So, as with every April Fools day, a journalist falls for a source’s practical joke hook line and sinker. Reporting on an announcement Crimson Owl Studios made on April the 1st, in an April 2nd article I announced straight-faced that Caromble would switch to a Pay-Per-Life model of gameplay due to Crimson Owl seeking additional financial support for their pet project. Only later, when Crimson Owl studios made an announcement on the Steam Community page, did I find out this was actually a joke.
I’d like, firstly, to apologize to Crimson Owl studios for not getting the joke. Posting false information on the internet is a serious issue, and I feel it important to recognize when someone is wrong and owning up to it. Secondly, I’d like to thank Crimson Owl studios developer Pascal Van Beek for being so friendly about the misunderstanding on both Twitter and in a comment left on the aforementioned Article this afternoon.
“Thanks for the article Michael! I am one of the developers. Although your post was published on the 2nd of April. Our announcement was done on the 1st of April. So…. April Fools! We won’t ever do Pay-Per-Ball. We will never abandon this project and won’t take such drastic measures. We work on Caromble! one day a week on Fridays, next to our ‘real’ jobs, which provides us with a steady income. Of course we hope that Caromble! will be successful and we really hope for more players in the Early Access period to get valuable feedback. However, even without (commercial) success, we will finish Caromble! as intended.
Lets Get Ready To Caromble!â€
This comment, part of which one Pascal Van Beek sent me over Twitter along with a new screenshot of the game, assures us that Caromble will never use something as strange or risky as a “pay-per-life†system, and that the developers of Caromble will continue to work on the project without any worry of cancellation.
Thankfully, none of the information posted in the article I wrote was necessarily harmful to Caromble, and Caromble is being developed by some talented individuals. I’ve spent entire weeks in the Unreal engine trying to make something passable for my classes, but the Developers at Crimson Owl managed to make a pretty good indie title working on it only every Friday.
The editors let me off with only a slight lashing as retribution for the article; but I promise to be more careful in the future about what I report on. Especially when it comes in the form of an email sent on April Fool’s day after I’ve just awoken. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Nigerian Prince to see about some land deals in Scotland.
