New TMORPG on Steam is pretty and innovative – but unfortunately also totally unsuccessful

On October 11, 2021, the “Early Access” version of the new TMORPG Book of Travels was released on Steam. It describes itself as a “living, fairytale world” and has received very positive reviews, but so far it has not been very successful. Now the developers “Might and Delight” from Book of Travels have spoken. You have no good news to spread before Christmas.

What is Book of Travels? The TMORPG – “Tiny Multiplayer Online Role Play Game” – relies on exploration and exciting, fairytale experiences in the freely explorable world. About 30 players can cavort with you in the world of the game, but you rarely meet them. Therefore the “Tiny” instead of the typical “Massively” before “MORPG”.

If you run into other players, you can interact with them, but not chat with them. The meeting should be something special and not an everyday situation.

Furthermore, you can move freely in the world of Book of Travels: No quests or stories restrict your exploration. You have to find your own way in the hand-drawn environment, nobody takes you by the hand. You should also be careful how you plan your adventure – your characters are not immortal.

Studio has to lay off 25 of 35 employees

Although it has been called “the game of the year” by some players and has received very positive reviews on Steam, it has unfortunately not been successful so far. The studio “Might and Delight” behind Book of Travels wrote a post to the community on December 21st and in it describes the problems of the studio quite openly (via Steam).

Might and Delight describes the experience with the early access release of Book of Travels as emotional, fascinating and unique. The early access was postponed several times, because the game received feedback and reports during the beta period. The studio wanted to provide early access that they could stand by.

After Early Access appeared on Steam on October 11, 2021, there were some players who praised Book of Travels insanely, but sales have so far not been enough: Might and Delight had to part with 25 employees.

That doesn’t sound like much at first, but it is a great burden for such a small studio. 10 employees remain after the wave of layoffs, which Might and Delight dubbed the “hardest test of their 11-year career”.

In addition, the studio describes that the development will of course be impaired and take longer. But they still follow the motto:

Survive and bring the best possible content into play.

Founder Anders, Jakob & developer team

Might and Delight describes themselves as single-minded and they want to do their best to keep Book of Travels going.

The developers recently released the game’s soundtrack and also won the “Cup of Kindness” (via Steam) created. You can buy the “DLC” for Book of Travels for 1.59 euros, but it contains practically nothing. You only support the developers in further developing the game if you like it.

How many players does Book of Travels have? The numbers look really bad: The game had its peak in December 2018, when it reached a peak of 2000 players – an average of about 610 players were online 3 years ago.

But the majority of these games were quickly gone. As early as March 2019, the game had an average of 99 players online at the same time, and the number continued to decline in the years that followed.

In the last 30 days, an average of 27 players were online at the same time, the peak was just 120 players. Obviously, this is not enough to keep the entire workforce busy.

How is it going on now? The future of Book of Travels is now uncertain. Might and Delight actually only wanted to stay in the “Early Access” phase for about 2 years, but it could well be that the phase will now be significantly extended.

What do you think of the TMORPG? Have you already gambled it or do you want to play it in the future? Please write us in the comments.