It's official; I'm shutting down Sword and Stone.

All of the source code I'm able to release will be posted for free online for anyone to view, use, or modify however they see fit. The recent Unity controversy, while extremely troubling, is but one of a thousand reasons for my decision.

Storytime.

As a kid growing up in the '90s, I got to experience some of the best video games ever made. For the next 20 years, video game developers would push the envelope of game design, graphics, and gameplay to create experiences still being remastered today. I wanted to build them; I felt like I had to. So I picked up Game Maker, RPG Maker, whatever I could get my hands on. Fast forward to 2018, and I had recently managed to learn Unity and apply for engineering roles at any game studio I could find listings for, all met with the same disappointing rejections. Feeling defeated and frustrated, knowing I could build games if only given the chance, I started designing and developing Sword and Stone.

A thousand tutorials later, I had a game like Minecraft in Unity. It was held together with duct tape, and the house was falling apart, so to speak, but it worked. It also ran hideously and froze for several seconds each time you moved into a new chunk, just 32 meters away in my game. So I rebuilt it from scratch time and again, knowing these issues could sink the game the day it launched. Fast forward a couple of years, and I built a highly optimized procedural world that could take an input of Perlin noise and output a massive fantasy world with fantasy monsters, items, spells, and, most importantly, friends. I had actually done it, and release felt closer every day. It was incredibly satisfying.

Then I got a phone call with a job offer that completely changed my life overnight. From a fast-food worker and college dropout, I was now a Simulation Engineer for a space MMO and later a founding Unity Engineer for a game startup. These experiences were incredible and taught me so much about myself and game development.

But choices have opportunity costs, and Sword and Stone was mine. I left it sitting for more than a year, untouched. I always wanted to get back to it, but working a full-time coding job during the day before building one of the hardest things you can imagine at night is extremely exhausting.

I regret that it took me so long to make this post, but Sword and Stone represents an enormous part of my identity and something I'd hoped to share not only with all of you but also with my friends and family. Most importantly, my dad, who died of cancer almost two years ago now, unexpectedly. I just wasn't ready to say goodbye quite yet.

I'm ready now.

P.S. I'll be in touch about the source code.