Regarding the game's long-term plans.

Ok... might as well set the mood from the get go: This isn't a very happy update. And yep, fairly long post, if you don't wanna read all that just scroll down to the TLDR at the bottom.

Game Maker Studio 2, the engine I'm using for Buck Up And Drive!, has a few days ago shifted to a subscription model instead of a one-time payment. As someone who values ownership and reliability with work tools (such as a game engine), this means I can no longer in good conscience keep using the engine, at least in the long run. They claim us with perpetual licenses can still keep using them, but... why would I believe them, when it's within their best interest to have us all move to subs at some point. 

What does this mean for the game? It's still coming out, specially this close to release, no concerns there. And I'm still looking into a Steam release afterwards. The problem lies in long-term updates, which... I'll have to axe, such as extra game modes, or possible ports beyond PC. I'll still add some stuff post-release, like extra cars, some more environments for sillier-looking runs, and some tweaks here and there, but unfortunately don't expect much more than that. If that's really all you expected, great. If not, I'm sorry.

Now, I'm expecting some of you to be... miffed, to say the least. And in the end, this is still my decision, even if it's in reaction to something I had no control over. I know this will likely hinder the game's long-term success, but if such comes at a cost of using software with such a predatory business model, I want no part in it.

On slightly happier news, these last few days I've been looking into the Godot engine, and first impressions are rather positive. The fact that it's 100% free and open-source also means it's quite unlikely to bump into the same situation ever again. So we'll see how that goes. Now, I'm not porting the game to it, it'd be too big a change to what's effectively an already-released game (or close). But those ideas I had for updates, like extra game modes and such? Who knows, they may still surface. Just not through Game Maker.

So... yeah, that's it. Thanks if you've read all that, sorry for letting anyone down, and I still got this one to finish and release, so I'll be getting to that! You're still getting a game, y'all!

TLDR: Game Maker's shifting to subscription-only and I want none of that, so don't expect many updates post-release. I'll add some more funny cars and little more, I'm afraid.