Toki Tori developer Two Tribes' new focus going forward will be on designing games

Toki Tori developer Two Tribes has made some radical changes for 2014, starting with the revamp of the company along with its games development process.

In a post on its official blog, the Dutch company said the catalyst for said changes was the delay of Toki Tori 2.

"In 2009 we started the transition from doing work for hire to becoming the Indie studio we had always wanted to be, [and] we’re super proud of what we’ve achieved in recent years," said the firm.

"But the company that resulted from that transition still held on to too many ideas and values from the old days. It’s difficult to make fundamental changes, but late October last year we had no other option. When Toki Tori 2 ended up taking way longer than expected and not achieving the sales we needed, it basically took the company down with it."

Two Tribes said by the end of 2013, there was "no programming, no designing, no fun to be had, just co-founders Martijn and Collin taking care of the business end of things." This resulted in the old Two Tribes, founded in 2001, ceasing to exist and causing the founder to "send everyone home."

"There’s a lot to learn from what went wrong and what we could have done better and we’ll definitely write up a few blog-posts in the future on that," the developer continued. "But now it’s time to move forward and look to the future.

"We’ve been making games for more than 13 years, so you can imagine how much it - quite frankly - sucks when after a four minute meeting at the courthouse, the company we built was no more. At the same time, we knew we were kinda stuck in the past and this was our chance to change things drastically.

"The old Two Tribes B.V., who employed the developers, is now gone. Its parent company, Two Tribes Publishing B.V., that owns and publishes all our games and handles all contracts, remains unaffected. A new daughter company has been formed and it will handle the development of future titles. The original founders Martijn Reuvers and Collin van Ginkel aren’t going anywhere."

Two Tribes said its focus going forward will be on designing games, which it plans on "making more of in less time than before." The firm has also decided to move away from creating custom technology and focus on what’s readily available.

"As a result we’ll be working with a much smaller team on our next game, a 2D side scrolling shooter, which will be re-using the existing Toki Tori 2+ engine," it said.

Best of luck.