After one year of waiting, Chumbi Valley finally releases its first gameplay video. Many thought the project was a scam but they were wrong. This video is proof that the team has been developing Chumbi Valley behind the curtain and that a closed alpha is now closer than ever. Besides the video, the team also justifies why there was a delay in the development of the project.
This is the game development update number 1 and, accordingly to the team, it will be the first of many. This is footage from Chumbi Valley's pre-alpha version and its main purpose is to give the community a glimpse of how the game will look like. It is possible to see the main character wandering around while being followed by three chumbi, the magical pókemon-like creatures of this world. The team also revealed the 'Overgrown Maw' and the 'Brightwind Fields'. These are 2 out of 6 areas that will be available in the Beta.
Accordingly to the original article, the reason why the game is still in pre-alpha is because the team had to terminate their contract with two game development studios who were supposed to build Chumbi Valley. The product delivered by these studios was not up to the team's expectations and they had to build it from scratch themselves. The version on the video was built by Chumbi Valley's internal dev team.
The first contract was with Vulcan Forged. Unfortunately the product delivered by this studio was not up to Chumbi Valley's standards. This partnership started on January of 2022 and lasted until March of 2022, making the team lose three months.
After the partnership with Vulcan Forged came to an end, the Chumbi's team needed an alternative. They then decided to partner up with the Neceblox Metaverse on April of 2022. The idea was to have someone taking care of features like basic farming and some simple animations. Once again the team was not satisfied with the delivered product and terminated this partnership partially on October of 2022. Right now the development is being done by the Chumbi's internal dev team. Neceblox is only taking care of Blockchain aspects.
Chumbi Valley lost a lot of time transitioning to-and-from external development companies. But now the team is developing the game at full gas while NenceBlox takes care of the Blockchain side. Accordingly to the team there are still funds to sustain the growth of the team and the development of Chumbi Valley.
The future is still uncertain but accordingly to the current Roadmap there are a lot of events coming in the next months.
Unfortunately, there is still no date for a demo or the game's Beta. But, this gameplay video renewed the hype of the community.