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Thread: NEW Dreamcast RPG "Elysian Shadows" - Pre-Order Your Physical Copies Now!

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    For better or for worse, the project has met its initial funding goal of $150,000, and now they're talking about their stretch goals. So if nothing else, they will be seeing at least 150K. Let's all hope that this project turns out for the best & that its meandering ways don't leave it in developmental purgatory.

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    I should spend more time with RPG maker I haven't beyond a few hours on pc and psone. Why no Genesis version? Good to see a console release at all I suppose and on the dreamcast! the console that never dies! love the linux support also but can't get into RPGs on phones the small screens and awkward controls just don;t work for me with rpgs

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    Quote Originally Posted by Daria View Post
    He also said that the story was "all in his head" and it's "generally cool".
    So they're using the George Lucas style of story writing, as in making it up as they go. Interesting to see what happens, especially since RPGs like adventure games are mostly played for the story.

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    Hello everybody. I'm the lead engine developer of Elysian Shadows. I've been lurking around this thread for quite awhile. I made an account a few weeks ago, but only now got activated.

    I honestly don't usually respond to forum threads as skeptical as this one, because it sounds as though the majority of you have already made your minds up about us, and I honestly doubt there is anything I can do to change your minds... But here goes nothing.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997
    It's an inexperienced team that has already put almost 8 years into the project with mediocre results and they are extremely aggressive in trying to support a large range of platforms for what would appear to be an inadequate amount of money as the goal.
    My favorite criticism. I taught myself to code for the Sega Dreamcast at age 14 and have been developing indie games since then for a decade. I have an undergraduate in computer engineering, and I have worked as a professional software engineer developing fiber optic routing equipment while pursuing a masters degree in GPU architecture. I also worked part-time developing with the Unity3D engine at a startup game development studio for awhile, professionally... Perhaps I am "aggressively" trying to support a wide range of platforms, because I'm an experienced engineer with a passion for tinkering with hardware? Just a thought...

    Quote Originally Posted by gameguy
    Just watched the kickstarter video. I'm wondering why he said "We're not trying to create a retro game..." Then why are you releasing it for the Dreamcast with Super Nintendo graphics?
    Kindly show me a game maker game with full dynamic 3D lighting, bump mapping, specular highlighting, pixel perfect shadows, 3D rigid body physics, and 3D positional surround sound, and I will agree with you.

    Quote Originally Posted by gameguy
    Pay $500 to sleep on their couch?

    There's several more pledge levels like this, to pay them to work on their game. To pay them to beta test and look for bugs. Usually this is done for free, asking for volunteers. Or kept within a tight group to keep stuff from potentially being leaked before release.
    I mean no offense... But you can't have seen many Kickstarters. This is a VERY common reward, and usually this kind of thing costs thousands. The reward tiers for our Kickstarter are all cheaper than other Kickstarters by a pretty significant amount... I know, because I personally researched when putting together our campaign.

    Quote Originally Posted by gameguy
    Plus they want to make each platform release unique to their respective platforms with different content between them, yet they also want to make the save files swappable between them. Would this even be possible?
    Of course it's possible! Contrary to what you may believe, we didn't pull any of these stretch goals or prices out of our asses. We planned out all of the coding, logistics, and budgeting for all of these... This one is actually pretty trivial to accomplish from an engineering perspective. The price is for hosting a server and developing a back-end for storing the saves in the cloud...

    Quote Originally Posted by T2KFreeker
    Not to mention that the Dreamcast also has Windows CE built into the system itself to make converting from Windows to the Dreamcast easier for programmers. Not sure if there was ever a version of RPG Maker made for Windows CE, but if there was, there's your answer. If there wasn't, I could see it being easily converted to work with the Windows CE Tools and Libraries. Just saying as people seem to forget this little tidbit about the Dreamcast.
    Not exactly. Windows CE is not "built into" the console. It's a separate development kit in addition to Sega's own development kit. It performs considerably worse, and a commercial indie game like ours cannot use either devkit without getting insta-sued for not being licensed. All of the tools we are using were created by the Dreamcast scene and myself through reverse engineering, which is why we can sell the software legally without a license.

