds, etc., but here’s the gist…
As I mentioned previously, I will be releasing one more version of the KTP prototype. This will likely come around the end of 2022. The future of KTP beyond that is uncertain, but if I do come back to it one day, its design and scope might be completely reimagined, and it could look quite different than it does today. I also have ideas for other games that I might pursue in the future, ideas which could be more feasible for me to develop, and which could also appeal to a broader audience. Some of these ideas I certainly think would be interesting to many of you as well. That said, I’m not rushing into anything, and if I do explore any of those ideas, it will likely be part-time, as a hobby, similar to how KTP was when it first started.
Many of you have contributed your hard-earned money to support KTP’s development, and although we all recognized the risk inherent in a prototype project like this, I want to do right by you and your money. I will go into more detail about your memberships in the FAQ below, but someday in the future I hope to be able to offer refunds to those who want them. If KTP does one day come back, or if Deliberative Entertainment (my company) develops a different game, I will do my best to give similar benefits then to anyone who still has their KTP membership.
There are no words to sufficiently describe how thankful I am to you and this entire community for your support through thick and thin. Some of you have been here since May 2018, which is an incredibly long time. No matter how long you’ve been with us, I want you to know how truly valued and appreciated you are, not only by myself, but by everyone else that supported this project. Together we built a community, we tried to do something incredibly difficult, we got really far, and we became better and stronger as a result. For that, I am truly, truly, grateful.
The KTP community on Discord will remain active for the time being, and I will continue to communicate there, and via email with registered Alpha Team members, to share any updates in the future. If you wish to receive updates about membership (including such things as refund eligibility, etc.), please ensure your email preferences are correct in your membership dashboard. On Saturday, September 17th (1:30pm EDT / 5:30pm UTC / 6:30pm BST) I will be holding an AMA event on Discord where we can chat and I’ll do my best to answer any questions you might have. But if you can’t join and still want to chat, I’ll try my best to check in with the Discord every now and then in the future as well. This isn’t good-bye, and I sincerely hope to being sharing good news with you someday again in the future.
Thank you — from the bottom of my heart.
Nick
FAQ
What Happens to KTP? Will Development Resume in the Future?
One final version of the prototype will be released sometime in December 2022, which will include some as-of-yet unpublished work from this year. Anyone that had an active Alpha Team membership on August 31, 2022 will be able to download this version from the KTP website.
Beyond that, the future of KTP is uncertain. I might return to it one day, and try to find a new angle, a new design, that I think could work. I might also explore other game ideas that I have, including some that still have public safety components to them, and that KTP fans might be interested in. But I have absolutely no ETA for when any of this might happen, or if it will happen at all.
What Happens to My Membership? Can I Get a Refund?
For the time being, as long as you do not explicitly cancel your membership, it will remain active and you will still be able to download the most recent version of the prototype from the KTP website.
If I come back to KTP in the future, I will do my best to provide active members with the same, or similar, membership benefits that they would have received now. That would include, at the very least, a copy of the game itself. If my company (Deliberative Entertainment) releases any other games in the future, Alpha Team members will receive a free copy of all of those games. I may be able to offer other benefits as well, especially to folks with higher tiers of membership.
Of course, these future possibilities are still hypothetical, and may be little consolation to those that were looking forward to KTP being developed now. For those left dissatisfied, I would like to be able to offer refunds to anyone who wants one. Unfortunately, this simply isn’t financially possible right now, but I do hope that in the future I will be able to reach out and make that offer. I will make any announcements about this to members via email (so please ensure that the email address in your member profile on the KTP website is correct) and on the KTP Discord.
What if I have a Monthly Membership?
For the handful of individuals that still had monthly memberships, they will be converted to full lifetime memberships. Most were very close to the lifetime conversion threshold anyways, and this is just the simplest thing to do. So, anyone that had an active monthly membership on August 31st will be converted to a lifetime membership and no further charges will be processed after that date (or any that were have been reversed). You can check the status of your membership by logging into your account on the KTP website, and don’t hesitate to let us know on Discord if you have any questions.
What Happens to the KTP Community?
For the foreseeable future, the KTP Discord will remain online and active. It will likely be streamlined at some point, but we will make announcements on Discord in advance of any changes we may make. It is my intent, however, that I can continue to use the KTP Discord to share any news from my end, and community members can continue to use it to interact with friends and ask questions or share opinions about the project.
The KTP website has already been pared down. The old website forums, which have been pretty quiet for a long time, have been taken offline. You will continue to be able to use the website to log into your account and update your member profile.
Our social media platforms (particularly Twitter) will remain active for now, and we will use them to announce the final version of the KTP prototype and any other relevant news in the near future.