// PC GAMER — GAMING
'Please give Novus one more chance': An 11-year-old early access survival game just got its first update since 2018
"I'm trying to bring it all back and fix it," says Novus Inceptio developer McMagic Productions.
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You're forgiven if you don't recognize the name Novus Inceptio. It's an early access survival game from way back in 2015. I own it myself and I barely remember it because I haven't played it since it launched almost exactly 11 years ago.
So it was a big surprise this week when the solo developer McMagic Productions, aka Martin Markus Mastný, reappeared after several mostly-quiet years with a major update, the game's first since 2018.
"Please give Novus one more chance," Mastný asked players on Steam on October 5.
"Yes, Novus is back in development," Mastný said. "Not full time, but the energy and the will to finish the project are back. For me it's also a way to take off a stone that has been weighing on me for years, even if it isn't visible."
I emailed Mastný to ask a few questions about why development of Novus Inceptio was halted for such a long time and why he's returned to work on it again. Here's what he had to say.
Martin Markus Mastný: I jumped into Unity head first, learned C# and learned how to work with Unity. That went on from 2013 until the early access release on October 5, 2015: learning, making the game, trying things. The whole time I had this strong idea and excitement that one day it would be an MMORPG. I built the server layer and databases and connected it all to Unity.
Then Steam slapped me in the face :) Suddenly I had to deal with a million other things: PR, sales, the community, bugs, people's reactions.
When I opened the Steam forum in the morning and questions were still unanswered, I had to answer them myself right away. So my community manager ended up handling bugs and being my quiet advisor. I needed to react immediately so people got a response. I felt I had to accommodate everyone and thank them for playing the game.