    Quote Originally Posted by gameguy
    Even the previous entry for "The Architect" is better at the same pledge level, but it's still a type of do-the-work-yourself gimmick. "Create your own custom house, map, or area for your item, NPC, or enemy to inhabit! Signed concept piece for proof of authenticity." Usually if you get something like this put into the game like your name or a NPC in your likeness, it's the game developers who put this into the game for you, you don't have to do it yourself.
    Is that so? We will do as little or as much work as people would ask of us... We have plenty of people who are extremely grateful with how open we've been at this tier, basically giving them the freedom to use our own tools to develop it exactly the way they want to. You're putting words into our mouths here.

    Nz17 totally gets it and explained it far more articulately than I could.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nz17
    @Daria: Yeah, I frequently see a lot of those "visit us for big money" pledges at the higher level tiers in Kickstarter projects. Personally, I would have pledged to one of these high levels in some of the projects which I've supported if I could have. A lot of people don't understand that at these "make a level, character, statue, portrait, boss, enemy, stage, mini-game, house, environment, song, weapon, etc." tiers, what the devs really do is help you to design some of these things based on conversations you have with the developers, simple doodles you make, and the like, instead of making the whole thing yourself. It's a way of adding your personal touch to the game, and they really are a way for people to get something extra special and limited as a way of saying thanks for their big amount of generosity.
    Thank you very much for that! As a developer, it means a lot to see people with this kind of attitude!

    Quote Originally Posted by Daria
    For the record, aside from the generic town graphics, this game looks nothing like an RPG Maker title. Also the team appears to be made up of professional programmers who wanted to program their own game. Which would also explain why the project is very technically heavy and weak in areas of story and graphics. My biggest turn off from the project is how vague it's been on what the game's actually about.
    Thank you very much. I appreciate your open mindedness here, and you are absolutely right with respects to our technical heaviness. Also, keep in mind that we wrote the engine and toolkit from scratch to power this game. They are complete. We're using Kickstarter to fund the game itself through to completion--gameplay, art, music, and content. It's "technical heavy," because those are the aspects of Elysian Shadows that are completed at this point in time.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nz17
    And in good news no matter where you stand on the game itself, the devs have announced they are going to release their in-house-developed game engine, ESTk, for other potential eager Dreamcast developers to use. See this post on Kickstarter for details. It appears much easier to use than the Linux, command line, and C programming tools of the Dreamcast indie scene's past, with a modern, sleek interface and powerful development options. So even if "Elysian Shadows" doesn't turn out so hot, it could certainly give rise to someone else making something marvelous for the SEGA Dreamcast.
    Once again, thank you for the support. You're absolutely right about ESTk, but I will make damn sure ES itself does turn out to be pretty damn hot.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darla
    So I jumped into their Twitch stream last night and directly asked them what the story was about. Patryk (SP) said that he didn't want to give away any spoilers and proceeded to describe the game's setting. Apparently there's ancient magic lying around that scavengers go out and salvage for big monies because it's a dangerous job. The hero[es]? come across something special and story happens.

    He also said that the story was "all in his head" and it's "generally cool". All I'm going to say is this game had better have some bitchin' gameplay.
    NOOOOOOOO!!!!

    Of all the YouTube videos, livestreams, and updates we have, you managed to catch the one, unofficial stream with just our artist and our musician in it. Patrick means well, but he doesn't know when to shut up and talks out of his ass constantly (I hope you find this thread some day, Patrick! <3). He's not even a storyline writer, so whether it's "all in his head" or not is completely irrelevant. It's not your fault you ran into that stream, but it's super unfortunate you didn't catch us on an official stream with everyone available.

    I wanted to talk specifically about our storyline right now. Since the launch of the Kickstarter, we've been criticized by the hardcore RPG communities for having "no storyline." In actuality this entire project began as a storyline concept above anything else. I take the storyline and writing as seriously and passionately as I take the code, and we have a 50+ page design document painstakingly detailing the storyline, dialog, characters, backstories, and culture. The point of any video game or work of art is to create an emotional connection with your audience, and that is my absolute highest priority with ES. I honestly can't even play games anymore that don't have compelling storylines.

    It was truly my fault for not presenting the storyline better during our Kickstarter campaign, and I have paid for it. I really didn't figure out a good way to introduce much storyline in a tiny amount of space on the Kickstarter page (we literally ran out of characters), without completely ruining and spoiling it. Instead I settled for something of a "back of the box" storyline, which totally bit us all in the ass. Moving forward, I will be releasing much more storyline and character information on our website. Your positions with regards to this are completely warranted given the amount of details we released, and I take full responsibility for this shortcoming in our campaign. Please believe me when I say nothing is more important to me than our story.

