Killer Queen Black is going to be going offline on November 30th, Liquid Bit has announced. It is something that the development team did not expect, but it is a consequence of Amazon shutting down GameWorks, on which Killer Queen Black has been built. Liquid Bit has tried to move the game to other providers, but this would essentially require a full rewrite of the Killer Queen Black which is not possible at this time for Liquid Bit.
In a statement Liquid Bit CEO Matt Tesch wrote, “It’s with a heavy heart that we’re announcing that after three amazing years, KQB will be going offline on November 30’th, 2022.
This is not something that was planned or foreseen. KQB was built on top of Amazon GameSparks, the service that provides the backend functionality for our game. Unfortunately, Amazon decided to shut down this service on September 30’th. We moved mountains and spent a treasure to migrate to a different provider, but unfortunately, the task amounted to an almost complete rewrite of the game, and that’s just not in the cards for Liquid Bit at this time. We’re working on plans to open-source the game, and hopefully, with some luck and support, it will rise again in the future.Â
We know that this comes as a shock and disappointment to many of you that have spent so much time and energy playing our game and making the community the great place that it is. We can assure you that we are just as disappointed as you are. Please know that we did everything possible to keep the online component alive – unfortunately, it was just out of our capability as an indie developer. We did, however, secure a two-month extension from Amazon to use the service until November 30’th so our league play could conclude uninterrupted.Â
Liquid Bit is marching on, and we’re continuing to build out our new title, which we hope to share very soon. Rest assured, we will make sure issues of this nature are not able to thwart our production or shut down our future online games again.”
In our review for Killer Queen Black, Nick wrote, “Killer Queen Black is just an insanely good party game. If you’re looking for something to play solo, then this isn’t really for you. This is a game best enjoyed with friends where frantic communication and the lightning quick gameplay will have you all rolling around with laughter as you compete to see who has the best Hive.”
Source: Liquid Bit
