Jason Ely has been working on Elderlands (the only game his company Asylumsoft produces now) for almost a decade. That hasn’t been the only game development in his career, however; he ended up at Cloud Imperium Games a few years back, and was working on Star Citizen for a time. Unfortunately, he was let go from that role when the company did a round of layoffs over the summer. Someone with his experience and talents doesn’t typically stay unemployed long, and indeed the good Mr. Ely has found new employment.

However, the new role comes with the requirement that he not work on Elderlands, which I would assume is part of a (fairly standard, in a lot of the tech industry) non-compete clause in his employment contract.

With that in mind, he’s handing the game over to the care of his son Josh for the time being:

We have people working on content. We have somebody who can do some scripting. The tools and deployment system are automated so that is not an issue. We need a frontman, and we need somebody who can pick up the programming…

As of this week, I will be appointing Chadarian as the Frontman and point of contact. For those who don’t know who Chadarian is, he is my son “Lothgar Jr” many of you know him. And he has been working on the game for quite awhile now. He currently has been rebuilding and expanding Zima. I will advise Chadarian and he will manage the other content builders, continue expanding the game world and will post updates.
We’re hoping some of the Admins and GMs can help with this as well.

As for the programming, A dear friend who has worked on the game in the past will help cover some of the programming tasks. He has a full-time job, but he will do what he can in his spare time. He is a very experienced engineer and has been in the industry for over 20 years. He has worked on a number of AAA projects and should be able to handle code issues.

This does not kill the game, just things will just move a bit slower.

We do have a plan for a December play session. Though, to be honest, I cannot promise anything right now. All I can say is that the team will do what they can.

If you want to discuss these changes, you’re welcome to do so in the Elderlands Discord server, which is where the announcement above was posted. The Game Chat channel, in particular, has been indicated as the place to discuss the future of the game.