    Quote Originally Posted by Berserker
    The prevailing perception seems to be that, in order to be successful, a game needs to have all its ducks in a row before it leaves the gate. It needs to have a concise design, with a minimalist laser-like focus on stripping away all elements that don't serve this primary function. So there's this part of me that hopes that people who are going the other direction are somehow still successful; that throwing all of this random shit into a blender results in some form of fun coming out on the other side, however flawed it may end up being.
    I really don't understand how you can make such a bold declaration. Do you have access to our internal design document? How do you know what is "extraneous" and was unplanned?

    Quote Originally Posted by Darla
    I'd say the reason that they've been in development for so long is that without a concrete plan in place their game just keeps evolving. I'm really leaning towards backing this, I mean honestly the game looks like a train wreck but their enthusiasm is admirable. I really like that they're releasing the dev tools, this may be the start of some cool things being done on the Dreamcast. My greatest fear of backing it is that the game just never gets done, but I'd like to support the development.
    I'm sorry, but you're wrong here. It's not because the game keeps "evolving" that has made our development cycle take so long. I'm honestly kind of hurt by your assessment here, because you had been so supportive and open-minded during previous visits to this thread, and your criticisms and concerns were totally valid and relevant... and now suddenly we're a trainwreck...

    When I set out to create Elysian Shadows, I was basically a kid in my mom's attic with a dream. I was not a programmer. I was not an engineer. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I picked up a programming book and dove in, so when I hear complaints like this, I feel as though they're completely unwarranted. You can't tell me we've been in development for 6 full years, when that's how long it has taken me to go from absolutely nobody to a professional engineer who developed his own multiplatform engine and toolkit and acquired the skills to make ES, all the while attending the university and working a full-time job.

    The truth is that I was just not good enough to make ES the way it needed to be made a few years back. So rather than cutting my dream game short and shipping out shit, I honed my skills and worked at it until I was able to create the game the way I wanted it to be created... I truly wish people would stop criticizing me for this, when it's honestly something that I feel is a virtue demonstrating our devotion and dedication to this project.

    Quote Originally Posted by otaku
    Why no Genesis version?
    Trust me, if it was possible, we would be all over it. Haha. Unfortunately there is no way we could run on a platform older than the Dreamcast. We're already pushing it to its theoretical hardware limits. We're even taking advantage of bumpmapping, which is something that was so new back in 1999 that not a single commercial Dreamcast game ever used it in-game. We're truly pioneering the console from an engineering perspective.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gameguy
    So they're using the George Lucas style of story writing, as in making it up as they go. Interesting to see what happens, especially since RPGs like adventure games are mostly played for the story.
    Yep, that's exactly what we're doing... and judging by your forum posts here, you're extremely well-versed in this style of writing.
    Last edited by Falco Girgis; 08-29-2014 at 02:05 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Falco Girgis View Post
    lotsabutchin here
    OK, so about me talking about the setting on the livestream... I either was misquoted, or drunk or possibly both! Anyway, clarification - I definitely meant the details of the setting. Like you know Falco, the details of alchemy for Loren or their technological level, or how economy works or how foreign cultures react to Uni's expedition... you know, background info, lore. Not the main quest or storyline or whatever.

    About artstyle, so... a lot of it is old. Like over a year old, so before all the fancy engine lighting shananigans. I spend last month doing hardcore R&D and here's what we can do right now

    That's right folks, it's pixelart that dynamically reacts to lighting, I know only of 2 other game projects that attempted something even remotely similar to that, but none to this degree and neither is finished yet.
    [Lots of rambling here, if you want more gamer-friendly explanation, what this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQCQd0gFtqs]
    Why? Because I'm literally building a 3 dimensional model of an object that I'm drawing in my head, then translate the surface angles into normal space - STILL IN MY HEAD - of the RGB map and THEN I'm also offsetting the height of it all in separate map which THEN I'm merging into blue channel of the normal map. And then there's specular map on top of it, not to mention tweaking the diffuse map. Oh, and did I mentioned that I also designed basis for shader that offsets the hue of the color based on the luminosity because that's fundamental for pixelart? I'm literally doing the job of the pc in my head because current algorithms that are built for normal mapping are for 3d models and they're completely inadequate for pixelart.
    [end of lots of rambling]
    I'm actually in the process of finishing up entire map - meaning, I have whole development process ironed down so once I'm done with it it's just going to be a bucket list of assets to do.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Falco Girgis View Post
    Hello everybody. I'm the lead engine developer of Elysian Shadows. I've been lurking around this thread for quite awhile. I made an account a few weeks ago, but only now got activated.

