Hello.
This is dark, audiogames.net admin.
This is a very serious enquiry regarding the status of bavisoft and your products, sinse we have had a fund of messages on the forum about missed orders, bounced E-mails and a total lack of any sort of contact from yourselves, even a seasons greetings.
Your last post on the forum was august 2009, and that only when it was suggested your games should be made abandonware which, I am sorry to say, seems the only way to get you to respond.
I am a great admirer of your work, bought both chillingham and Grizly gulch in 2006, and have enjoyed both games (particularly chillingham), for it's ambience and high quality voice acting, however these days when the question of a new player getting your games is raised, they are heavily discouraged due to a real difficulty in obtaining orders, and compatibility with versions of windows newer than xp.
This situation has grown intolerable, and when we are at the point that individuals working for sites like audiogames.net who's purpose is to promote accessible computer games are discouraging people from obtaining Bavisoft games, things are at a very serious pass.
While I freely understand that game programming takes significant amounts of time, and that any developement of further games will be slow, it is not directly news of other developements which is the issue, ---- indeed there are several developers who due to other commitments have not released titles for a number of years or given any news, but who are stil very much considdered as part of the audiogames cannon.

I therefore feel, that if Bavisoft stil wishes to continue as a viable concern, and have their games considdered and promoted to new users, several changes need to be made.

1: A working contact address.

while I understand the problem of recieving many mails about gameplay or other questions, this is no excuse for a business to be absolutely uncontactable. Indeed, several companies do specify "do not contact us with gameplay questions" and there are afterall a good many places (such as the audiogames.net forum), where such matters can be discussed. But for issues of actually recieving orders or sending payment, a working contact address is highly necessary (this is another contributing factor in the reason other developers are not considdered to have abandoned their position despite a lack of developement).

2: updating of both games to run on windows vista and 7. Currently both games encounter significant problems in more modern windows environments, and thus quite simply people will not be able to play them.

3: replace the cd ordering system with an online one. Various services such as reg now, lulu.com and others will provide the sale of a download link to download a file if hosting is a problem, however this would make it far easier for people (especially outside north America), to recieve copies of games on cd.

While at the initial release of Chillingham and grizly gulch, downloading files of over 170 mb or so was not a viable option for most people, now things have vastly changed, thus making the complexity of a cd ordering system unnecessary.

Indeed, games of over 110 mb in size are now regularly posted for download, and the vast majority of other accessible game developers (such as draconis entertainment), have stopped all cd sales.

4: provide some notice to players that the company stil exists.

this does not have to be major, or even news of future developements (some companies rarely give news of anything they are working on until time of release), however a simple seasons greetings, a presence on forums such as audiogames.net or mailing lists like audeasy, or simply an indication that Bavisoft is not a completely abandoned enterprise will help to raise people's confidence.

If these measures cannot be taken, I suggest releasing both games as abandonware, and actually proclaiming bavisoft what many people have thought for the past several years, ---- a dead concern.

This would be an extremely sad move (sinse I for one stil very much want to knoo Who Lord Chillingham is), however it would be far more preferable to the current state of uncertainty and dubious reputation Bavisoft have.

If such measures as these are not enacted, then notes will be placed on the game pages of Chillingham and grizly gulch to the effect that the games, ---- while not legally abandonware are no longer supported by their developer, and are no longer available for perchice.

I very much hope this step does not become necessary, and that Bavisoft can work on the great steps they made in early audiogames developement, both to give future gamers the chance to enjoy shooting outlaws in grizly gulch, and to leave open the possibility of future titles, ---- time permitting.

Please respond as soon as possible.

All the best,

Dark, Audiogames.net admin.

I sent the above message to the mail address registered to bavisoft on this forum, but just in case that address also bounces, I'm posting it here.