Pixelberry Updates, Answers, and More!

Hey everyone! As the end of 2018 approaches, we at Pixelberry wanted to take the chance to look back, reflect, and give you the latest update on what's new at Pixelberry. But before we get into that, we just wanted to say a big thank you for playing Choices!  

First off, Choices is undergoing a makeover! Our team is about to release an update in the near future that will improve game experience and navigation in Choices with a fresh, new look. We also plan to address some issues, such as the diamond reward bug and common causes for game crashes.

The last few months have been a little rocky for us here at Pixelberry. Alongside releasing a number of new books, Choices experienced more than a few bugs, and we can't apologize enough for these issues and inconveniences. During this time, we came to truly appreciate how patient and encouraging you all are. The Choices community is one of a kind. Thank you again!

In this blog post, we'd like to go ahead and answer a few commonly asked questions! On social media and via Support messages, the Community team and the Support team do their best to provide you with the latest news, but a Facebook comment or game message isn't the best place to go into detail... So we're going to do that here! And now, let's get down to business:

What's next for The Royal Romance?

We're excited to announce that The Royal Romance writers are hard at work on a new follow-up series! We can't give away too much at this stage in the process, but the new series will start directly after the events of The Royal Romance. The writers are really excited for what they have planned! We'll have more news for you in the upcoming months.

When will Bloodbound: Book 2 come out? Is there a release date?

Right now, Book 2 of Bloodbound is being worked on! We hope to release it in the spring of 2019. We know it's been a while since Book 1 ended, but we promise that it'll be worth the wait. There'll be plenty of bloodcurdling adventures and heartstopping romance! Stay tuned for more early sneak peeks and news. In the meantime, we have another paranormal book planned, one that'll make you howl at the moon...

When will Hero return with a Book 2?

We don't have a release date for Hero: Book 2, but when we do, the Choices community will be the first to know. The writing for Book 2 is in progress, but we're not sure when we'll have the art ready, especially given its unique art style. We want to get Hero 2 right -- unfortunately, that means it may launch in 2020.

When will Most Wanted come off hiatus? Will we get a Most Wanted: Book 2?

As you know, Most Wanted continues to be on hiatus. While we love Sam and Dave, we just haven’t had the right writers available at the right time to start work together on this book yet. When the time is right, we intend to revisit Most Wanted. And of course, we'll let you know ASAP if there's new developments!

When is Across the Void coming back? Why is it on break?

Across the Void is on a mid-book break right now as the team gears up for more interstellar adventures! In the past, books like The Royal Romance and Endless Summer have gone on break to give our team more time to put out the best chapters possible without placing too much pressure on the writing, art, and QA teams. Across the Void should return this spring. When it's ready for take-off again, we'll post online with more news!

Why do you make new books instead of completing sequels?

Going into 2018, our team wanted to try out new stories and expand the Choices library. With this goal in mind, we worked to release stories and genres we've never tried before -- such as paranormal romance, sci-fi, and historical fiction. That's how we ended up with Bloodbound, Perfect Match, and many others! Exploring new stories taught us a lot and helped focus our vision for 2019.

Deciding which books to make often depends on a variety of factors -- like popularity, resources, art budget, what's right for the story, timing, and other elements. At any given time, we often have several books, both new ones and sequels, in development. Different books have different teams, so when a new book comes out, fear not! This doesn't affect the progress of a separate sequel book that’s in development.

What about the sequels to America's Most Eligible, Desire & Decorum, and Red Carpet Diaries?

They're all in the works! Desire & Decorum: Book 2 and America's Most Eligible: Book 2 will be returning this winter. Keep an eye out for sneak peeks, cover reveals, and release dates... And thanks to everyone who voted on who should return for AME Book 2! As for Red Carpet Diaries, we don't have a release date for it yet, but your Hollywood adventures will continue in 2019!

Pro-tip: If you want the latest news, just follow us on social media! Our most up-to-date info is always on social media, guaranteed.

Will we get more free diamonds? When will the diamond rewards bug be fixed?

First and foremost, we apologize if you've encountered issues with the diamonds-for-ads feature. That's something we've been working on fixing, and hope to address in the next game update. We’ve been experimenting with ways to give more diamonds while still making money to support the creation of even more books. Expect to see the first fruits of these tests coming soon!

Why do some books have a female-only player character? Will there be more gender options in the future?

We absolutely hear you on this front. As to why, it depends on the book. For books like Red Carpet Diaries, A Courtesan of Rome, and Desire & Decorum, the player character's gender is a specific and integral part of the story and setting. Other times, it comes down to resource constraints - at times, we decided we’d rather have some books be single gender so that we can devote other resources to telling new stories. In the coming year, we'll be launching a mix of single gender books and books with more gender options. And for those asking: Yes, The Heist: Monaco will have male and female player character options!

Are there going to be new books and genres in 2019?

You know the answer to this one: Yes, absolutely! We're super excited to share all the books we have with you -- new books and sequels alike! Get ready to run from the law, solve medical mysteries, sail the open seas, and much, much more! If you liked our 2018 books, just wait for 2019...

I've got more questions! How do I get them answered?

Good question, hypothetical Choices reader! You can always message our Support Team via the Choices app (Settings > Help > Message). You can also reach out to our Community Team by messaging us on Facebook, or tweeting us on Twitter. It's that simple! Contact us if you need game support, have questions, or just want to say hey. We'd love to hear from you!

And how about a behind-the-scenes look back on 2018?

For our team, this year has been about growing our capacity to tell more stories. With the encouragement of Nexon, we continued to grow the number of writers, artists, designers, engineers, QA, and other teams at Pixelberry. They actually asked us to grow even faster, but we wanted to make sure we don’t grow too quickly, so we can remain a tight-knit studio with a focus on excellent storytelling.

At times, when we found really great writers, we grew a little faster than anticipated. While this stretched us more than expected, it also will make this December our most prolific yet when it comes to number of new chapters released. And thanks to our office coordinators, we've kept that fun Pixelberry spirit alive with launch parties, birthday celebrations, and boba runs.

We also had a blast this year branching out into new genres with stories like Desire and Decorum, Perfect Match, and Bloodbound. Behind the scenes, we’ve revamped our production process to handle many more books being worked on simultaneously than we were able to do last year. (We hit a few bumps in the road along the way, for which we're very sorry.)

One of our biggest challenges this year was finding great engineers to help us release new features for Choices. But we did hire a Director of Engineering who hit the ground running and has recently helped us add more engineering capacity, which will let us add features faster next year.

Overall, we're so grateful to be ending 2018 with a larger, stronger team ready to go full-steam ahead creating new Choices adventures in 2019. But what we're most grateful for are all of you who have supported us with your 5-star reviews, encouraging messages, stunning fanart, patience when we make mistakes, and constructive suggestions for improvements. Every day, people on our team share their favorite comments, tweets, and fanart to our “discuss-buzz” channel. Your passion powers us through brain blocks, problems, and stressful times. Thank you so much for that. We truly feel blessed to have a fan community that shares our love for stories.

-Jessica, Oliver, Kara, Jennifer, and the rest of the Pixelberry team