    I honestly don't usually respond to forum threads as skeptical as this one, because it sounds as though the majority of you have already made your minds up about us, and I honestly doubt there is anything I can do to change your minds... But here goes nothing.

    My favorite criticism. I taught myself to code for the Sega Dreamcast at age 14 and have been developing indie games since then for a decade. I have an undergraduate in computer engineering, and I have worked as a professional software engineer developing fiber optic routing equipment while pursuing a masters degree in GPU architecture. I also worked part-time developing with the Unity3D engine at a startup game development studio for awhile, professionally... Perhaps I am "aggressively" trying to support a wide range of platforms, because I'm an experienced engineer with a passion for tinkering with hardware? Just a thought...
    I'm sorry, but your walls of text have done nothing to convince me that you are anything other than an overly ambitious blowhard with a high probability of failure who will simply burn through the money you have generated in this campaign. I've backed a little over 60 video game projects on Kickstarter and to date I haven't been part of a project that didn't deliver. A big part of that is looking for red flags.

    Your project is full of red flags. There are a ton of people on the planet who are self taught coders. Very few of them have the creativity or expertise to create a compelling game. Even fewer have the right combination of management skills and creativity to actually release a game that is reasonably on-time, within budget and most critically, fun to play. I have no doubt that you are a competent coder. I have every doubt that your team has the skills needed to manage the money you have been given and deliver something anyone will want to play. Your track record speaks for itself. You've been working on the game for years and you still have no story (at least not one you have shared with any degree of clarity) and poorly developed characters and frankly a game engine that has some technical flair, but ultimately delivers pretty pedestrian graphics. Maybe you'd be better off working with another team that actually knows something about the mechanics of RPGs as your team sure seems to lack that ability at present. Did you ever consider that maybe what gamers really want is a great game and not to fund a tinkering expedition on a range of hardware? Just a thought...
    Last edited by Bojay1997; 08-29-2014 at 09:38 AM.

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    I know a lot of people have been harsh, myself included towards this project, but I still stand by what I said Falco. It just looks like you kickstarted something totally unprepared. All the projects i backed looked promising, structured and had decent trailers BEFORE they put it on kickstarter. Yours is all over the place with no concrete info whatsoever its just a mess with a bunch of useless info about a poorly looking game engine and the game being an rpg.When I saw A.N.N.E. from gamesbymo, he knew what he was doing and had everything planned and im sure it will be great. Like I said before, I hope im wrong and wish you the best and if you deliver, i will back your next project. It would be great to give the old dreamcast one more rpg.

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    Quote Originally Posted by imrooniel View Post
    OK, so about me talking about the setting on the livestream... I either was misquoted, or drunk or possibly both! Anyway, clarification - I definitely meant the details of the setting. Like you know Falco, the details of alchemy for Loren or their technological level, or how economy works or how foreign cultures react to Uni's expedition... you know, background info, lore. Not the main quest or storyline or whatever.
    I really appreciate your team's transparency in coming here and addressing our concerns in person, but please don't come in here and tell me I got it wrong. I popped into the livestream to ask a very specific question because honestly its the only thing that has held be back from backing at this point. The parts in quotes were your words, not mine. If you couldn't give me a straight answer at the time then that's on you, not me.

    You also have to realize that when people criticize your graphics they're not looking at your lighting effects. As hard as they were to make, and as technically impressive as they are you're casting light on ugly sprites. But as an indie game that's acceptable, you don't have to make the next Valkyrie Profile.

    Falco: I apologize if my last post seemed unfair. It was just the impression that I got from the kickstarter, I will fully admit that I haven't watched your development videos. However, I wouldn't take negative criticism personally; if you feel our assessment doesn't apply to your team the best you can do is release a kickass game that proves everyone wrong. Like I said before I really appreciate you joining the discussion here. I think I will pull the trigger after all and back. Thank you.

    Do a storyline update. Unless you're writing a whodunnit murder mystery you really can't "spoil" it.

