The point of me making SHOWMAN'S: The Awakening was simply to retell the story of Phobia: The Awakening while replacing The Wiggles with original but familiar characters. This took much, much longer than expected.

During Phobia: Long Hours' development, I was at a point where I just wasn't very comfortable with using The Wiggles anymore, and Long Hours needed much more planning than I was anticipating. I decided to halt Long Hours' development and make the change to The Awakening, and while it was a massive pain to get done, I'm happy it's finally over.

My original plan was to reskin Phobia: Long Hours in a similar way that I did with SHOWMAN'S: The Awakening, but after having such a hard time with Blender's game engine, I really do not want to even try that at this point.

To add to that, I'm not exactly happy with Long Hours' gameplay either. It started off fairly different, mechanics got changed and things got very messy to properly balance. I firmly believe that Phobia: Long Hours would not have been too enjoyable, but probably not terrible either.

So is SHOWMAN'S: Long Hours going to happen?

At the very least, I am going to attempt to make it. I will probably be very radio silent about it until I know the game has a good possibility to release.

I am going to be using this game to learn a lot of new things, with the two major ones being Unreal Engine 4, and Blender 4.1, so maybe expect a massive boost in overall quality.

This will be very beneficial to me as a game developer, which is why I am interested in at least giving it a shot. This way I can have more experience for my original projects.

How different will SHOWMAN'S: Long Hours be from what was shown of Phobia: Long Hours?

Pretty different, but I still like quite a bit of what I had already established in the original! I really want to take the time to make this thing look and feel far better than Phobia: Long Hours in every way possible. I also want to ensure the gameplay is fun, intense, and fair, just like The Awakening is, which I am sure will be difficult to do.

The circus characters are staying in the game, as they had always been original and are important, but some of their names have been updated to be more fitting. The designs of all the characters will obviously be heavily upgraded and improved. I also may or may not sneak in a few new characters in, so who knows...

The location itself will get a massive overhaul as I want the rooms to realistically connect to each other and such. The flashy "Security Breach" inspiration for the location is also staying.

One of the best things to come out of The Awakening's long development is that I've been able to plan out almost everything the rest of the series will have to offer. Almost everything you've seen in The Awakening was put there for a reason, and while some answers may not come in the very next title, they will indeed be answered in future installments if they ever happen.

I am trying to ensure I have everything I need written down for myself, so I know exactly what I need to make and do, mostly to avoid what happened with Phobia: Long Hours' development that was slowing it down so much. This will make everything so much easier for me.

I also imagine I will have a lot more fun trying to make this game in comparison to SHOWMAN'S: The Awakening due to how fresh it will be. No Blender game engine, no limiting my character models to only have less than 9,000 faces, and so much new stuff to learn and try.

I don't think I'll be saying too much else as I do not want to make any 100% official announcements or promises way too soon, but just know that behind the scenes, I'm at least trying to see if I can get it working whenever I'm feeling up to it. If the game page for Long Hours ever suddenly pops back up to being public, that's when you will know something big has been happening.

To shorten the whole thing, I'll be trying to make Long Hours to learn new and better programs, but no guarantees it's officially going to release just yet as it is way too early to know!

All I ask for is your patience!