Developer SMASHWORX has announced that they have ceased development of their roguelike dungeon crawler, The Hero Trap.
SMASHWORX made the announcement through a post on Reddit. In the post, the developer stated:
“With a smaller team, we continued to work on The Hero Trap consistently. We realized there were some flaws in the gameplay and attempted to correct course, which led to us to changing much of the hook that attracted many players in the first place. Nonetheless, we felt with this new version of the game we would be able to find a publisher. Unfortunately, this was not to be. At this point, I’ve personally spent over eighty thousand dollars and I can’t afford to keep pumping money into it. In addition to the financial strain, it’s taken a personal toll. At this time, I’m regretfully cancelling this project.”
The creator of The Hero Trap also had this to say regarding refunds:
“I will make every effort to refund the money of those who feel they have been ‘cheated’ as a few contributors described. While it was obviously not our intention to cheat any contributors, I take responsibility for making some mistakes in the fundraising phase. Please send me your paypal account via private message by July 10. I will return your money shortly after that.
“For those of you who remain, we will be posting the current Mac and Windows versions of the game after the refunds. Additionally, each donor will receive a copy of my next game, whatever that may be.
“I’m truly sorry if you are disappointed, but financing games is a complicated business and not every project makes it to completion. Thank you for supporting us, and for supporting small projects like ours in the future. Nik.”
The Hero Trap was intended to release on Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. The game was a dungeon crawler that featured a hero looking for treasure. The core element of the game was aligning yourself with the spirits of fallen heroes. This was done through a switching mechanic where only one character out of three was active at a time.