    Bojay1997: It's kind of hard to tell the guy he's made a game gamer's don't want he already has over 2000 backers. I do think the fact that WM is publishing the game adds some validity to its release. I don't honestly think this will become vaporware at this point. Release delays are possible, but even professional studios have trouble releasing software on time.
    Last edited by Daria; 08-29-2014 at 10:57 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Daria View Post
    I really appreciate your team's transparency in coming here and addressing our concerns in person, but please don't come in here and tell me I got it wrong. I popped into the livestream to ask a very specific question because honestly its the only thing that has held be back from backing at this point. The parts in quotes were your words, not mine. If you couldn't give me a straight answer at the time then that's on you, not me.

    You also have to realize that when people criticize your graphics they're not looking at your lighting effects. As hard as they were to make, and as technically impressive as they are you're casting light on ugly sprites. But as an indie game that's acceptable, you don't have to make the next Valkyrie Profile.

    Falco: I apologize if my last post seemed unfair. It was just the impression that I got from the kickstarter, I will fully admit that I haven't watched your development videos. However, I wouldn't take negative criticism personally; if you feel our assessment doesn't apply to your team the best you can do is release a kickass game that proves everyone wrong. Like I said before I really appreciate you joining the discussion here. I think I will pull the trigger after all and back. Thank you.

    Do a storyline update. Unless you're writing a whodunnit murder mystery you really can't "spoil" it.

    Bojay1997: It's kind of hard to tell the guy he's made a game gamer's don't want he already has over 2000 backers. I do think the fact that WM is publishing the game adds some validity to its release. I don't honestly think this will become vaporware at this point. Release delays are possible, but even professional studios have trouble releasing software on time.
    Daria,

    I agree that professional studios have trouble releasing software on time and even more trouble releasing stuff that's actually good. That's my point. There are a lot of groups like this one popping up on Kickstarter and they all seem to assume that just because they have the technical coding skills that the rest will take care of itself. It doesn't work that way and there have been a lot of failed projects recently that have proven this point much to the detriment of their backers. I won't discount the 2,000 people who have backed this project, but I also have seen other projects with far more backers fail and burn through the money with little or nothing to show for it. Time will tell, but I personally don't think it's worth the risk, especially since the project is already funded and if the game turns out to be great, it can be purchased once it's done.

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    The very first words in your kickstarter turned me off: Wazzup bitches! Very unprofessional, just like filming your filthy house, and you drunk on the floor. When I back something you have to convince me that you are reliable, if I want a good laugh i'll go see a comedy not your kickstarter. Just my 2 cents.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Falco Girgis View Post
    How do you know what is "extraneous" and was unplanned?
    I don't know of course, that was just the impression I got from watching the dev videos. To be clear though, in this case I think it's a good thing. "Extraneous" to me doesn't necessarily equate to "bad". These are features that set your game apart. Most indie games I've seen don't seem to bother too much with things like this, unless it's maybe just one thing that has a direct impact on core gameplay.

    The idea that things like dynamic lighting and shadows, even the little 3D zoom thing that happens when you go in a building, probably aren't crucial to the game mechanics isn't a negative thing, particularly in the realm of this style of indie RPG, where people are basically expecting the same RPG Maker game with different graphics and dialog. It's a severely stagnant and underdeveloped area right now in my opinion. So if your project brings some new life into it, that'd be significant.

    Anyway, I hope it makes it to release and does well. Even just going off of what I've seen of the physics, which almost certainly would have an effect on gameplay, it seems like it could be a fun world to mess around with and get lost in for awhile. Good luck guys.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Falco Girgis View Post
    My favorite criticism. I taught myself to code for the Sega Dreamcast at age 14 and have been developing indie games since then for a decade. I have an undergraduate in computer engineering, and I have worked as a professional software engineer developing fiber optic routing equipment while pursuing a masters degree in GPU architecture. I also worked part-time developing with the Unity3D engine at a startup game development studio for awhile, professionally... Perhaps I am "aggressively" trying to support a wide range of platforms, because I'm an experienced engineer with a passion for tinkering with hardware? Just a thought...
    What other indie games have you developed in the last 10 years? I assumed this was your first project, I didn't see any mention that you made other games before. Maybe I just overlooked that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Falco Girgis View Post
    Kindly show me a game maker game with full dynamic 3D lighting, bump mapping, specular highlighting, pixel perfect shadows, 3D rigid body physics, and 3D positional surround sound, and I will agree with you.
    There is The Witch's House, no idea if it has the same technical aspects you've mentioned but the lighting does follow around the character as you travel through the house. Plus everything looks beautifully done graphically. Comparing both games, which game looks better visually?





