Whoa! The Novelist was nominated for the Outstanding Achievement in Story award at the 17th annual DICE Awards! It’s going up against 4 big-budget AAA games:

• Beyond: Two Souls
• BioShock Infinite
• The Last of Us
• Tomb Raider

Needless to say, I’m truly honored that my game is being considered alongside such successful mainstream titles. It’s crazy to think that this weird little thing I made in my apartment will be on the big screen at an awards show.

What’s more encouraging, though, is seeing such strong representation from indie games at this year’s show (you can see the full list of nominees here). Going back just a few years the awards were dominated by mainstream AAA games, with nary an indie title in sight. It’s fantastic to see that the crazy amount of quality and innovation in the indie space is being recognized by larger organizations (the Downloadable Game of the Year and Outstanding Gaming Innovation categories are a murderer’s row of incredible ideas and execution).

Again, I’m honored that The Novelist is part of the discussion.

As for what’s next, I’ve made great progress on updating the game to Unity 4.3. I’ve fixed all the stuff that broke during the upgrade, and next week I’ll dive into adding customizable controls and pushing out some text builds on Linux. As always, stay tuned, and thanks once more to everyone who’s supported the game!

Hello, and Happy New Year!

I just published the first patch for The Novelist. It should download automatically on Steam, and you can log into your Humble account to download the latest version there. This is a good time to remind you that every purchase on Humble, be it through the Humble Store or the front page of this website, comes with a key that lets you add the game to your Steam library. Signing up for Steam is free, and adding your Humble games to your Steam library is a great way to make sure they stay up to date without you needing to download updates manually.

As for the patch, it fixes a handful of bugs:

• Fixed an instance where quitting the game during the final nighttime sequence would cause the game to hang on a white screen at startup.
• Fixed Linda using a minor voice line in a specific chapter that should have been used in a different chapter (chapter names intentionally obscured to avoid spoilers).
• Fixed Dan and Linda’s hand-held letters flashing like readable clues.
• Fixed an instance where “The Story So Far …” would be blank during the final nighttime chapter of the game.
• Fixed “The Story So Far …” using “VII” instead of “VIII”.

At this time, there are no other known bugs in The Novelist, though if you do find a bug just head to the Support page and I’ll work on fixing it as soon as I can.

As for what’s next, I’m still working on the first major feature update to The Novelist. I hope to add customizable controls to the game, and will definitely be adding Linux support. I’m also going to investigate adding subtitles, although that may need to wait for a future update. I don’t have an ETA for the feature update, since some of the changes from Unity 3.5 to Unity 4.3 are significant and will require reworking some core parts of the game. I’ll get it out as soon as I can, though.

I’ll also be posting a Linux progress report fairly soon, as I’ll need to recruit people for Linux beta testing before pushing the update live. I don’t know what the sign-up process will be just yet, but stay tuned.

Anyway, that’s the state of things as we kick off 2014! Thanks to each and every one of you who bought the game, told a friend about it, or sent me an email about your experiences with it. It’s been quite a ride so far, and after getting in some long-overdue relaxation over the holidays I’m excited about seeing where the game will go in 2014!