A mere 10 days ago, developer Ironmace Games announced the delay of Dark and Darker Gold's early access release—news that has been not-unexpected given its rolling legal dispute with Nexon. There is a not-insignificant chance because of this legal battle that, even if this game is surely a real thing (and we've played it), may well ever go to a full release.

We'll get through to the details of the dispute but, after it began, Ironmace started and paused a GoFundMe campaign to assist with its legal battle. "The reality with the situation is the fact that their objective is to bleed us dry in the courtroom fees," said the developer, as there is no doubt Nexon provides the kind of serious resource that may do such a thing to some smaller studio. Ironmace needs cash wherever it could get it.

This may perhaps be why you can buy a Dark and Darker-themed coffee set for a sport you may never play. It's a team-up with coffee brand Madrinas and has a wooden tankard, a tub of dark roast instant coffee, plus a bag of darker roast (edit) espresso beans for $49.99 (plus exorbitant shipping). It seems to own been a great wheeze anyway because the box set has now sold out and then you can only pick the coffees separately.

Dark and Darker fans are roughly broken into two camps. There are the die-hards who regard Ironmace as being the little guy fighting big bully Nexon and also have rushed to back up this. Then there's a much more fatalistic crew who ponder whether they'll ever view the game and whether Ironmace is taking this fight seriously or maybe making as much as it may, as fast as it could before wheels appear. One wag asked Ironmace if this type was the identical coffee served at Nexon.

Needless to convey the Nexon stuff looms large over everything relating to this game. Short version: The game was caused by release at the beginning of access in April or May, its demo was a major hit at Steam Next Fest, and soon thereafter this its dispute with Nexon intensified and Ironmace was issued which has a cease-and-desist. Nexon says dark and darker gold coins will depend on concepts and assets which the developers, formerly of Nexon, stole derived from one of its canceled projects.

Following this, the demo was taken out of Steam, together with the next playtest build being furnished by BitTorrent (really), while Ironmace's studio was raided by police before it accused Nexon of "nothing over anti-competitive bully tactics built to put a compact indie firm belly up." The fans are certainly much on Ironmace's side here, however, these are major allegations from your giant publisher, and this may not wind up where public opinion is hoping. We'll watch Dark and Darker and, should the worst pertains to the worst, I'm sure the tankard does every bit as good a job at holding sorrow-drowning whiskey.