Those of us familiar with Hiveswap‘s source material will be familiar with long pauses between content, and in the grand tradition of the series, we’re rapidly approaching the two-year anniversary of Hiveswap Act One with little to no news on Act Two, until today. A backers-only announcement was released and posted by a tumblr called homestuck-arts. The announcement apologized for the radio silence, and announced that Act Two was in “active development”, with the script, art, and design work nearly finished. They also noted that they’re using a staggered development process wherein programming would not begin until late in the art and writing phase, and art and writing would begin for Act Three during the programming phase of Act Two. They ended with a note that they’d have more on Act Two “soon”, and promised gameplay footage as soon as it was available.
Hiveswap Act One featured protagonist Joey Claire being sent to the violent planet of Alternia, with the first section of the game showing her switch places with an Alternian Troll who’d end up at her house. She encourages other protagonist Xefros to gain confidence as the planet marches towards revolution. Act Two will presumably have her brother Jude dealing with the troll who ended up at their house.
Earlier news confirmed that Undertale‘s Toby Fox would return to write music, as well as James Roach, who was originally featured on an official fan album and eventually graduated to do formal music for Hiveswap. Since the release of Act One, What Pumpkin and Viz Media have released a series of parody dating friendship simulators featuring characters who would be featured in later Acts, as well as not one but two lengthy epilogues for the source material Homestuck. Still no news has been revealed about the mysterious project Hauntswitch.
