The Stomping Land saga has taken another twist, as the game is no longer available for purchase on Steam. It's still on Steam, to be perfectly clear about it, you just can't actually buy the thing anymore. Unfortunately, the disappearance of the purchase option was not accompanied by an explanation for its absence, so depending on your perspective, this might be good news or bad news.
The "good news" theory is dependent upon the idea that the developer pulled the game in order to prevent more copies being sold prior to the move to the Unreal Engine 4. That transition was revealed in early August , when SuperCrit founder Alex "Jig" Fundora released a statement saying the game was being moved "to take advantage of technical and creative opportunities" offered by the new technology, as well as continued support from Epic Games.
The "bad news" angle comes from the fact that just before Fundora announced the engine change, he'd effectively disappeared for two months , leaving Kickstarter backers anxious and angry over the fate of their money. Going by the reactions on the Steam forums , this seems to be the more widely-held belief: That the jig is well and truly up, and it's time to start thinking about how to get a refund.
The nature of Kickstarter and Steam makes that outcome extremely unlikely, of course, which may be what's motivating at least some supporters to continue holding out hope. Unfortunately, as a few people have pointed out, if Fundora had pulled the game himself, the great likelihood is that he would have said something about it, which he has not done. Furthermore, despite his insistence that the game is still being actively developed, neither the Stomping Land Facebook page nor its Twitter feed have been updated since May.
That's by no means evidence of malfeasance, but it sure doesn't look good. We've reached out to both Fundora and Valve to find out more about what's happening, and will update if and when we receive responses.
