My latest adventure/pet raising game Wildhollow is released and things are progressing fairly well. Many seem to like it, and thanks to Pätr a game-stopping bug was found in time. It could have been immensely embarrasing otherwise…

For the ones curious what Wildhollow is all about, here are two reviews:

http://jayisgames.com/archives/2009/11/wildhollow.php

http://www.gamertell.com/gaming/comment/gamertell-review-wildhollow-for-pc-and-mac/

Also, I’m constantly googling “Wildhollow” to see what people are saying about the game. One thing I noted this weekend is that a cracked version of Wildhollow has popped up on various file networks. Trembling with fury and sorrow and trepidation and other things I downloaded one of these files to see if it was a bona fide copy of the game. Were people downloading my precious little game and playing it for free? Were people ignoring my hard work for a moment’s instant gratification?

It turns out that the answer is no.

If anyone feels tempted to download the “Wildhollow RIP” that’s circulating on warez sites you should be aware that it’s technically cracked but you won’t be able to play further than Steinheim Keep. You see, for the trial version I made two modifications: I added a time limit of 60 minutes, and I content-limited the game so that nothing from beyond that point is included. The warez version available only removes the time limit but – obviously – cannot add the missing content.

I guess that it’s just a matter of time before a real version pops up, but I feel pretty happy that for now loads of people are going to play the game an hour or two until they realize that they’re playing a trial version after all!