    Here are shots from your game. Is the character running into the roof of the buildings? As if everything is completely flat without depth?




    And what's with the skewed graphics? Are they stretched out?




    That and the scale is way off, at least as it is right now. The sword is bigger than he is. At least it's named "Old Adventurer's Sword", I was worried the game would be too generic.



    Quote Originally Posted by Falco Girgis View Post
    I mean no offense... But you can't have seen many Kickstarters. This is a VERY common reward, and usually this kind of thing costs thousands. The reward tiers for our Kickstarter are all cheaper than other Kickstarters by a pretty significant amount... I know, because I personally researched when putting together our campaign.
    Please show me another kickstarter campaign that has "sleep on our couch" as a reward for $500, I did look up various other projects and never saw anything comparable like this. Never saw any place advertising sleeping on a couch for thousands either, hotels cost less than that. If you're talking about spending money to meet the developers, usually that's with people like Al Lowe or Richard Garriott, well known people already well regarded in the industry.

    Quote Originally Posted by Falco Girgis View Post
    Of course it's possible! Contrary to what you may believe, we didn't pull any of these stretch goals or prices out of our asses. We planned out all of the coding, logistics, and budgeting for all of these... This one is actually pretty trivial to accomplish from an engineering perspective. The price is for hosting a server and developing a back-end for storing the saves in the cloud...
    Just a question about the saves, are they all stored in a cloud? Meaning if that goes down, the games can't save anymore? Or is the cloud feature a type of bonus backup feature?

    Quote Originally Posted by Falco Girgis View Post
    Is that so? We will do as little or as much work as people would ask of us... We have plenty of people who are extremely grateful with how open we've been at this tier, basically giving them the freedom to use our own tools to develop it exactly the way they want to. You're putting words into our mouths here.
    That's good to know. It would have been better if this was clearer on the site, but at least it's clarified now.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    I'm sorry, but your walls of text have done nothing to convince me that you are anything other than an overly ambitious blowhard with a high probability of failure who will simply burn through the money you have generated in this campaign. I've backed a little over 60 video game projects on Kickstarter and to date I haven't been part of a project that didn't deliver. A big part of that is looking for red flags.
    Bojay1997 was simply prophetic here. This is exactly what has happened. So let me share what I've been posting on another forum for the last few days.

    There are probably some good reasons why the Elysian Shadows dev hasn't posted a Kickstarter update in 1.25 years. I don't know what those reasons are, but I have my guesses - along the lines of alcohol, tobacco, and partying too much all while chasing an ever-expanding grand vision that has ballooned far past their ability to fulfill. In other words, the main dev (Falco Girgis) just being himself if his videos and posts in the past are any indication.

    Elysian Shadows had already been in some state of planning / development for about nine years before the Kickstarter was launched, so it is no surprise that another six years later there is still no delivered final game.

    I mean, just look at the comments posted by backers on Kickstarter in the last few months alone. That should tell anyone what he needs to know.

    I see Falco is as rude and crude as ever just going by his Elysian Shadows Facebook page's posts for the month of April 2018. He's even disrespecting Square Enix's Octopath Traveler. And for what of all things? The story? The characters? The gameplay? The characters' art design? No, no, it's about its dynamic lighting and light bloom. He's basically going, "*Swear*, you use too much *curse* light bloom and dynamic lighting, you *swear* Octopath devs. Besides, ours is better than your *curse* anyway."

    Hey, at least Square Enix can deliver more than 0 games in 15 years.

    In the last six years, in between all of whatever else he does, Falco's gotten a college degree and has had a wedding with money from Lord knows where. Word has it from some of the Kickstarter backers that some of the KS money went to those, but I can't say for sure.

    Qué será, será. At least Connor Linning, his former musician, is a classy guy - he has offered a free copy of his latest actually released game, a 2D RPG called Towards The Pantheon, to all of the Kickstarter backers of Elysian Shadows.

    I'm not saying that all indie devs are the same, but let's compare one indie dev to another, both of which have had 15 years to work on their respective projects.

