Glitch

It is always a sad time when we see any game go into the great beyond. Not only is it the end to the characters we as players have put all of our time into, but it is also a sudden end to the work that the developers have possibly spent years of work on.

Glitch is a browser-based game that will soon be the latest member of the MMO graveyard. Tiny Speck, the game company behind Glitch, changed the game's homepage to reflect this sad announcement. While the game will close in a little under a month, the website and all of its features will remain up until the end of the year to allow players to connect and make plans for the future.

Along with the advanced announcement of closure, the team also announced that they would be refunding all payments made for their cash shop since November 1, 2011. It is expected with MMO closures that recent purchases will be refunded, but it is something else entirely when a game studio is willing to refund over a year's worth of income.

You can visit the Glitch Closing page to read the full announcement and FAQ about the shutdown. The thoughts of the entire team here at ZAM go out to all of the Glitch team that now find themselves looking for work.

Matt "Mattsta" Adams

Oh Tiny Speck, you always do the weirdest things. Like unlaunching your game. And returning to beta. In a surprise move yesterday, just two months after launch, Glitch is getting some relationship anxieties and is trying to slow - or in this case, reverse - things down to more peaceful times.

Either way, Tiny Speck feels like Glitch just has so much more to offer, but in order to do so, unlaunching Glitch and returning it to its beta phase is the best way to go about getting it done. This doesn't mean that the game will be shutting down in any way; rather, the team feels this change better reflects the kind of work they'll be doing on the game in the coming while. As a gesture of friendliness, Tiny Speck is also offering full refunds to anyone who wants it, but after hearing this endearing tale of scrappiness, if you get a refund now, you're totally a jerk. Totally.

It's only been a week since Glitch officially launched and Tiny Speck is already celebrating with new features! You can now Press "C" to switch to camera mode and peek around your current location. To go along with that ability, two new skills have been added to the already lengthy list: Eyeballery allows you to look around the entire street (zone) without moving, and Snapshotting lets you take pictures and save them.

In addition, Tiny Speck is celebrating Zille-O-Ween by adding zombie masks and Elizabethan outfits to the in-game store. New clothes will be added to the wardrobe every week, so keep your eyes peeled for the latest additions!

If you're not familiar with Glitch, it's an exploration/crafting browser MMO with a unique sense of humor. If you're playing it or have any questions, head over to the Glitch thread in our General Video Game Discussion forum.

Let the games begin! Glitch has officially launched, which means all players are welcome to try out this unique free-to-play browser MMO. And when we say unique, we mean it. How unique, you ask? Glitch "takes place inside the minds of eleven peculiarly imaginative Giants." Yeah, that unique. Watch the launch trailer below, let it sink in, and then head over to the Glitch site to try it out.

Want to know more about Glitch? Staff Writer Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland recently participated in Glitch's beta and had the opportunity to talk with Tiny Speck president and co-founder Stewart Butterfield about the MMO. Check out Paul's Glitch preview for all sorts of details on both the company and the game.

As Tiny Speck prepares for the launch of Glitch, they are performing one last reset this week to wind back the clock and remove the possessions and accomplishments of the beta testers. There will be no more resets after this one, which means everyone gets a fresh start when another testing event begins next week. According to the game's latest tweet, there's still "a bit more before launch."

Tiny Speck released some interesting beta figures in the reset announcement:

"Thirsty for hard data? Well, since the last reset, you have collectively racked up an astounding 384,368 quests completed, 391,089 skills learned, 752,590 achievements earned and 1,900,015 streets visited.

These numbers are mutable, and the counters will be whirring back to 0 any moment now. It’s almost a liberating thought. But the numbers that last, and the real reason we want to hug each and every Glitch we pass in the street, are these: 34,543,982 minutes played (since April 11th; there were a few tens of millions of minutes of testing time prior to that) and 181,012 friends added. That means that the 27,000+ Glitch testers who made it past the tutorial have played an average of 21 hours and 16 minutes (just in the last five months)."

Glitch is a unique MMO that is certainly different than anything you've seen before. We recently tried it out and talked to Tiny Speck president and co-founder Stewart Butterfield about the game, so be sure to check out our preview for all the details.