Escape Goat 2 pushes its release date baa-ck from Sept. 10
Escape Goat 2 developer Ian Stocker has rammed back the game's release date from September 10 to an undecided day after that, which he will announce after PAX. Stocker announced the September launch date in July, and at the time, that seemed absolutely doable, he writes – but recently, the map system got in the way.
The original Escape Goat has a hub-based world, but Escape Goat 2 was designed with a flat world map, with rooms connected and curling around each other. Playtesters at Casual Connect – an expo held right after Stocker announced the release date – prompted him to reorganize some stages, a feat that was easy to do in Escape Goat. Not so in Escape Goat 2.
"With rooms locked into specific positions, things become very rigid," Stocker says. "Inserting a room in a series throws off half the rest of the map, which then needs to be reordered. For about 10 days this month, map organization was where I spent the bulk of my time .... What I decided on is kind of a hybrid between the EG1 and original EG2 map system."
Stocker says that while it'd be possible to hit the September 10 launch date, the game simply wouldn't be polished to the level he'd like:
"We've put 10 months into this project. As much as I want to release it to the world soon, I believe that delaying is the right move to make .... If you're at PAX this weekend, be sure to drop by and play the build. And if you are a pre-orderer, I can apologize to you in person, or try to bribe you with one of our shiny new 1.25 inch buttons."
Escape Goat 2 will be in PAX Prime's Indie Megabooth, as part of its "Minibooth" section.