    Brian Provinciano, in 15 years of part-time indie development, has created his game engine by himself, his tools by himself, and almost all of his game's content, all without a Kickstarter project, and commercially deployed that same game across Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Vita, 3DS, Nintendo Switch, Wii, PlayStation 4, OS X, DOS, Linux, PSP, Android, and iOS in a variety of digital and physical formats from floppy diskettes to Blu-ray discs. This game's name is Retro City Rampage. See [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retro_...ge#Development ] for details.

    Falco Girgis, in 15 years of part-time indie development, has partially created his game engine, partially created his tools, and developed little to none his game's content - most of what exists of the game's content has been created by hired outside help - all with using up people's money from a Kickstarter project, and he has commercially deployed that same game across no platforms, with the game only seeming to exist on a few of his personal computers/consoles. This game's name is Elysian Shadows.

    I agree that people should be given the benefit of the doubt sometimes, but I think we are well beyond the pale with this project.
    Last edited by Nz17; 05-26-2018 at 06:20 PM. Reason: fixed typo

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    Quote Originally Posted by Daria View Post
    I do think the fact that WM is publishing the game adds some validity to its release. I don't honestly think this will become vaporware at this point.
    Wow. I was waaaaaaaaaaay off. Bye bye $50, I miss you.

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    I completely forgot about this entire thread and everything I wrote in it. Reading it all now, I really did get it all right with how shitty everything looked. Totally called it so I'm happy.

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    Quote Originally Posted by PreZZ View Post
    The very first words in your kickstarter turned me off: Wazzup bitches! Very unprofessional, just like filming your filthy house, and you drunk on the floor. When I back something you have to convince me that you are reliable, if I want a good laugh i'll go see a comedy not your kickstarter. Just my 2 cents.
    this is all I needed to read.

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    This is a really shitty and predictable outcome.

    I wonder how many kickstarter projects just steal the cash and vanish?

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    The Elysian Shadows game still hasn't even gotten to the point of letting people play the beta yet. There's next to no content in the game, just a partially completed game engine. The last update officially posted to Kickstarter about this Elysian Shadows project was posted on January 31, 2017. The comments posted lately about this project on its comments page would be laugh-out-loud hilarious if the situation wasn't so awful.

    You can pretty much say goodbye to your money. Was looking forward to it. But now all he does is say without producing anything. Then goes on a rant about people putting the project and himself down. Well how about just admit defeat and tell the fkn truth. It's never coming to fruition. His ego is hurting the community.
    https://twitter.com/elysian_shadows For all those who don't know, pretty much all the updates and video are his twitter page.
    Between this and Paprium from Watermelon, it has soured my view on crowdfunding for games. Optimistic about getting this game one day (which i backed at the collectors level) but the reality is we probably all lost our money.
    I agree, the lack of communication is unacceptable. I won't be funding any more of these projects until there is a actual product available to purchase.
    If anyone cares they are still posting regular updates and streams on Facebook fairly frequently. Is the game coming close to completion? Hard to tell but they are still working very hard on it. Check out their Facebook page.
    looks like he stop doing streams on Facebook the last one was like a month ago
    Yeah, Falco's not mentally stable, I posted sarcastically on his Facebook about how the ES backers don't care about VMU emulation and that we wanted to hear an update on the game.

    He proceeded to rant at me over Facebook Messenger for a day, it was frightening. He admitted that he doesn't even follow the KS site anymore because he thinks it's "toxic" because backers are still waiting for a game that was promised to be delivered in 2015.

    No faith in this guy to fulfill his promise.
    lol so Falco went on a rant again on a stream about our complaints.. He also admitted they have zero money and the game has moved on from what we originally backed. So I doubt we'll actually get the collectors editions we pledged for as they haze zero money to pay for manufacturing. Great stuff.
    he also said no refunds. brilliant.
    Will the discontinuation of the OUYA store cause an another unexpected delay to the game?

    JK We're never getting the game because Falco is a thief.

    Want to prove the haters wrong? PUBLISH THE GAME
    I invoke my rights under Kickstarter's Terms of Use:

    https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use/oct2012

    "Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill."

    I demand a full refund for my pledge amount.
    It'd be cool to get our money. Oh well. That's gambling...I mean kickstarting
    More comments are here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...d-rpg/comments

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    Is the same guy who greeted his investors by saying "whats up bitches?"

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