Blog:The Great Dark Witch Hiatus

Hello all. I would like to document an event in The Legend of Dark Witch history. I dub it as The Great Dark Witch Hiatus,

To explain The Great Dark Witch Hiatus, (which I will now call from now on 'The Great Hiatus', or just 'the hiatus', I have to go through the timeline of Dark Witch releases. Note that these are going to be the Japanese release dates, not the American ones. I also won't count the Touhou and mobile games, as I feel like they had minimal impact on the series' state.

The first game is The Legend of Dark Witch, which was released in the summer of 2014. Overall, the game saw moderate success. It had decent ratings, and it was pretty fun. There wasn't much for a Dark Witch game, but it was still good for what it was. One of the main criticisms was the weapons, which were generally unusable due to the slot system in Dark Witch 1. Another criticism was the short length, which I partially agree with, but NAN-A would strike back in November 2015 with Dark Witch 2, which many call the best in the series, including myself. The main focus was refining and adding more to the gameplay. From what I've seen, the game still received moderate, but a bit less sales than Dark Witch 1. Reception from critics was notably less positive, however. Many felt the game was inferior to Dark Witch 1 in several ways. I disagree strongly, but the fan reception was still pretty good. Another thing that happened was the PC and PS Vita ports of Dark Witch 1. The PC port was greenlit using Steam Greenlight, which may have increased the popularity of the series. Onto the next year, Brave Dungeon released in late 2016. I don't know a lot about the reception. Most fans liked it from what I've seen, but I don't know about the critics. Sales wise, I don't know either. Another thing that happened was that Dark Witch 2 was greenlit on Steam Greenlight, which may have boosted the popularity again. Another thing that was confirmed was the development of the 3rd game. It looked a bit different, but still fun. Anyways, onto 2017, which was no doubt the best year for Dark Witch fans. First off, Dark Witch 2 released on Steam. I believe it sold well, but I don't know. Second, Rudymical released on Switch, adding some small content. it received mixed reviews, but I see fans mostly like it. We also got a re-release of Brave Dungeon on Switch, which was a decent re-master with new content. But, the biggest game to release this at the end of the year was The Legend of Dark Witch 3. And, unfortunately, it received extremely mixed reviews from the community. Some love it, some hate it, personally I'm in the middle. Not terrible, but not amazing as well. From what I've seen, it sold poorly. I mean, look at the ratings for Dark Witch 1, 2, Brave Dungeon, and they have over 500 ratings. Dark Witch 3 barely cracked 100. And, thus, the great hiatus starts. Nothing released in 2018, 2020, and 2021, not including some Steam ports, but they don't add anything major to the game. Renovation released, and unfortunately, I barely see anyone talk about it, so it may have sold poorly. And many have questioned, what happened? Well, I think I can answer that.


 * 1) Waning popularity: The series has been getting slightly less popular with every entry, and to be honest, I can't tell you why. Maybe people didn't know there were sequels? I dunno. One thing that may have affected popularity was Brave Dungeon. Personally, I didn't even know Brave Dungeon was a Dark Witch game until 2019. This seems to be changing slowly, with the game Brave Dungeon 2 going into Early Access, and more people are browsing the 3DS eShop for hidden gems.
 * 2) Burnout: Making a video game is not easy. No matter how long or short it is, it's pretty difficult. Even using something like Scratch to build a basic 2D platformer can take a while if you don't know what you're doing. And Scratch is aimed for kids. And as far as I know, there are no other programmers other than NAN-A. And without coding, it's impossible to make a game. And most indie devs don't release a new game every year, so I can understand if this is happening to NAN-A. From a firsthand experience, burnout sucks, and it can kill your motivations to make what you enjoy.
 * 3) Reception: Now, I and many others love almost every game in the series to death. But critics haven't been too positive for this series as a whole. NAN-A is aware of these reviews, otherwise he wouldn't put them on the Steam page where you can buy the game. But I notice he tries to fix the issues in every game. For example, positive reviews for 1? Improve on 1 with 2. But 2 has a mixed reception from critics, so refine gameplay in 3 even more, and so on. Reception can also kill your project as well. I should also note that fan reception is extremely positive for all the games. I'm not aware if NAN-A is aware of this.
 * 4) Mental health: As of NAN-A's recent tweets on August 28th, 2022, NAN-A's mental health has severely worsened, where he described suicidal thoughts and how someone was able to help him. He also announced on the same day that the Manga was canned. I don't like to make assumptions about someone's mental health, but what if these thoughts have been long term? This could severely harm game development.

So, yeah. Those are the reasons why I think there have been a lack of games. However, with the recent Early Access of Brave Dungeon 2 releasing, I'm certain everything goes up from here. Brave Dungeon 2 is an amazing game, please go play it. Anyways, if you have any thoughts on this blog, leave a comment down below. Thanks for reading this entire thing. Take care, see you later.